Tolerance: The Abused Sentiment
Tolerance
is a good thing to have in a healthy society, but can be abused for
nefarious purposes. Today tolerance, or its abuse, is considered to
be the first duty of the citizen with regard to religion. We are told
we must tolerate all other religions, and treat them as if they
possess the same truths we, as Christians, profess. In fact, Pope
Francis himself has said as much in claiming Christians and Muslims
worship the same God. Is this really how Christian are to view
religious pluralism? Does tolerance demand we be indifferent to
divine truth, or accept false religions as equal to Christianity?
According
to Christ's teaching, our first duty is not tolerance, but love of
our neighbor. A Pharisee, attempting to be sly, and tempting Him,
asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And
said to him , “You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love
your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the
law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:36-40). Justice and love are the
two first duties of a man to his fellow-men. Tolerance is nowhere
mentioned in Christ's teachings. Perhaps that is because mere
tolerance does not go far enough. Christians shouldn't merely
tolerate the lost, but the Christian should love them with a divine
charity, sharing with them the Gospel—and that is far more than
tolerance."Tolerance" is merely a catchword of Leftist cultural
ideology, which might force us to put up with an obnoxious Marxist revolutionary, a Social Justice Warrior, or violent religionist in our midst, (even to our own
self-destruction), but knows nothing of charity.
A
distinction must be made with reference to tolerance here. Christians are not intolerant of those in other religions, but with regard to their
error, there can be no such thing as tolerance. We simply can't compromise
with error and spiritual lies. What is false we simply can't be
compelled to call true, any more than we can claim fire is cold.
When, therefore, the Christian apologist combats error and champions
truth, he only follows the example of Christ and does what any sane
person will acknowledge to be just and right to do when confronted with a lie. Dogmatic
tolerance is self-contradiction. Christianity professes to be the
absolute truth, and so we Christians can't say to the fallen world:
"If
you believe in the Trinity, in the divinity of Christ, in salvation
by grace through faith, in the name of Jesus alone, that's fantastic.
If you don't believe in them—that's fantastic too—since I'm
tolerant.”
The
church is the custodian of God's revealed will and truth, and thus
can't compromise with error; and any church—no matter how seemingly
loving it is, how much it does in the sphere of social welfare, or
social justice—any church that throws the mantle of a false charity
over its spiritual bankruptcy in compromising with false religions-
is proved thereby not to be Christian in any orthodox sense.
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