March 29, 2006
~Real Issues~
I dislike the word intolerance because I believe it is creating a culture of reverse intolerance.
I watched Politically Incorrect, a program that has run its course, a few years back. A celebrity, comedian, a politician, and a pastor sat on the forum.
The celebrity got angry when the pastor shared his point-of-view. He stated it with grace. He was gentle, kind, not condenscending.
The celebrity stood to her feet and screamed, pointing in his face, “You better shut up. You better respect me. You better think before you start talking that trash.” For the next few questions, she called him names, one of them intolerant.
I looked at her behavior, her screaming, the anger in her face and I wondered. Did she realize that it was she who was showing intolerance?
Reverse intolerance: don’t touch or talk about the things that make me uncomfortable, but let me act and speak against you in any manner I wish.
This appears to be what happened in San Francisco this past week with the BattleCry for a Generation conference. So much so, that even the Assemblymen and newspapers are questioning what happened. Check out this article: Intolerant City City — San Francisco Chronicle editorial, March 28, 2006
I know that we talked about this in a past post, but how does the cultural definition of intolerance affect your stand of faith?
See, this is the scoop, at least as far as I can see, people will know us by the love inside of us. They will know Christ as they see his followers react and live and even speak with grace. They will know him as they see lives actually affected by their faith. Even in this situation, or maybe especially in this situation, it is important that we react to our neighbors and friends in San Francisco with grace.
But also truth. Reverse intolerance cannot be a tool that makes people afraid to gather together or share their faith, or write blogs like these, or to talk about what the disciples called Good News.
I’m curious to see how this all plays out. I speak at Battlecry for Parents. I’ve seen the heartbeat of Ron Luce and his team as they help teens go to missions trips and hold conferences such as Acquire the Fire and Battlecry and others.
What about you? What are your thoughts?
Just my two cents,
Suzie
Hannah Beth says:
“Tolerance” has weaseled its way into becoming accepted as a virtue, when in fact, in some situations being “tolerant” is a synonym for a lack of courage to stand for whats right.
I see the need for love, not tolerance, in our relationship with both unbelievers and believers. We should love other people, even if we disagree with them, but that does not mean we should tolerate evil done by those people.
I don’t know I’m making sense at the moment, but those are my thoughts…
Cowboy says:
You make total sense. When I was at college, tolerance was basically a deffinition of, I have to aceept everything you do. But if I dont agree you cant tolerate my opinion. What a pansy country we live in.
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