Friends: Let’s not confuse tolerance with the truth. Opinions vary, but God’s truth should shape our lives. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #916

June 4, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Close Tolerances

By Bob Walters

“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why then are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” Habakkuk 1:13, the prophet speaks to God

I am fairly certain that I am not the only one studying the political, cultural, and educational American landscapes of late and reaching for the aspirin bottle.

All this head-shaking begins to hurt. Am I an open-minded, compassionate, and tolerant Christian? Yes, I believe I am. But do I see through the mirror to the other side of the secular image and sense that the specific virtue of “tolerance” – so insisted on by the crazies with the worst ideas in America – is the province of a one-way mirror?

Compassion isn’t giving someone their own way; it is helping them grow in Christ. Open-mindedness does not mean one’s brain becomes unmoored; it means God’s truth and reality grow brighter and more helpful.  Tolerance speaks to rational boundaries, not irrational social constructs meant to muzzle intellectual freedom and confuse our understanding of God’s creation, love, and purposes. It is not a new construct.

Habakkuk’s Old Testament lament of God wasn’t the evening TV news; it was the Babylonians whom God was preparing to turn loose on the Jews to conquer apostate Judah in 605 B.C.  “You’re going to let those awful Babylonians capture us? But … but …”

It is still nothing new today – when justice and sanity have gone akimbo – for humanity to turn to God and ask, “What gives?” Today’s Jews have to have much the same questions.  And Christians are held by secular society to a tolerance secular society cannot imagine being levied on itself: “You Christians must be respectful; while we disrespect everything you stand for.” I keep reminding myself: Jesus Christ was disrespected a lot.

A believing Catholic pro athlete delivers a Catholic message at a Catholic college graduation ceremony?  Harrison Butker hurt my feelings! Social blasphemy!  Hey!  Truth though it was, he wasn’t talking to you! As for me, I ordered one of Butker’s football jerseys.

Trump yes. Trump no. Trump 24/7. It is not Trump under the bus; it is the credibility of the American government and legal system … the one Romans 13 says God puts in place to keep order among his people.  We get what we earn.  Yikes.

And happy June, traditional month of brides and now the month of pride.  Feisty Canadian psychologist/author Jordan Peterson, whom I am sure any day now is going to come out as a spectacularly coherent Christian, was right over the target when he said this:  

“First of all, what are we celebrating?  ‘Pride’ is a cardinal sin.  And you might say, well, they don’t mean ‘pride’; they mean it’s a group of oppressed people and now they are finding their identity and they’re getting some security in that identity. [But] the word is ‘pride.’ That’s the word that was chosen and – as far as I can tell – it’s pride in relationship to nothing but hedonistic self-gratification. Your identity is going to be your sexual desire?” Peterson queries. “You’ve reduced your identity to the most immature and hedonistic part of you, the part that would exploit someone else for your own gratification. The part that would exploit you for your own gratification and now that’s your identity? It’s a very bad idea.”

Christians are expected to tolerate woke ideology and nefarious politics, but there seems to be no window in the public square where one can order up some tolerance for ideas that undergird family, Jesus, objective good, innocence of children, and dignity.

I think it is important that the secular world tolerate Harrison Butker and Jordan Peterson because their bones ooze truth.  Nobody is going to accuse President Trump of “oozing truth,” but he does have a knack for calling a spade a spade. I tolerate that.

Habakkuk called for God’s righteousness?  That’s a promise God always delivers.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can only say: careful what you wish for.