The Limits of Tolerance- three short essays
Rev. Jeff Kingswood - abridged by DAG from Rev. Kingswood's editorial in
Pioneer Christian Monthly (Reformed Church in Canada), May `95
The book of Judges records for us the history of the people of Israel as they took over the land which God had promised their forefathers. God promised that He would give the Israelites victory if they trusted in Him and were obedient to His commands. God told them to go into the land after having conquered it and destroy all of the pagan peoples and their altars to their false gods.
Israel failed to obey God. They had compassion on the idolaters and let them live and remain and worship false gods. A false sense of compassion was their reason for disobeying God. As a result of this disobedience... Israel fell into sin. As soon as they accommodated false gods they took the first step in denying the true and living God.
... Israel would continue to be God's people because God graciously keeps His promises, but generations to come would pay for their disobedience. ...Israel's first experiment with pluralism was a disaster that was felt for generations.
Webster's dictionary defines pluralism as the philosophy or doctrine which holds that "existence has more than one ultimate principle". That there is more than one meaning to life. You have your ideas about the ultimate purpose of existence and I have mine. There's diversity of opinion about God and what role and relationship we have with Him.
Our public schools teach pluralism. You discover your own values, your own philosophies, your own ultimate principles. Every view is tolerated equally unless it denies the others for then it offends the god of pluralism.
Our government promotes it. Pluralism. It has a nice ring to it. It makes everyone feel equally right and that is a doctrine that would please most politicians. The media claim to be pluralistic, representing all points of view without bias. It helps them gain an uncritical audience but of course it is a lie.
And most frighteningly of all the Reformed Church claims to be pluralistic. Many points of view, many doctrines, many philosophies, all supposedly right, all supposedly Christian, all worthy of respect. The false gods and their altars have invaded the church.
Pluralism is a lie. It is a philosophical, ontological, epistemological impossibility. Everything can't be true. A math teacher cannot say that for one child 2+2=4 but for another it may well equal five. That is nonsense. But that is the spirit of pluralism.
...The Church of Jesus Christ cannot accept God's Word that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life and still maintain that other religions have valid beliefs. The Church of Jesus Christ cannot claim Jesus died for sin and then say that sin is something that we can get rid of psychiatrically.
Pluralism will not be tolerated by God. God did not say to Israel, "Oh, I see you have kept some idols. Oh well, if that is how you wish to worship go ahead." No, God judged Israel for sin and so He will judge a church that claims pluralism as its cardinal virtue.
Israel disobediently allowed the pagans and their gods to remain in the land because of false compassion. ...Today there is in the broader church a similar sort of compassion. It says "Who are we to say that this idea or that unrepentant sinner won't be accepted by God? Who are we to judge? Isn't it more kind and loving and Christian to affirm them, to help them discover truth in their own way and help them find God there?
I have heard these statements from professors at seminaries, from so-called missionaries, and from denominational executives. From all sorts of denominations, Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, and yes, even Reformed.
But that sort of compassion that ignores the plain teaching of scripture, allowing people to believe the Prince of Darkness, condemns those people to everlasting punishment in the flames of hell. It is false compassion.
True compassion is expressed when we, with love and kindness, declare that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection removed the barriers that sin created between man and God. True compassion calls believers to holiness, repentance, and the fruits of godly living. True compassion has the guts to say that all else is a lie of Satan. True compassion lovingly confronts sinners with their sin and points to Jesus Christ who alone is able to deliver us from that sin. Not because we are lucky enough to have discovered it on our own. Not because we are smarter or more sophisticated but because God in His love has shown us the truth about ourselves and has not left us believing a pluralistic counterfeit.
Real compassion confronts sin and calls for change in Jesus Christ. False compassion tolerates sin and encourages broad mindedness.
... May we look to our hearts and say, "Enough!" Enough idolatry. And may we be cleansed. May we submit to the Word of God as the way, the truth, and the life. And may Jesus Christ be glorified as the truth in our world, in our families, and in His Church.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev. Allan McQuarrie
-Perspectives (newsletter for Canadian Perspective Christian Radio), Aug.`95
The term tolerance has come to mean more than acceptance of the culture of people. It now means the acceptance of people's beliefs and choices. At this point we need to make a comment. If my lifestyle and thoughts were fully accepted by others, I would never have been convicted of my sin and no one would ever have shared the gospel with me. They would have just accepted my sinfulness as my choice, which they tolerated so as not to offend me.
But the gospel is offensive. It tells people that God will not accept them as they are. It tells them that in fact there is nothing they can do on their own to be accepted.
God is not tolerant. He is jealous. He is holy. He is perfect, but He is not tolerant.
Our society wants tolerance because it makes no one feel awkward, or convicted. It judges you only by your own standards, making the absolutes of God an intolerable idea.
[Unlimited] tolerance assumes there is no standard of right or wrong. It assumes there is no moral basis. It assumes there is no God by whom we will be judged. It is a hopeless and immoral acceptance of all that is wicked and depraved. It is an illogical course, and no one knows how far it will be allowed to run.
Tolerance allows personal beliefs to dominate over natural morals; it muzzles any opinion that it deems to be intolerant. It seeks acceptance of all actions, beliefs and lifestyles that promote personal unrestrained freedoms.
Tolerance is sin. It is the ancient sin from the garden, where man wanted to be like God and to determine for himself what is right and if anything is wrong. It stands in complete defiance to the holy demands and requirements of God. It seeks to strip the Judge from His authority by which to judge.
Promoting tolerance about the sinful actions of the people around us brings them no solution, no relief of guilt, and no peace with God. It robs the individual of knowing about forgiveness, and healing.
It is our God-given obligation to speak our against sin, to defend the family unit, to uphold the rights of the unborn and to proclaim that Jesus is the one and only way to heaven in this world.
Yet, don't expect your views to be accepted. This world is growing less and less tolerant towards those who are not tolerant. If you are concerned about your unsaved friends, don't accept them the way they are, tell them about Christ!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas Gander
- based on a "Christian Comment" column written for The Rideau Valley Mirror
What is the relationship between "tolerance" and "truth"? Jesus did not "tolerate" falsehood, although He was ready to forgive the false ways of sinful life when people recognized and turned-away from their sin. He was particularly intolerant of falsehood when it was rooted in teachers and leaders of the faith who were in fact "blind guides", worsening the blindness of God's people. Falsehood presented as truth cannot be "tolerated" because it is harmful, offering solutions based in faulty human reasoning rather than the revealed wisdom of God.
The truth about Jesus Christ cannot be compromised, hidden, or buried. There is "no other name by which we must be saved", and no other founder of a religion claimed to be the only Son of the one God. Jesus is absolutely unique among prominent historical people.
Yet Jesus forgave those who crucified Him, and thereafter the Gospel has spread most effectively by those saints who were willing to sacrifice themselves and even die for the faith, rather than those zealots eager to kill for it. As with Christ Himself, the most powerful Christian witness is found in apparent weakness. The gentle but persistent "divisions of the Pope" helped defeat the presumptuous armies of Stalin who taunted him and persecuted Christians (among others).
And the Word of God doesn't return to Him empty. It is not dead. "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrating even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Heb. 4:12) Christianity seeks to bring the unique Word and Holy Spirit of God to all people because "the Truth sets us free".
Untruth cannot be quietly "tolerated" or ignored. People living a lie are imprisoned in darkness, superstition, or one of the countless false "gods" which are dead and useless or worse than useless.
For example the latest falsehood, the latest manmade idol being worshipped by some extreme feminists in preparation for the recent women's conference in China, tried to change the very design of mankind, whom God created "male and female", into some new species with five genders to include homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual. These are authors of confusion and of a dishonest "compassion" which pretends to help disadvantaged people while actually perpetuating and compounding their affliction. Such false ideals of radical feminism just widen the paths of individual and collective anarchy. They weaken the structure of family, the foundation of society, and even the laws of nature, God's good (though fallen) creation.
People in recent times did not just "tolerate" fascism or the impositions of marxism, but made every effort to overcome them and throw off these ideologies because they were false, unjust, life-corrupting and faith-denying. Where God and His ways are ignored and worked against, destruction follows.
The Gospel is "good news" to those who receive it. But it's often offensive to us personally, because it makes us face our sin, our "missing the mark" of God's design for us. It penetrates to the soul. It also encourages us and assures us of God's forgiveness when we sincerely seek His ways, and He lives in us and works in and through us towards that new life in His Spirit, the joyous and enlivening foretaste of eternity that dawns within us when we earnestly seek to cast off the old man and put on the new, in Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus and His Gospel are unique, Christianity cannot be and need not be balanced against any other religion or philosophy. Writer J.A. DiNoia (in First Things, June/July `95) points out that while Buddha might uniquely offer the "Excellent Eightfold Path" to Nirvana, this is not bothersome to those who are not seeking Nirvana. A rabbi once said to DiNoia, "Jesus Christ is the answer to a question I have never asked". So to say "Jesus Christ is the unique mediator of salvation" is an entirely different offering than presented elsewhere. It describes something quite apart from the religious "truths" of other traditions. Christ sees us differently, speaks to us differently, and asks us different questions, presenting an unparalleled evaluation of our state of mind and conscience and the true health of our soul, our innermost being. And He offers a unique solution.
Jesus came that we "might have Life, and have it abundantly". Those who follow Him, those called by His name as "Christians", are asked to more than tolerate (suffer) other people, even those who hold views which seem oppressive and regressive. The whole thrust of the Great Commission to spread the Gospel to all nations and languages is to love even our enemies while offering unabashedly the news of Christ. Our desire to share the Way, Truth, and Life to those around is not abated by a false compassion which "tolerates" falsehood. Yet we try to tolerate with love the listener's often painful reaction to his slow thawing of soul by the warmth of the shared Gospel.
The first evangelists, martyrs, priests, and bishops lived humble lives, courageous in proclaiming the truth while "tolerating" the freedom God grants for people to accept or reject it. But their message did not change. They sometimes "tolerated" (suffered) violent rejection by those offended by the message. And often they did more than just suffer such violence, even singing God's praises in the face of a tortuous demise.
St. Paul was once the worst persecutor of early Christians, but by their suffering (not by their aggression), and by the hand of God Himself, St. Paul was reborn, from above. God did not tolerate Paul's ignorant zeal, but transformed him. And he became a mighty instrument for life: that full and transfusing life in Christ who conquered death itself and opened the gates of the Kingdom of God.
Such are the limits of tolerance, and the abundance of life born again, from above. When light encounters darkness, it overcomes it. When our fallen nature encounters the Person and Gospel of Christ, we submit, confess, and are renewed. Childhood is not static as we grow, but is transformed. Holiness overcomes sinfulness.
Thankfully, even death, pain and tears are not tolerated indefinitely (Rev.21:4). They shall be healed, wiped away forever on the final day when all things are made new, overcome as the new heaven and earth herald life everlasting.
Pioneer Christian Monthly (Reformed Church in Canada), May `95
The book of Judges records for us the history of the people of Israel as they took over the land which God had promised their forefathers. God promised that He would give the Israelites victory if they trusted in Him and were obedient to His commands. God told them to go into the land after having conquered it and destroy all of the pagan peoples and their altars to their false gods.
Israel failed to obey God. They had compassion on the idolaters and let them live and remain and worship false gods. A false sense of compassion was their reason for disobeying God. As a result of this disobedience... Israel fell into sin. As soon as they accommodated false gods they took the first step in denying the true and living God.
... Israel would continue to be God's people because God graciously keeps His promises, but generations to come would pay for their disobedience. ...Israel's first experiment with pluralism was a disaster that was felt for generations.
Webster's dictionary defines pluralism as the philosophy or doctrine which holds that "existence has more than one ultimate principle". That there is more than one meaning to life. You have your ideas about the ultimate purpose of existence and I have mine. There's diversity of opinion about God and what role and relationship we have with Him.
Our public schools teach pluralism. You discover your own values, your own philosophies, your own ultimate principles. Every view is tolerated equally unless it denies the others for then it offends the god of pluralism.
Our government promotes it. Pluralism. It has a nice ring to it. It makes everyone feel equally right and that is a doctrine that would please most politicians. The media claim to be pluralistic, representing all points of view without bias. It helps them gain an uncritical audience but of course it is a lie.
And most frighteningly of all the Reformed Church claims to be pluralistic. Many points of view, many doctrines, many philosophies, all supposedly right, all supposedly Christian, all worthy of respect. The false gods and their altars have invaded the church.
Pluralism is a lie. It is a philosophical, ontological, epistemological impossibility. Everything can't be true. A math teacher cannot say that for one child 2+2=4 but for another it may well equal five. That is nonsense. But that is the spirit of pluralism.
...The Church of Jesus Christ cannot accept God's Word that Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life and still maintain that other religions have valid beliefs. The Church of Jesus Christ cannot claim Jesus died for sin and then say that sin is something that we can get rid of psychiatrically.
Pluralism will not be tolerated by God. God did not say to Israel, "Oh, I see you have kept some idols. Oh well, if that is how you wish to worship go ahead." No, God judged Israel for sin and so He will judge a church that claims pluralism as its cardinal virtue.
Israel disobediently allowed the pagans and their gods to remain in the land because of false compassion. ...Today there is in the broader church a similar sort of compassion. It says "Who are we to say that this idea or that unrepentant sinner won't be accepted by God? Who are we to judge? Isn't it more kind and loving and Christian to affirm them, to help them discover truth in their own way and help them find God there?
I have heard these statements from professors at seminaries, from so-called missionaries, and from denominational executives. From all sorts of denominations, Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, and yes, even Reformed.
But that sort of compassion that ignores the plain teaching of scripture, allowing people to believe the Prince of Darkness, condemns those people to everlasting punishment in the flames of hell. It is false compassion.
True compassion is expressed when we, with love and kindness, declare that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection removed the barriers that sin created between man and God. True compassion calls believers to holiness, repentance, and the fruits of godly living. True compassion has the guts to say that all else is a lie of Satan. True compassion lovingly confronts sinners with their sin and points to Jesus Christ who alone is able to deliver us from that sin. Not because we are lucky enough to have discovered it on our own. Not because we are smarter or more sophisticated but because God in His love has shown us the truth about ourselves and has not left us believing a pluralistic counterfeit.
Real compassion confronts sin and calls for change in Jesus Christ. False compassion tolerates sin and encourages broad mindedness.
... May we look to our hearts and say, "Enough!" Enough idolatry. And may we be cleansed. May we submit to the Word of God as the way, the truth, and the life. And may Jesus Christ be glorified as the truth in our world, in our families, and in His Church.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev. Allan McQuarrie
-Perspectives (newsletter for Canadian Perspective Christian Radio), Aug.`95
The term tolerance has come to mean more than acceptance of the culture of people. It now means the acceptance of people's beliefs and choices. At this point we need to make a comment. If my lifestyle and thoughts were fully accepted by others, I would never have been convicted of my sin and no one would ever have shared the gospel with me. They would have just accepted my sinfulness as my choice, which they tolerated so as not to offend me.
But the gospel is offensive. It tells people that God will not accept them as they are. It tells them that in fact there is nothing they can do on their own to be accepted.
God is not tolerant. He is jealous. He is holy. He is perfect, but He is not tolerant.
Our society wants tolerance because it makes no one feel awkward, or convicted. It judges you only by your own standards, making the absolutes of God an intolerable idea.
[Unlimited] tolerance assumes there is no standard of right or wrong. It assumes there is no moral basis. It assumes there is no God by whom we will be judged. It is a hopeless and immoral acceptance of all that is wicked and depraved. It is an illogical course, and no one knows how far it will be allowed to run.
Tolerance allows personal beliefs to dominate over natural morals; it muzzles any opinion that it deems to be intolerant. It seeks acceptance of all actions, beliefs and lifestyles that promote personal unrestrained freedoms.
Tolerance is sin. It is the ancient sin from the garden, where man wanted to be like God and to determine for himself what is right and if anything is wrong. It stands in complete defiance to the holy demands and requirements of God. It seeks to strip the Judge from His authority by which to judge.
Promoting tolerance about the sinful actions of the people around us brings them no solution, no relief of guilt, and no peace with God. It robs the individual of knowing about forgiveness, and healing.
It is our God-given obligation to speak our against sin, to defend the family unit, to uphold the rights of the unborn and to proclaim that Jesus is the one and only way to heaven in this world.
Yet, don't expect your views to be accepted. This world is growing less and less tolerant towards those who are not tolerant. If you are concerned about your unsaved friends, don't accept them the way they are, tell them about Christ!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas Gander
- based on a "Christian Comment" column written for The Rideau Valley Mirror
What is the relationship between "tolerance" and "truth"? Jesus did not "tolerate" falsehood, although He was ready to forgive the false ways of sinful life when people recognized and turned-away from their sin. He was particularly intolerant of falsehood when it was rooted in teachers and leaders of the faith who were in fact "blind guides", worsening the blindness of God's people. Falsehood presented as truth cannot be "tolerated" because it is harmful, offering solutions based in faulty human reasoning rather than the revealed wisdom of God.
The truth about Jesus Christ cannot be compromised, hidden, or buried. There is "no other name by which we must be saved", and no other founder of a religion claimed to be the only Son of the one God. Jesus is absolutely unique among prominent historical people.
Yet Jesus forgave those who crucified Him, and thereafter the Gospel has spread most effectively by those saints who were willing to sacrifice themselves and even die for the faith, rather than those zealots eager to kill for it. As with Christ Himself, the most powerful Christian witness is found in apparent weakness. The gentle but persistent "divisions of the Pope" helped defeat the presumptuous armies of Stalin who taunted him and persecuted Christians (among others).
And the Word of God doesn't return to Him empty. It is not dead. "The Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrating even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Heb. 4:12) Christianity seeks to bring the unique Word and Holy Spirit of God to all people because "the Truth sets us free".
Untruth cannot be quietly "tolerated" or ignored. People living a lie are imprisoned in darkness, superstition, or one of the countless false "gods" which are dead and useless or worse than useless.
For example the latest falsehood, the latest manmade idol being worshipped by some extreme feminists in preparation for the recent women's conference in China, tried to change the very design of mankind, whom God created "male and female", into some new species with five genders to include homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual. These are authors of confusion and of a dishonest "compassion" which pretends to help disadvantaged people while actually perpetuating and compounding their affliction. Such false ideals of radical feminism just widen the paths of individual and collective anarchy. They weaken the structure of family, the foundation of society, and even the laws of nature, God's good (though fallen) creation.
People in recent times did not just "tolerate" fascism or the impositions of marxism, but made every effort to overcome them and throw off these ideologies because they were false, unjust, life-corrupting and faith-denying. Where God and His ways are ignored and worked against, destruction follows.
The Gospel is "good news" to those who receive it. But it's often offensive to us personally, because it makes us face our sin, our "missing the mark" of God's design for us. It penetrates to the soul. It also encourages us and assures us of God's forgiveness when we sincerely seek His ways, and He lives in us and works in and through us towards that new life in His Spirit, the joyous and enlivening foretaste of eternity that dawns within us when we earnestly seek to cast off the old man and put on the new, in Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus and His Gospel are unique, Christianity cannot be and need not be balanced against any other religion or philosophy. Writer J.A. DiNoia (in First Things, June/July `95) points out that while Buddha might uniquely offer the "Excellent Eightfold Path" to Nirvana, this is not bothersome to those who are not seeking Nirvana. A rabbi once said to DiNoia, "Jesus Christ is the answer to a question I have never asked". So to say "Jesus Christ is the unique mediator of salvation" is an entirely different offering than presented elsewhere. It describes something quite apart from the religious "truths" of other traditions. Christ sees us differently, speaks to us differently, and asks us different questions, presenting an unparalleled evaluation of our state of mind and conscience and the true health of our soul, our innermost being. And He offers a unique solution.
Jesus came that we "might have Life, and have it abundantly". Those who follow Him, those called by His name as "Christians", are asked to more than tolerate (suffer) other people, even those who hold views which seem oppressive and regressive. The whole thrust of the Great Commission to spread the Gospel to all nations and languages is to love even our enemies while offering unabashedly the news of Christ. Our desire to share the Way, Truth, and Life to those around is not abated by a false compassion which "tolerates" falsehood. Yet we try to tolerate with love the listener's often painful reaction to his slow thawing of soul by the warmth of the shared Gospel.
The first evangelists, martyrs, priests, and bishops lived humble lives, courageous in proclaiming the truth while "tolerating" the freedom God grants for people to accept or reject it. But their message did not change. They sometimes "tolerated" (suffered) violent rejection by those offended by the message. And often they did more than just suffer such violence, even singing God's praises in the face of a tortuous demise.
St. Paul was once the worst persecutor of early Christians, but by their suffering (not by their aggression), and by the hand of God Himself, St. Paul was reborn, from above. God did not tolerate Paul's ignorant zeal, but transformed him. And he became a mighty instrument for life: that full and transfusing life in Christ who conquered death itself and opened the gates of the Kingdom of God.
Such are the limits of tolerance, and the abundance of life born again, from above. When light encounters darkness, it overcomes it. When our fallen nature encounters the Person and Gospel of Christ, we submit, confess, and are renewed. Childhood is not static as we grow, but is transformed. Holiness overcomes sinfulness.
Thankfully, even death, pain and tears are not tolerated indefinitely (Rev.21:4). They shall be healed, wiped away forever on the final day when all things are made new, overcome as the new heaven and earth herald life everlasting.