Tolerance

Tolerance

Is it possible for tolerance to harm the objects of tolerance?

 Can good parents tolerate that which injures their child?

 Could good friends allow their friends to persist in behavior that is injurious to them?

As cultural commentator Mary Eberstadt has clearly and powerfully documented, the rise of secularism and the so-called sexual revolution have produced six decades of "unprecedented rates of divorce, cohabitation, abortion, and fatherlessness."

She adds: "The modern diminutions of family and faith exact a civilizational toll. It's hard to believe we are better off in a world where many men will never know the joy and spiritual deepening of fatherhood; where many women reach middle age without ever having held a baby, let alone having loved and nurtured one from birth to adulthood; and where growing swaths of the population will never encounter many of the greatest treasures of the human patrimony—i.e., the art and literature and philosophy of Judeo-Christianity."

"Bad ideas have victims"

Jesus was the greatest lover of humans in human history. He embraced lepers (Matthew 8:3), welcomed "tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 9:10), befriended notorious villains (Luke 19:1–10), and died for all sinners across all time (Romans 5:8). But he loved us enough to speak the truth we needed to hear. 

He exposed personal sin (John 4), called hypocrites to repentance (Matthew 23), and challenged humanity to the highest standards of holiness ever articulated (cf. Matthew 5–7).

Now he is calling us to follow his example.

In a world where omicron is raging and new pandemics may be on the horizon, where the future is as unpredictable as it is frightening, it is vital that we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), knowing that God's word and will are always best for God's creation.

John Stonestreet noted: "Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims."