Christian “apologist” Rob Bowman had some interesting things to say about the connotation “apologist” evokes among many non-Christians: 

Although some of us actually consider the role of a Christian apologist to be an honorable vocation and ministry, the term apologist is now largely used as a pejorative. The Jerusalem Post, for example, refers to Jimmy Carter as “Hamas’s apologist.” Similarly, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch calls John Esposito, a Western scholar on Islam funded by Saudi royalty, an Islamic “apologist.” Salon.com refers to Holocaust denier David Irving as “Hitler’s apologist.” Various scholars and critics of groups commonly called “cults” have referred to those scholars whose treatment of these groups was more sympathetic or exculpatory as “cult apologists.”

The connotation of apologist in this usage is pretty clear: an apologist is someone who defends the indefensible, for whatever reason (prejudice, power, and money are among the most common accusations). In popular usage, apologists are not truth-seekers but rather truth-benders, sophisticates skilled at making the irrational seem reasonable, the immoral seem moral, and the false seem true. Their intention is simply to defend the position they have chosen to take, come what may, facts and evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

I think Bowman’s assessment is dead-on.  I’m just not so sure what I should call myself now.  Saying “I am a man who presents rational arguments in support of the veracity of Christianity” to everyone who asks me what I do seems a bit much!