Tolerance

I’m going to write about something today that has bothered me for a long time. And that something is a little word called tolerance.

Tolerance is defined by Encarta Dictionary as: the acceptance of the differing views of other people (it also has a few other meanings, but this is the one I want to focus on).
In today’s world, I hear this word thrown around a lot. And I mean a lot. As a Christian I’m probably going to hear it even more than most.

In this world tolerance is essential. I am supposed to be accepting of every view, every religion, every type of sexuality. I’m not supposed to point out that someone is different.

A few days ago my atheist cousin linked an article on her facebook entitled “I’m Christian unless You’re Gay.” Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read it, and some of the comments. Let’s just say I’ve seen enough cuss words to last me a good while, and almost all of those cuss words were aimed at Christians.

One very kind lady pointed out a flaw in one of the comments about the idea of tolerance. The guy who wrote it wanted tolerance for everyone different, but didn’t want to let Christians voice their opinion as that opinion was thought to be “hateful, judgmental, and hypocritical.”

The lady pointed out that he was being hypocritical himself by saying what he did and that Christians were allowed to voice their opinions as well, as long as they did it in love and not hatred.

She was then cussed out, put down, and called a bigot for her comment. People called her hateful while spewing their own hate on her.

And therein lies the view of our world: tolerance for everything but Christianity. Doesn’t the world see that they are just as hypocritical as they say Christians are?

Of course not, the world doesn’t want to see it. What the world really wants is total and unconditional acceptance, not tolerance

Before I go any further, I should probably confess something. I’m a homophobe. That’s right, gay people scare me.

That was until I met this kid who I’m going to call Jacob.

He was a very nice young man who was my age and had been a Christian for nearly two years. After talking with him for a few hours he told me something that I don’t think I would ever have the nerve to tell someone: he was struggling with homosexual desires, he had been for years.

He told me how he had several boyfriends before he came to know Christ and that after accepting the Lord he still struggled with that desire every single day. He told me how hard it was for him, how some of the kids at his Youth Group wouldn’t talk to him. He told me how he knew those desires were sins against God and how much he worked at not falling back into his old sin.

And then something occurred to me, there was no difference between this teen having gay desires and me lying to my parents or being proud of my measly accomplishments. Both are sins, both are equal in God’s eyes, both made us sinners.

We all have sin natures that we fall into, some of us get angry or violent, some of us are lying or manipulative, some of us are lazy or gluttonous, some of us are prideful or haughty, some of us have issues with doubt, some of us struggle with perverting the natural order that God established, some of us have trouble with swearing or drunkenness. No matter what our sin nature is the outcome is all the same, death. The only difference between me and the non-Christian people who preach tolerance is that I’ve accepted God and am trying (emphasis on trying) to let him change me.

But, I digress.

Just because the world tells us we are to accept everything, doesn’t mean we have to. Enter second definition of tolerance: the act of putting up with somebody or something irritating or otherwise unpleasant.

However, that doesn’t mean that we should go around damning people to hell for what they’ve done or what they believe (after all, I know I deserve hell). God tells us in I Corinthians 2:13-16, "These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ"

The non-believer cannot understand the spiritual things for he does not have the Holy Spirit within him. And I cannot judge the non-believer for I was once one and am as deserving of death as a murderer. That doesn’t mean I can’t state my opinion now and again…

No, I don’t have tolerance and I can’t claim that I’m not the hypocrite this world wants to see me as. I can claim, however, that I’m trying to work on loving everyone with the love of God (this is going to take a while, do not expect to see immediate results). Those are the two greatest commandments after all, love God and lover your neighbor as yourself. When I truly put all my faith and love in God, then I think I will have no problem loving my fellow man, even with all his sin.

I just have to remember, where I see a speck in my neighbor’s eye there’s probably a huge, honking tree growing in mine.

Author’s Note: I hope I didn’t offend anyone with this.