When Intolerance is a Good Thing

So what do you think happens when a Pastor speaks Christian worldview truth on the floor of the House of Representatives in the state of Kansas?

Pastor Joe Wright of Kansas offered the following prayer before the State House in Topeka, Kansas on January 23, 1996. After Pastor Joe said “Amen,” the intolerance began, with an attempt by a few liberals, to remove his prayer from the House record, but they did not succeed.

Radio newsman Paul Harvey read this prayer on his radio show and received more calls and letters requesting copies of the prayer than anything he has ever read on his program. This is what he read to his listeners:

[quote] Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that’s exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.

We confess that: 

"We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word

And called it moral pluralism;

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism;

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle;

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery;

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation;

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare;

We have killed our unborn and called it choice;

We have shot abortionist and called it justifiable;

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem;

We have abused power and called it political savvy;

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition;

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression;

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment;

Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas, and who have been ordained by You, to govern this great state. Grant them Your wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the name of your Son, the Living Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen. [End quote]

Without firm convictions and the courage of your convictions, compromise is the natural progression. When you hear people use the term “tolerance” in today’s culture, what they really mean is, you need to compromise.

G.K. Chesterton said: “The man who values ‘tolerance’ above all else, is a man with no convictions.”

In the eighth grade Social Studies book published by Houghton Mifflin, 1991, Page 50, we read: “America has marveled at the broad diversity of its people…Prided itself on its ability to accept ― and borrow from ― lifestyles and values of many different nationalities. . . Pluralism means that people must compromise by yielding on certain points. Americans must exercise tolerance for the lifestyles of others.”

Note that this textbook calls for people to compromise their convictions in the name of tolerance and pluralism. Pluralism is the belief that all religious beliefs are equal; one is not to be elevated above another.

Scripture clearly rejects the notion of pluralism and even calls for exposing ideas and beliefs that claim to be equal with or set above Biblical truth.

In today’s postmodern world if you make a truth claim based on convictions of moral absolutes you are an intolerant bigot. But what if you were to make the statement that Hitler was wrong and evil? Would that even be a safe statement to make in today’s postmodern world?

Since the humanist worldview says that man is free to choose for themselves what is right and wrong and practice situational ethics, then who is to say that someone’s values and actions are wrong? You may not agree with their actions or behavior but who is to say they are wrong?

If you want to be hailed as tolerant in today’s postmodern world then you not only have to accept everyone’s beliefs, ideas, behavior and lifestyle, but you have to value their beliefs, ideas, behavior and lifestyle. Anything less and you are an intolerant bigot.

Second Corinthians 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

This verse does not say we are to make our thinking come into line with the culture of the tolerance movement, and embrace pluralism, Islam, or Hinduism, but to make our thinking obedient to Christ.

Today’s tolerance movement will come at a high price for America. In his book, Character and Destiny, Dr. D. James Kennedy writes:

“History teaches us that great nations are seldom if ever destroyed by invaders or other outside forces. Wars and invasions may be involved in their final collapse, but nations fall because of compromise of their own foundational beliefs, loss of faith in the values that made them great and the lawlessness and disorder that arises as a result.”

President James Garfield pleaded with Americans to maintain their standards of intolerance for the sake of America’s future:

“Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress, [nation]. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerant ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.”

Allan Bloom, the author of The Closing of The American Mind has written:

[quote] There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: Almost every student entering the University believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonished them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. Some are religious, some are atheists, some are to the left, some are to the right, some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor some are rich. They are unified in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself in inculcating. [end quote]

The fear of many Christians today is not that God could hold them accountable for not proclaiming truth, but that they could be labeled by society as being intolerant. There is a greater fear of man than of God and His righteousness.

As long as we do it in love and respect and reverence for all men, then we are to boldly share truth with our culture and world even if it false into the politically incorrect definition of being intolerant. It is because of our convictions about life and death and eternity that we must share truth with as many as we can. But how do we know there is truth? What is truth? How do we know that what Hitler did was wrong and evil?