Intolerant of tolerance

Intolerant of intolerance

Tolerance is a major theme of the current day. Acceptance, everyone is equal, don’t judge me — I wont judge you, we all have our rights…

I am not sure tolerance is a godly characteristic. It definitely isn’t a fruit of the Spirit. Love — yes. Kindness — yes. Tolerance — nah, I don’t reckon so.

Fundamentally, the reason I don’t think tolerance is a particularly godly quality is because it is grey. It is neither black nor white. It doesn’t commit to any principles, it doesn’t stand up for what it believes.

God however is pretty black and white. God requires us to stand firm in our convictions — to be set aside and different from the culture of the world and given completely to the culture of the Kingdom.

One dictionary definition of tolerant is: the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with. This is not something God does. He does not tolerate sin! Rather, God the pure and perfect, demands purity and righteousness. If He wasn’t that worried about what we did and believed, He wouldn’t have sent Jesus to redeem us from what we deserved — judgment for our opinions and behavior.

Because tolerance is such a grey and undefined quantity, it seems the line is dictated by whoever makes the loudest noise. A good example is the baker(s) who was sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple (there has actually been a few cases of this). Now I don’t want to get involved in all the ins and outs right now but the bottom line is the bakers were sued because they weren’t tolerant of the beliefs of the gay couple — while they themselves were not tolerant of bakers’ beliefs. The bakers were being forced to ‘not discriminate against gays’ yet the couple won the case by fundamentally discriminating against her Christian beliefs.

And this is the biggest concern I have about the push for tolerance — the world will not tolerate us. Christianity and the ‘extreme’ beliefs within it will always be counter-cultural. I believe we will slowly continue to see an increase in Christian beliefs and convictions being outlawed — be that officially declared a ‘law breaking offence’ or just socially unacceptable.

The struggle we will now face is fudging the line of what we are willing to tolerate — especially when it comes against what we believe.

One of my favorite Bible stories is Jesus turning over the tables in the temple and driving the market sellers out. I love this story because it showed that Jesus had balls.

Now I do not wish to be crude or in anyway flippant about Jesus so excuse the expression (but what else can I say?)

We are so often presented with a baby Jesus, meek and mild, portrait of our Savior. Seldom is he presented as the all conquering King. Jesus didn’t walk in and go ‘alright, fair play, they also need to make a living… It’s not the best place to sell stuff but I understand they have a right to make a living as much as I do.’

Nope. He got mad.

Jesus didn’t tolerate those in the temple courts because of the conviction He had. Black and white. ‘This place, this is my Father’s house.’

We are faced with so many areas in modern culture where we are required to either stand up for our convictions or allow the world to erode at our hearts causing us to become lukewarm. To have conviction is to have fire, to have emotion — anger, passion…

To have conviction is to have balls.

We are not asked to tolerate. In Corinthians 16:13 we are told to; ‘Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. These are not weak words, this is pre-battle army talk.

However, it does go on to say in v14 ‘Do everything in love.’ But, To love is not simply to tolerate, to accept. The two should not be confused.

I believe that we will never change the world, we will never impact the lives of those close around us if we simply tolerate their sin and their shortcomings. Rather, we will bring God’s kingdom down if we meet them in the same place He meets us — the place of Love, Patience, Kindness.

If these are our convictions — if these are our actions — we will change the world. From darkness to light. Perhaps I could say; from grey… to white.