The Myth of Tolerance; or A Nation of Children

When was the last time you heard anyone on TV hollering about “tolerance”?  You do not hear many calls for “tolerance” for this sort of person or that sort of person anymore, do you?  To the contrary, the 1990s and early 2000s are over and there is a new political narrative in this country to talk about.  Let’s go over some events of the past twelve months:

1) December 2013: Duck Dynasty Controversy (with commentary)

2) April 2014: Mozilla CEO resigns, opposition to gay marriage drew fire | Reuters

Someone from the SFist blog reported on the matter at http://sfist.com/2014/04/03/mozillas_anti-gay_ceo_brendan_eich.php partly as follows:

Brendan Eich, Mozilla's anti-gay CEO, made the right decision to step down today. He will resign as CEO of the for-profit Mozilla Corporation as well as a board member of the nonprofit Mozilla foundation.

A comment on this last piece: undoubtedly its author, Brock Keeling, has the well-being of Mozilla in mind when he speaks of the “right decision.”  OkCupid’s opposition to Mozilla’s erswhile CEO obviously would have led to job layoffs at Mozilla and in turn led to a condition of hundreds of miserable, starving children of unemployed former employees of Mozilla if Brendan Eich had not stepped down.

3) April 2014: Magic Johnson on Donald Sterling: "He Shouldn't Have a Team Anymore" | Mother Jones:

“There’s no place in our society for it, and there’s no place in our league. We all get along. We all play with different races of people when you're in sports. That's what makes sports so beautiful. He’s put his own team in a tough situation. So I believe that once Commissioner Silver...does all his due diligence, gets all the information gathered, he’s got to come down hard. He shouldn’t own a team anymore. And he should stand up and say, ‘I don’t want to own a team anymore.’ Especially when you have African Americans renting his apartments, coming to the games, playing for him, coaching for him. This is bad for everybody. This is bad for America.

(...)

He's got to give up the team. If he doesn't like African Americans and you're in a league that is over 75% African Americans...When you've got the president of the United States saying that this is bad. You've got fans around the country—different races of people—saying it's bad, it is time for him to exit.”

“No place in our society”?  Even if your White next-door neighbor and his wife have regular, private discussions among themselves about how they think your new Black neighbors down the street have brought down property values in your neighborhood, how is that per se affecting (to say nothing of harming) Magic Johnson or any other Black person?  Meanwhile, Sterling is right about one thing in life: government has no legal right (except in extraordinary circumstances) to force anyone to sell his or her property.  Contrary to Magic Johnson’s assessment of the matter, Sterling does not have to give up anything, unless “got to give up the team” means I want Donald Sterling to give up the team.

4) May 2014: More recently the news broke concerning HGTV’s decision to render the Benham Brothers relatively jobless: CP | Believers Rally After HGTV Cancels Reality Show Starring Christian Twin Brothers Who Oppose Abortion, Homosexuality, Divorce.  This continuation of a trend, as it turns out, was only the first chapter of a larger story: SunTrust Banks recently broke financial ties with the Benham brothers, before quickly reversing their decision in a manner much like that of the Duck Dynasty incident:  CP | SunTrust Banks Reverses Decision to Drop Benham Brothers Following Strong Backlash From Conservative Customers.

5) May 2014: This last one dawned on me after Thursday, May 15 when for various reasons I had to sit and endure the audio of the Katie Couric Show.  “The Week That Was” was a guest-panel segment that ran on Thursday instead of Friday this time around, and one of the life lessons to be learned of the segment is that “sensitivity training” for Don Jones is a good thing: Michael Sam Kiss Cam & Donald Sterling Controversy – Katie Couric.  The background story is here: Miami Dolphins Fine, Suspend Safety Don Jones for Tweet Against Same-Sex Kiss | Christian News Network.

Never forget that training and education are two different things.  Training is what you do to your muscles and muscle groups.  Training is what you do to ensure that your brain recalls certain actions in a proper sequence.  Training is what you do to force certain results of different systems of the human body.  Education, on the other hand, is what you offer to intelligent beings such that they should make an informed decision on what course of action to take, whether right or wrong.  So if anyone thinks that “brainwashing” is a bad thing, then he should know that sensitivity training is no different and know that there are people in the Western World who approve of brainwashing.

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Even before all this there was the whole matter of the Chick-Fil-A boycott of 2012, not to mention the continued trend of pseudo-obligatory apologies in national American politics.  What all of this suggests is the sum of two possibilities.  On the one hand, it could be that all the people who rhetorically and by propaganda used to beat people over the head to make them “tolerant” of Arabs, or non-Whites, or homosexuals as such were never interested in global tolerance but only particular tolerance--you know, the kind of Tolerance® that they want people to have or, in other words, tolerance for me but not for thee.  On the other hand, it could be that many of today’s liberals are simply hypocrites or children who forget that tolerance in general means exactly that: that people who believe in general tolerance are not exempt from the requirement to put up with people, deeds and beliefs that they do not like.

And let no one attempt to redefine what these people earlier meant in the use of the word “tolerance.”  For it is clear that in yesteryear “tolerance” meant more than simply restraining an urge to beat gay passers-by with baseball bat, but rather precluded various actions such as demands that certain people be punished with a lack of employment.  Despite whatever the word “tolerance” once meant from the mouths of liberals and the Gay Lobby, what it is now is something that should be considered in the light of both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.  Orwell’s cautionary tales were not written for people who live on a planet other than Earth and they were not written precisely for people who already exist within a societies like communist Cuba or the Soviet Union; they were written because of the innate ability within each of us to morph into that which we used to hate and abhor.

Monday Two-fer

Re: AOMIN | Christians: You Must Deny the Lordship of Christ. It is the Price of Citizenship in this Secular Nation.

As a photographer (no, my best work is not posted on this website =) ), I personally would have welcomed the opportunity to be paid to shoot the “wedding” in question after first asking that these women selflessly go elsewhere to find a photographer for the sake of my conscience and sense of moral duty.  Because I can think of one hundred ways to do poorly done photography and I would have had plenty of fun in the process of putting it all together.  It’s like the fun you had as a child when you would draw mustaches and funny eyebrows over photos of people: good stuff.

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Over at http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/bible-verse-of-the-day/ this was the verse of the day:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Genesis 50.20, ESV)

I wonder how many Arminians, post-Arminians, Pelagians and semi-Pelagians would deny that the events of 9/11 or the death of Trayvon Martin, for two instances, are events that God meant for good, to bring about that many people be blessed.  After all, people were saying right after those events that the events were not of God, yet what good reason would Joseph have for saying that his ordeal was meant for good if his statement here--which Christians accept as being true--is not believed to be a prophetic utterance?  In Joseph’s mind was it a given fact that all events are things which God means for good, to bring about that many people be blessed?

This is a couple months old, but Jesse Johnson offers some good pastoral thoughts on how to deal with the challenge of homosexuality, from a more relational perspective. He suggests some things we can do to help us stand for the truth and be loving toward those who are homosexual. DB

Remember the gospel, which is another way of saying the over-riding issue is that homosexuality is a sin, and that all sin is against God. Yet God is also eager to forgive any sin that is confessed in faith, and repented of. The reason this issue is difficult is because the Christian has the desire to see his friends and co-workers come to faith, and we know that salvation is really impossible if a person refuses to recognize their sin.

Homosexuality: six ways to love the sinner, hate the sin

by Jesse Johnson

Monday’s announcement by Jason Collins that he is gay is the latest example of the homosexual “issue” being elevated into the secular marketplace. The new normal is for homosexuals to announce their sexual identity, and then receive affirmation for their bravery, boldness, and honesty from their co-workers and clients (or, in the case of Collins, journalists).

This puts Christians with secular jobs in a predicament. Most believers understand perfectly well the concept of hate the sin and love the sinner. But that concept is more and more being seen as inadequate simply because homosexuals often perceive their sexual orientation as their identity, thus rendering any attempt to love the sinner while hating the sin as contradictory.

The difficulty is compounded for believers who work with, for, or around those who are openly homosexual. How should Christians respond to those in the work place who are homosexual? If you manage a company with homosexual employees, or if you have homosexual co-workers, how do you find the balance between hating the sin and loving the sinner? Here are six suggestions:

1) Remember the gospel, which is another way of saying the over-riding issue is that homosexuality is a sin, and that all sin is against God. Yet God is also eager to forgive any sin that is confessed in faith, and repented of. The reason this issue is difficult is because the Christian has the desire to see his friends and co-workers come to faith, and we know that salvation is really impossible if a person refuses to recognize their sin.

2) Don’t approve of homosexuality. There is no positive aspect of homosexuality in the Bible. Every mention of homosexuality in scripture is negative, and it is both an act and a lifestyle condemned by God. In all your interactions with homosexuals, remember that their identity is rooted in a practice that God calls sin, and that (like all sin) leads to destruction. This issue is complicated because unlike many other sins, the homosexual is often in search of approval for his/her actions, which is something that the believer simply cannot give.

In our culture it is not even the sin itself that is the issue, as much as it is the push for affirmation of the sin (Romans 1:32). The goal is to have others give their acceptance of their sin ( “the opinion of America is changing”), and that is the one thing that you cannot do. I can’t think of another group that has strived to justify their sin as much as this group, and to a large part they have been successful. As you strive to find the balance of loving the sinner and hating the sin, remember that there is a red-line you cannot cross; you cannot do anything that would give the impression of approval for a homosexual lifestyle.

3) Have compassion on homosexuals because Satan is a hater and a destroyer. A person shackled to a gay lifestyle is a person who experiences profound pain, rejection, and isolation to an extent that most people don’t understand. It’s hard to imagine the damage that is caused to someone when they question their own sexual identity. It strikes at the very core of their being. That pain and insecurity is masked by coming out, but it is not taken away. Instead, it leads to a perpetual search for acceptance, and ultimately it is a life that leads to misery. Remember, Satan hates people, and those who are ensnared in sin should be the object of Christian compassion.

4) Demonstrate love to homosexuals—the same love that God showed us when we were separated from Him. Develop relationships with co-workers who are homosexual. Get to know them, pray for them, and don’t shrink back from sharing the gospel with them. Refuse to say anything negative about them, and show them a loyalty and friendship from a heart that is filled with concern for them. Remember that at the end of the day, we “don’t owe anybody anything except love” (Romans 13:8).

5) Don’t tolerate any divisive or hate speech. If you manage a secular company, and you have employees that can’t work alongside someone who is gay without being divisive or unprofessional, you have to deal with that divisive and unprofessional employee. Your employees need to work together, and ensuring that this is the case is not tantamount to showing acceptance for homosexuality, but rather is a mark of professionalism, and a sign of Christian maturity.

6) Be honest with a homosexual co-worker by letting him know that you have the desire to love and care for him, without in any way giving him the impression that you approve of his sinful actions. Tell him that this is the same tension you have with all non-Christians, but that it is even more pronounced with him, and ask for help in trying to find that balance. Explain that it is your desire to see him come to faith, and in the meantime it is your desire to get to know him and pray for him, but that you don’t want him confused about your understanding of sin.

Are these suggestions helpful? What would you add?