Power of Suggestion

I’m constantly amazed by people’s capacity for “hypocrisy”. I put in the scare-quotes because we’re all hypocrites: We all lie, though we say lying is bad; we all judge books by their covers…But I’m talking about the real, blatant kind.

The kind that says, “I believe A,” then does -(A). “What’s that you say? No, I haven’t done the very thing I speak out against, or the very opposite of the thing I advocate.  What I do is different from what you or they do, because…” This is the hypocrisy that may or may not be intentional, but is always unexamined, and without remorse.

The most blatant is the contemporary “tolerance” movement. I put the scare-quotes there because most of it’s advocates aren’t promoting tolerance, they’re promoting a belief system that is just as closed – in fact, more so – as Christianity. In this form of tolerance, if you don’t share the belief, you’re denigrated and excluded. Sounds a bit like intolerance, doesn’t it?

But ask the advocate and they’ll say, “We’ll accept everyone, except for those who won’t accept others.” To them you don’t have to be tolerated if you don’t meet their standards for tolerance, which is to say you accept every liberal opinion, most moderate ones, and nothing conservative. You can say any twisted thing about Christians, but don’t express any misgivings about homosexuality or wicca, because you’ll get booted.

To me, tolerance is putting up with something you don’t like or don’t want. You “tolerate” an annoying sibling, a leaky faucet, or a miserable job while you’re in school.  You “tolerate” a cold, or a small amount of pain, or a bad governor. One of the key characteristics of things to be tolerated is that you don’t like them, and you’d rather they not be there.

For example, if you believe that all religious paths are equal, then you should tolerate the person who thinks one is right and the rest wrong. In fact, you should celebrate that belief, and the fervor with which the believer clings to it, because it will lead them to God.

Unfortunately for those of us who believe with fervor that there is one path to God, through the man Jesus Christ, we can’t get away with such “tolerance”.  We don’t get to tolerate the one who believes that all paths lead to God. We have to love them. We can’t just livewith them and hope they’re gone soon, we have to embody the love of Jesus.

I think I like tolerance better.