As I've thought about this, I looked in the Bible for pertinent passages. The word tolerance itself appears only twice in the New American Standard Bible--one reference is about God's tolerance (Romans 2:4) and the other is about disciples' (Ephesians 4:1-3). It reads, "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Then, of course, there are the synonyms of "tolerance" like forebearance, long-suffering, patience, etc. Most famously is the Savior's exhortation that we "turn the other cheek." However, most of these references seem to address forgiving the people who wrong us and not holding grudges, rather than simply tolerating a certain behavior. It would be easy to say that we are simply supposed to tolerate others--we'll do our thing and let them to their thing--but I don't think that is what the Bible teaches. Obviously, we are not supposed to be judgmental, in the negative sense of the word, but I don't believe a Christian life is a passive, "whatever" kind of life. For example, what are we to do with Christ's cleansing(s) of the temple which, coincidentally, is included in all four gospels? When should we too should oppose some societal tendency?
John 2:13-16--The Cleansing of the Temple
ReplyDelete13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; 16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”
Is this a precedent or an isolated incident?
Great question and complicated answer. Here are my brief first thoughts: Tolerance is overrated. As parents of young children we are encouraged to NOT tolerate bad behavior. When a child is screaming in a group setting, we take him/her out. When children attempt to run out in the road, we don't just tell them to stop, we discipline them to teach them safe actions. As the child grows older, however, our society has accepted tolerance over direction. Our society seems to fear standards or correction. Everything is simply relative, not right or wrong. As a society, we fear saying there is a right and wrong choices. Moral relativity seems to "parent" adulthood which has, in many ways, made the adult road less sure and definitely less safe and secure. We need to tolerate people, but we must learn how to politely communicate disagreements with actions that most likely end with bad consequences. Smoking is becoming un-tolerated because it has been identified as unhealthy both to the person smoking and as second hand smoke. Perhaps the same criterion should be used for other actions--does it harm the person participating in the actions or does it harm those around them. Harm must be identified broadly. Or course people deserve respect regardless or actions, but actions deserve honest judgement. Our whole criminal system is built on identifying what actions should not be tolerated, yet tolerance is many fringe groups war cry. Extreme intolerance is as abhorrent as total tolerance so a balance needs to be understood and sought for.
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