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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Our
Problem With Cultural Tolerance To begin, it is my
opinion that our western-world culture's concept of tolerance isn't
tolerant. In Darwinian
evolutionary vernacular, cultural tolerance is all about the survival of
the fittest. Whoever or
whatever cultural community successfully fights their way to the top of
the cultural heap of confusion gets to define tolerance.
In all practicalities, then, tolerance is selective tolerance.
The winner of the cultural contest gets to dictate his or their
brand of tolerance. As Christians, we
believe in an absolute universal truth that everyone, everywhere, must
embrace. The source of this
truth is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He mandates us
to make disciples of Jesus from all ethnic peoples.
Therein lies our problem with cultural tolerance; a concept
founded on the belief that truth is relative, meaning, there is no
absolute universal truth. Truth
varies from person to person, from place to place, and from time to
time. That being the
preferred cultural stance concerning truth, anyone believing that truth
is absolute and universal can't be tolerated, and that's selective
tolerance. If as Christians we
concede to cultural tolerance we become hypocritical.
We espouse our allegiance to one absolute universal truth but our
lives defy the truth we espouse. They
say we can have our faith as long as we keep it to ourselves, but that
is not an option for us. Our
faith does not allow for a private faith.
We are to evangelize our faith.
To be clear, there is a
Biblical view of tolerance, especially among fellow believers, but in
the process of toleration, we cannot deny Biblical truth.
If we step beyond the boundaries of Biblical truth in the process
of tolerating, we step outside the limits our faith sets for us.
Tolerance does not trump truth.
I conclude that we
cannot serve two masters. It's
either cultural tolerance founded on no absolute truth or Jesus who is
absolute truth. We take
Jesus and let the chips fall where they may as we lay aside any prideful
arrogance and preach Jesus in a bold humility.
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