Culture Wars

The article is not an exhaustive look at what has been going on the past few weeks, but the author does a nice job of explaining the heart of the issue so be sure to read the article to get a "taste" of what is going on.

It's All About Tolerance

With that said, I have heard and read a lot of people who's motivation to support yesterday's movement unfortunately crossed over into denying execution of all three forms of tolerance that the author mentioned. That's not what the Bible teaches or is about, yet many use the name of religion to do so :(

Jesus models #2 time and time again and like the author says, the Bible doesn't oppose #1. #3 is where the line is drawn. For some reason the different forms of tolerance have been muddied, especially over the past 20-30 years. While people can put on their happy faces and pretend #3 exists, it really doesn't when push comes to shove. That's because it doesn't make any logical sense. But we live in a ever-growing pluralistic society. A society where the 2nd law of thermodynamics seems to not only be in play, but seems to be an exponential driving force. Chaos just keeps on increasing.

Will Metzger describes it well when he writes "...the definition of tolerance has changed, even though the dictionaries don't yet record it. Webster's dictionary defines tolerance as 'a fair and objective attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality,etc., differ from one's own'... The new meaning of tolerance has expanded to include the necessity to approve all beliefs, opinions, values, lifestyles."

Christianity, cannot exist with this kind of tolerance, but embraces tolerance in the traditional sense. The word tolerance does not mean that everyone agrees and embraces each others' thoughts and beliefs. If fact the word tolerance implies that there is a disagreement or a need to be tolerant. Tolerance also recognizes that the convictions that people have are important topics to discuss and yes, sometimes even   argue over, with humility and grace.

Intolerant Christianity cannot exist in it's true meaning. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, and to turn the other cheek when struck. If that's how we are to respond to those who offer up violence, how then should we respond to those who own different philosophy of life?

What makes true Christianity different than other beliefs and thoughts?

 Dr. Phillip Ryken puts it this way. "True Christianity thus preserves a powerful combination that is found nowhere else: tolerance and truth. Some religions and most political philosophies claim to have the truth but are ruthlessly intolerant of those who disagree." (Think #1 and #2 from the article) "They offer truth without tolerance. Philosophical pluralism, on the other hand, is indifferent to the truth. It provides a pound of tolerance without an ounce of truth...Philosophical pluralism idolizes tolerance while it eliminates the truth, although curiously it also tends to be intolerant of people-for example, Christians-who have strong religious convictions."

And this friends, it the culture war. It's been growing for days, months, years, centuries and will continue to grow. It's not going anywhere. Sure it ebbs and tides and it has seasons. Ultimately it's just going to keep getting bigger though.

I 100% support Cathy's words that somehow started the latest chapter of this war. But notice nothing that he said opposed the first two kinds of tolerance and actually I think his words did a wonderful job of stopping short of #3 in a pretty gentle way. What happened after that is a break down of society to acknowledge social tolerance. While this cannot be said of all who spoke out or made their presence known yesterday at Chick-fil-A, I have spent the past week+ as many others have, observing social media sites as people weigh in. Jesus drew the line at #3. Cathy drew the line at #3.

Christians: Many of us have drawn the line waaaaay before that and somehow think of ourselves as more righteous because of it. Let us be reminded of our Godly role model and follow His example of how to be tolerant in truth! Also, remember Ephesians 6:12 and reflect on it often when the culture war flares up.

Non-Christians: I struggle with what to say to you in response. But you too should look to Jesus' example of what tolerance should look like. Also I would ask that you would extend a certain amount of grace to us Christians as we slowly realize our mistake of not being socially tolerant. Being a Christian does not mean that we are perfect. It means that we are forgiven by God. It also means that we have a wonderful model to look at if we would just take the time to do so. Often times we don't practice what we preach. We have a lot of change that needs to happen in our lives as we try to look more and more like Christ each day. This is not a fast process. So because of the dissonance between what we practice and what we preach, yes we look like hypocrites many times. That's because we are many times. But we are trying.