TOLERANCE: THE WEDGE AGAINST CHRISTIANS
THESIS
THE “LEFT” HAS FOUND THE ISSUE OF “TOLERANCE” TO BE THE MECHANISM TO FORCE SOCIAL CHANGE IN AMERICA OVER THE PREVIOUSLY DOMINATING BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. EXCESSIVE TOLERANCE RESULTS IN A PERMISSIVE SOCIETY, IN WHICH THE STABILIZING SOCIAL STRUCTURES CRUMBLE, DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY.
I. COMPROMISE defined
1. The difference between its verb and noun form is amazing.
The first is like in politics, the second is like falling into sin or giving-in to an enemy.
2. COMPROMISE (noun)
Define: “agreement.” Synonyms: accommodation, adjustment, bargain, concession, fifty-fifty, happy medium, middle ground, settlement, trade-off.
3. COMPROMISE (verb)
Define: “put in jeopardy.” Synonyms: cop out, dishonor, embarrass, endanger, give in, hazard, imperil, jeopardize, menace, ruin, sell out, weaken.
4. IF WE MAKE A COMPROMISE WITH THE WORLD, WE IMPERIL OUR STANDING WITH GOD!
II. TOLERANCE
A. DEFINITION
1. “The willingness to tolerate opinions or behavior that you don’t agree with.”
2. “A fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.”
3. "The capacity to endure continued subjection to something, esp. a drug, transplant, antigen, environmental conditions, the world’s values -- without adverse effects."
4. The problem is, the "Left" is not content for us to tolerate the sins they’re promoting; they demand that we AGREE THAT THOSE SINS ARE OK!
5. Tolerance isn’t exercised universally; we don’t tolerate many things in our society, like crime and illegal behavior. Laws must exist to keep order. Laws by nature are intolerant, but they’re not bigots for being intolerant.
B. LAWS DEFINED
1. The system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties.
2. Without Law there can be no public order and policy. These can lead to chaos, malpractice, injustice, immoral and inequitable administration of justice.
3. Laws were created to protect the bodily persons of people, their rights, their property, and their consciences. Human laws originated from God, the Creator, and all His judgments are final.
C. PARADOX OF TOLERANCE
The “Paradox of tolerance” is the well-known problem that a ‘tolerant’ person is antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. It turns out that those who style themselves “tolerant’ are frequently more intolerant than those they label intolerant.
III. PERMISSIVENESS
A. IN VIRIOLOGY
“When a virus is able to circumvent host defenses and is able to replicate.” That’s what happens when we do not resist beliefs opposed to God’s laws; they circumvent our defenses and replicate themselves in us.
B. A PERMISSIVE SOCIETY
1. A PERMISSIVE SOCIETY is a society where social norms are becoming increasingly liberal. This usually accompanies a change in what is considered deviant. While typically preserving the rule "do not harm others", a permissive society would have few other moral codes (harm principle, no victimless crimes).
2. Aspects that often change as a society becomes more permissive:
a. Sexual freedom increases.
b. The power of religious groups subsides. The social and sexual revolution of the 1960s in Europe and America both in the new attitudes to the arts, abortion, homosexuality and capital punishment. Also commonly mentioned is the general loosening of Britain’s former adherence to Victorian values.
3. Permissiveness destroys the structure for a civilized and valid society. For example, since 1960:
a. Divorce rates rose from 25 to 50%; Marriage rate fell from 85 to 45%.
b. Poverty. Marriage drops child poverty 82%; 71% of poor families are unmarried!
c. Cohabiting Couples. There are now 8 million couples, and they are 2 to 4 times as likely to divorce if they do marry!
d. Sexually transmitted diseases, STDs. There are 19,000,000 new STD infections each year. 65,000,000 are living with an incurable STD. One out of four high school girls has an STD. 85% of the US population will get HPV during their lifetime!
e. Falling Education Scores, SAT scores down 14%.
f. Unmarried Births are now at 40%!
g. Early Sexual Activity: high with fatherless homes.
h. Crime of Children of fatherless homes. Incarceration rates started climbing rapidly in 1975, 15 years after the sexual revolution and the advent of the drug culture. The rates are still climbing.
4. The social engineers are clearly WRONG! They think a permissive society is a good thing; the results say they are dead wrong. Society is more benefitted by the structure that God set down than by their misguided concepts.
IV. MORALITY
A. LIBERALS Vs CONSERVATIVES
1. Haidt* found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and the remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest.
[Notes: ****Haidt, Jonathan and Graham, Jesse (2006).]
2. We believe in God’s absolutes, thus “fairness” is low. God values holiness higher than all other traits, that’s why we value purity.
B. THE AMORAL SOCIETY
1. THE GOAL OF SECULARISTS IS THAT WE HAVE AN ‘AMORAL’ SOCIETY.
2. "Amoral"means "having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong"(Dictionary.com, retrieved 2010-06-18).
CONCLUSIONS
1. DUE TO THE EFFECTS OF A PERMISSIVE SOCIETY], IT CAN BE ESTABLISHED THAT THE CONSERVATIVE/ BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW HAS SUPERIOR RESULTS AND IS WORTH HOLDING ONTO AND THEREFORE THAT THE ACCEPTANCE OF UNLIMITED TOLERANCE IS DAMAGING TO OUR FAMILIES AND SOCIETY.
2. GOD HAS DICTATED THAT CERTAIN BEHAVIORS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. GOD’S LAWS OUTLINE THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE OF HIS PEOPLE. WE SHOULD LOVE THE SINNER BUT NOT COMPROMISE THE MORAL IMPERATIVES THAT GOD HIGHLY VALUES.
3. PASTORS AND CHRISTIAN LEADERS NEED TO CLARIFY THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE AND REINFORCE CHRISTIAN VALUES BY REESTABLISHING THE POSITIONS SET OUT BY GOD, IN THEIR ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.
4. CHRISTIANS MUST BECOME IMMUNE TO THE FALSE CHARGES OF BIGOTRY OR LACK OF LOVE.
[Many of the definitions above were from Wikipedia or Dictionary.com. If you want the foregoing ideas in sermonic form, look up my sermon entitled, “Compromise? No, it’s time to stand up!”]
