Chapter Five
The Age of Tolerance

Many modern Christians are victimized by the evolutionary process that has created a climate of toleration for the shameful scandal of sectarian religious chaos. The diverse multiplication of cults, dogmatic systems, and denominations only gets worse as time passes, partly because each generation has been progressively taught to be more tolerant than the previous one. Today, it is counted scandalous if we do not tolerate all these deviant religious practices to the point of tacit approval.
This modern condition is understandable, when viewed against the background of intolerance displayed by religious tyrants in the Dark Ages, in medieval times, and even during the Protestant Reformation. During those ages, those who were branded heretics were imprisoned, tortured, drowned, put to the sword, burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, and subjected to other vicious means of punishment devised in the perverse minds of mankind. Hundreds of thousands of lives were sacrificed to the cause of maintaining a religious status quo.
When the Protestant Reformation began in the 16th Century, the territorial rivalries of the Protestants and Catholics led to religious wars made infamous by ruthless massacres, mass deportations, and executions without trial. Ulrich Zwingli, the great Swiss reformer, labored valiantly to free the Swiss soldiery from being made mercenary instruments in these religious wars, especially in the army of the Pope, but was willing to use these same soldiers to fight wars against Roman Catholic cantons in Switzerland, in order to put an end to the practice. However, when the Anabaptists extended his reformation views beyond his intent, he eventually began to believe in religious coercion, though not to the degree of his Catholic enemies. There followed scourgings, imprisonments, and drownings by the civil authorities in Zurich against presumed heretics. Though disapproving of the severity of the civil magistrates, Zwingli conceded that desperate times required desperate measures. When Zwingli was killed in a battle with Catholic forces, he was so hated by his victorious enemies that his body was tied to horses, and literally ripped apart as an example of the infamy of becoming a Protestant.
To compound the problem, the Protestant Reformation, victoriously independent of the Pope, with its sense of freedom from ecclesiastic authority, became a new hothouse for breeding more independency, and incubated many new sects which sprang up in the areas influenced by the great reformers, Luther, Zwingli, and later, Calvin. These Protestant Reformers, who previously had begged the Catholics for the freedom to go their own way, were now appalled when they saw the disunity instigated by the multiplication of sects. The tradition of intolerant religious coercion, learned from Catholicism, was retained in the growing verbal strife of Protestant sectarianism, causing many a sincere soul to suffer martyrdom.
The famous Plymouth Pilgrims, with their desire to break away from the Church of England, were forced to seek isolation from church authorities, escaping persecution first in Holland, then later by coming to the shore of Massachusetts. After a firm hold was gained in the New World, however, these "Separatists," who fled intolerance in England, exercised it against those they branded as heretics in America! Though they were less severe than Catholics in their punishments, the stocks, the lash, the prison, the dunking chair, and other means of corporal punishment were used to impose their beliefs on others.
Growing aversion to religious intolerance caused the leaders of the emerging United States to take an unprecedented step, the prohibition against the establishment of a "State Church." Gradually, the states of the new Union which had recognized State Churches severed their connections from them, and the age of tolerance began. Physical violence over religious differences gradually waned in this country, under a combination of constitutional litigations and the onslaught of toleration propaganda, until it has now become an abomination even to say anything critical of another person's religious views. Tolerance comes full circle when it evolves to the point that the mildest of critics of the religious views of others are severely and intolerantly criticized by the ultra-tolerants, a ludicrous evolution, to say the least.
So, today, many Christians refuse to speak against false doctrines and false teachers, being afraid of the backlash of rebuke constantly flaring from the ranks of the avant garde of toleration." It has been said millions of times in the hearing of Christians, "Don't argue about religion or politics." These taboos are the product of the Age of Tolerance.
Another offspring of this age is seen in the rise of such organizations as "The National Conference of Christians and Jews," and similar groups connecting men of diverse views in Protestant and Catholic sects. There are even those which associate Muslims, or Buddhists or Hindus together with Christian-oriented groups.
In some circles, it has become extremely unfashionable to deny the existence of true spirituality, and the presence of spiritual benefit, in non-Christian religions. Yet, the ultimate test of the spiritual validity of these groups should be made by comparison to the spirituality taught in the Word of God, the Bible. In it, we are told that Christians, through the "exceedingly great and precious promises" of God, may become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). Only in this transformation is true spirituality to be found. This is accomplished by being "renewed in the spirit of our minds," and and "putting on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ephesians 4:23-24). The Gentiles of New Testament times sought spirituality in a multitude of superstitious cults and mystical religions, but Paul saw no spiritual value in any of them, and classified all people involved in them as "having no hope and without God in the world," because they were "separate from Christ" and "strangers from the covenants of promise" (Ephesians 2:11-12). To inquisitive Athenians surrounded by a plethora of altars to strange Gods, Paul said, "The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commands men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31). The Christian, therefore, is prompted by these truths to be intolerant of departures from the truth, because he recognizes the intolerant nature of Christianity!
Yes, Christianity is intolerant, because God is intolerant. His basic original command to Israel, spoken through the terrifying smoke and fire of Mt. Sinai, was, "You shall have no other gods before Me." He followed that with prohibitions against bowing to and serving graven images of any creature, and said, "For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God..." (Exodus 20:3-5). The Children of Israel were slow learners, however. Less than two months later some restless souls among them had grown so despondent about the return of Moses from atop Mt. Sinai (where he had gone by their request to receive the laws of God), that they made a golden calf, and proclaimed a feast to Jehovah in honor of it. God was so angry that He was willing to destroy all Israel, because of this rapid and sensual defection, but Moses reminded Him of the loss of reputation He would suffer by such an act, and God relented (Exodus 32:1-14).
From that day, God and Israel began a millenia-long conflict regarding idolatry. He claimed by abundant evidence to be the only God (Deuteronomy 4:32-35), and He refused to allow the worship of any deity imagined and invented by men (Deutereonomy 6:13-15). He sent prophets to denounce their idolatry, and predicted dire consequences if they continued in it (Jeremiah 32:26-35, 30:12-15; 2 Chronicles 36:14-16).
God showed extreme patience, mercy, and even tolerance toward the nation of Israel. But finally, at the end of the millenium, His patience wore thin and He punished the idolaters. In captivity in Babylon for seventy years, all that generation of idolaters perished, and those who survived then yearned for the "Old Paths." God heard their supplications, and restored them to the land of their impenitent fathers, never more to practice idolatry. Four hundred years of faithfulness followed, until Jesus came and called them to seek God through Himself. At that time, however, the old stiffnecked attitude revived in many of them, and they rejected Jesus as the Christ, in spite of all the undeniable evidences to support His claim.
So, God turned to the Gentiles to seek a "people for His own possession." Paul rebuked the perceptive errors of the Athenians about God, and showed them that His tolerance of pagan idolatry was at an end (Acts 17:24-31). The Jews, on the other hand, now purged from the practice of worshipping false gods, were to be punished for rejecting their Messiah, Jesus, the chosen one of God. In Romans 9:22-10:4, the Apostle Paul justifies the measures taken by God against those who rejected Jesus, but leaves the door of repentance open for them in Romans 11:25-32. Seldom will one find a modern Jew who has forsaken his fleshly heritage to become a Christian, but until Jews of today are willing to employ the grace of God, and salvation in Christ, they must stubbornly linger in their state of unbelief, and be condemned.
Jesus gave the Jews the first ultimatum, when he said to them, "You will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He (that is, the Christ), you will die in your sins" (John 8:24). Later, He commanded His disciples to "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:15-16).
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). None of the writers of the New Testament moderate this narrow statement. They do not suggest, or even hint of alternative routes to God. They began their work by saying that Jesus was the proverbial "stone which was rejected... which has become the chief cornerstone," and continued by saying, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:11-12). Jesus had previously proclaimed this truth, by saying to intransigent Jews, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: `The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD'S doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder" (Matthew 21:42-44). To set this truth in concrete, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Timothy 2:5-6, and compare Philippians 2:9-11, which says of Christ, "Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Therefore, the Bible being true, and the exclusive guide for the Christian, there can be no tolerance for any human being who will not recognize Jehovah as the only God, and confess only Jesus as the Christ, the savior of all mankind. This includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and anti-Christian cults of all kinds. The tolerant voices of Conventional Wisdom say, however, "It is arrogant, or disgraceful, or uncharitable, or ludicrous, or bigoted, or vicious (or any number of other slanderous descriptions), for a Christian to say that his religion is better than others." But Conventional Wisdom must not direct the faith of the true Christian. He faces the obligation to be checked by reality, by the truth of the inspired Word of God.
This is not to say that the Christian must practice his intolerance (which reflects that of God) in a spirit of violence or coercion against unbelievers. There is also a Reality Check raised in his Bible against such an attitude. He must follow such rules as Galatians 6:10, which reads, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith." He must heed the instruction of the Apostle Peter, who counsels the Christian to use his moral conduct and submission to civil authority as the means to influence the unbelieving world (1 Peter 2:11-17, 3:13-16). Paul urges the same thing (Titus 2:1-8; Philippians 2:12-16; Romans 12:17-20; etc.). If there is any vengeance to be exercised on unbelievers, God and Christ will do it (Romans 12:19, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).
Beyond this, there is the duty of the Christian to practice his non-violent intolerance by refuting false teaching. In regard to the moral evil in the world, Paul commands us to walk as children of light, and to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them" (Ephesians 5:3-14). In regard to false religion, he commands us to "preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their desires, having itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables" (2 Timothy 4:1-4).
The radical spirit of tolerance that pervades our age persuades many Christians (who should know better) to react to situations in unfitting ways. For example: suppose that a Christian's friend, who is a disciple of a false religious system, dies without having turned to the truth. Under the glare of the ultra-tolerants of this world, the Christian is expected to grant that his dead friend is in no spiritual peril because of his practice of false religion. Sincerity alone is said to be the key element and the only requirement in obtaining spiritual security. The truths revealed in the Bible are not to be considered exclusively true, they say, and the Christian is condemned as unloving, even hateful, if he expresses any doubt whatsoever as to the spiritual welfare of the dead friend. If the message of the Bible is to be believed as the inspired and immutable Word of God, however, the Christian cannot find any comfort merely in the sincerity of the dead. Sincerity must be tied to truth to be of any spiritual benefit at all.
The basic message of the Age of Tolerance is that Christianity is no more valid as a religious system than any of the other competitive religions of our world. The Christian has merely made a choice among many valid religious options. Faced by the claims in the Bible that Christ and Christianity are the only way to God and eternal life in heaven, the call for tolerance preached by the strident voices of Conventional Wisdom causes many to accept a watered-down version of Christianity, amended and gutted of its essential dogmas by liberal teachers, in order to make it compatible with other religions. The intolerant view that Christianity is the only valid religious system for mankind is branded by the disciples of the Age of Tolerance as "intolerable."
With this spirit of ultra-tolerance (which is often manifested by a spirit of intolerance toward those who do not agree with them) the leaders of Liberal Christianity are setting themselves up for a mighty shock. Muslim Fundamentalism is on the rise everywhere in the world. Historically, terror, war, and religious hatred abound where it has had influence. The reason? The Muslim Fundamentalist believes strongly in the exclusive validity of his religion, just as the Christian who is faithful to Bible Reality Checks does for his, and the two systems are in conflict for the minds of men. Both consider the other as heretical. the only difference between them is that the fundamentalist Muslim believes in the ultimate option of Jihad,"holy war" against those whom he considers heretics, and the true Christian does not. Unworthy representatives of medieval Christianity, posing as "soldiers of the cross," may have once believed in "war against the infidel," mounting military Crusades against them, but there is no authorization for such physical religious coercion in the New Testament.
In spite of the disparity of these views, Christianity is not doomed to perish at the hand of the militants of Muslim Fundamentalism. God is on the throne in the affairs of men, and "vengeance belongs to Him." Christianity must meet the warlike militancy of Islam with its own militant peacemaking spirit. The Lord does not need our military might to bring false religion down. Even if the faithful unresisting Christian falls before the sword of Muslim intolerance, he has nothing to fear, for nothing can separate him from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:35). Then he answers his own question, by saying "I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).
Though tolerance is the cornerstone of liberal Christian thinking, the Christian touched by the force of Scripture cannot help but be a conservative, believing in the authenticity and complete authority of the Scriptures, and accepting every Reality Check offered in its divine pages against the Conventional Wisdom of liberalism. Intolerance of religious error is the Christian's basic motivation to "make disciples" of those within the fold of error, prompted by sincere love of every soul that will hear the truth, love it, and obey it. He cannot love the infidel, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jew, or the Hindu, or the cultist, apart from showing them the mercy of attempting to evangelize them, so that he can "snatch them out of the fire."