We received a question about a discussion topic in someone’s class, about Christianity and tolerance. Below are just a couple of points that I think are key to the discussion of tolerance from a biblical standpoint.

First thing to keep in mind, is that there is a major difference between the church, in the catholic(little c) sense, and biblical principals. The church, even the true church of only true believers, is still a massive group of sinners that are only saved by grace. Even after we’re saved we continue to be sinful(hopefully less so as time goes on), including in the area of intolerance. The Bible is pretty clear that we should not only tolerate people who are different than us or have different views, but love them as well.

Second key point to understand is that in recent years, with the whole political correctness movement, they(politicians, media, etc) have redefined some words used in our popular culture. Tolerance is one of those words…

Tolerance – Noun

1. The power or capacity of an organism to tolerate unfavorable environmental conditions.

2. A disposition to allow freedom of choice and behavior.

3. The act of tolerating something.

4. Willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others.

5. A permissible difference; allowing freedom to move within limits.

The very definitions of tolerance imply a disagreement or difference of some type. Tolerance is not saying that all beliefs are equal, but instead allowing people who do not share your beliefs to live peacefully, as long as those beliefs are not infringing on the sanctity of human life. The current popular definition of tolerance is a piggy back off of the relativistic worldview that there is no absolute truth, i.e… no one belief holds any truth advantage over another. And, if you believe that there is absolute truth, and you happen to hold to that absolute truth, then you are labeled intolerant. So by this new definition, Christians are lumped in with Muslims as being intolerant toward others. But in reality Christians are commanded to love their neighbor, love their enemy, and pray for those who spitefully use them. It would be hard to find a more practical definition of tolerance than that. Are Christians sometimes intolerant of others? Unfortunately yes, just like the rest of humanity, but that intolerance is at odds with biblical teaching. An overarching principle of the Bible, is that God gave humanity free will to chose to follow Him or reject Him, so if He gave people that freedom, we as Christians should follow that lead. Of course it is our job as Christians to inform others of the truth as revealed in the Bible, and live it out in our own lives, but as for their acceptance of it… not our problem.

By the way… I haven’t looked it up… but I’d be willing to bet that the 4th definition is a modern addition, and that it wouldn’t be found in a 50 year old dictionary.

Lord Bless!

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