Feb
7
Intolerance
Filed Under Devotional
“Can we all just get along?” Rodney King, 1992
I just realized that anyone under the age of 25 probably has no idea who Rodney King is. That’s okay, it’s not important.
The sentiment Mr. King has here is commendable, but naive. For a large number of random people to get along, one of two things has to happen. Either everyone involved must be forced to agree by a central authority or everyone must choose to allow anything to happen.
This, of course, is the folly of tolerance. Tolerance has come to mean accepting and even applauding people with different belief systems. In some cases it means being coerced to celebrate all belief systems as equally valid. When people aren’t tolerant enough, the laws are changed. (Notice how option two starts to look like option one when you have dissenters?)
Anyway, my point is that agreeing to be civil is pretty different from what tolerance means today. And if you qualify as tolerant and accepting, I would argue that you’ve basically chosen to leave any moral standards at the door. By definition, celebrating alternative morality means ignoring your own. It’s illogical and unreasonable to demand that people live that way.
“Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 97:10
That’s right. We are to hate evil. We are to judge sin. We are to draw a line in the sand between what is right and what is wrong and stand firm.
We need to be careful to separate the sin we hate from the sinner we love, but there is a place for rigidity. There is a place for intolerance.
I refuse to tolerate sin. I refuse to get along with immorality.