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Liberal Tolerance and Christian Grace, Part I
Several years ago there was an employee working for a large corporation who was gently reprimanded by his manager for sending out a holiday-spirited email with Bible verses attached. The email was not judgmental in any way. The employee was simply sharing the experience of what the holiday meant for him and quoted some relevant verses from the Bible, but because of the exclusive message of Christ, the email was considered inappropriate.
This story highlights one of the biggest challenges for Christians today, which is the movement of liberal tolerance for all belief systems: “What’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for you, and that’s OK.” This is the idea that objective truth is replaced by experience. If my experience feels good to me, then it is right for me, not in any objective sense, but rather internally within my own set of formulated beliefs. The movement of tolerance is centered on the idea that truth is only relevant within myself as an individual. My values and ideals are only true within myself, and I expect no one else to accept my set of truths as their own. While individual truths can be adopted by others, it would be wrong to impose those beliefs on another.
How is the Christian to live in a world of liberal tolerance? First, we need to understand that even though others may be tolerant of the different beliefs their peers may hold, it does not necessarily mean that they can easily accept new values into their own belief system. In fact, one such person often holds his own beliefs dearly, even with passion if forced to defend.
In light of this, the Christian must realize that liberal tolerance is not as much about accepting other’s beliefs, but rather a campaign for individual belief systems. In other words, if you leave me alone in my beliefs, then I will leave you alone in yours. While they may exercise common practices of their culture for acceptance (i.e., pay their taxes, obey traffic laws, etc.), outside of those practices they hold a complex belief system which they feel entitled to hold within themselves.
To further complicate this issue, in recent years there has been a newer type of tolerance that demands a positive response to one’s belief system. In this belief system, not only must you tolerate my belief system, but you must also positively include my belief system as equally valid to yours.
In terms of religion, this idea of liberal tolerance is known as “inclusivism,” which states that all religions are equally valid. This is a big problem for Christianity, which is inherently exclusivistic in its message.
Christian philosopher Francis Beckwith writes about this same issue in the context of Southern Baptists in his article “Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance.”
the Southern Baptists are dangerous not because Christianity is false and they believe it is true, but because they really believe that Christianity is true and they believe other people from contrary religious traditions should become Christians as well. This, for the proponent of liberal tolerance, is absurd, because, as we have seen, liberal tolerance is grounded in relativism — the view that no one point of view on moral and religious knowledge is objectively correct for every person in every time and in every place.
Traditional tolerance was simply the right to hold to one’s belief and practice it and still be respected and treated fairly. However, “positive tolerance” demands praise and approval for all beliefs and lifestyles (“Now we not only want your neutral permission, we demand your positive praise and approval”). To be considered tolerant, you must from your own heart, regard the beliefs and lifestyles of others to be equally valid to your own or you’re not tolerant. You must treat the ideas of others the same as your own.
As Christians we know that we cannot value other religions as equally valid and true. The God of the bible demands worship of Him as the one true God, through our faith in Christ. And as disciples of Christ under the great commission, we are driven to share this message of hope to the world. We must learn how to do this in a culture that is not friendly to exclusive religions like Christianity.
Part of this goal is attained by courage and grace, seeking to avoid the offense of those who do not know Christ (1 Corinthians 10:31-32). I’ll be discussing this aspect more fully in following posts.
