One of the main complaints against the Church today is that it is intolerant: intolerant of other beliefs, intolerant of other lifestyles, intolerant of anything that disagrees with it. To this accusation, any self-respecting Christian should gladly plead "guilty." However, the Christian should also point out that, in calling us out on our intolerance, the accuser is himself being intolerant. We say, "You shouldn't do 'x'." The world says, "Oh, you shouldn't say 'shouldn't,' that's being intolerant." And this would be hilarious if the world got the joke. Anyway... you guys know this: this is Logic 101. The real point of this post is to say that tolerance is only the world's garbage version of something Christ had and the Church should have in abundance: love.
For some weird reason, the world sees the two as the same thing, or at least closely linked. They think that if you loved someone, you would be tolerant of their beliefs--if you are intolerant, that is proof that you do not love them. I have frequently seen people say that Christians should act more like Jesus--stop being so intolerant and show some love, you know? Alright, let's see what Jesus did. John 8: the pharisees bring a woman guilty of adultery to Jesus. Jesus blasts the pharisees, right? The pharisees were being intolerant, and Jesus wasn't having any of that! Just look at what he says to the woman: "I do not condemn you." See? Jesus is being so tolerant of the woman's "alternative lifestyle." (Note: this was sarcasm. I only say that because sarcasm is difficult to transmit through text). Read the very next words: "Go, and sin no more." By saying that, Jesus is being intolerant of her lifestyle of sin. He is not going to tolerate it. We do not see "tolerance" from Jesus: neither do we see the hateful garbage that certain "churches" spew on a daily basis. Instead, we see love.
And love is not some sort of crappy, lukewarm "middle ground." Love is fiery and passionate and active and moving--it seeks to change the bad and preserve the good, because it knows that the bad really is bad, and the good really is good. Jesus does not condemn the woman, because she has repented: but he immediately follows up with a command to sin no more. Love must include both of these sentiments, or else it is not love at all. Love is an active combination of acceptance of the person and rejection of the sin--and both acceptance and rejection must be extreme, even fanatical.
I wasn't going to say this, but I feel that this note demands it. Right now, in our fallen world, love has an integral, necessary counterpart: hate. Just as we are commanded to love people, we are commanded to hate what is evil. We cannot love people without hating sin. If we try, we will forget hate, and soon we will forget love. And there will be only silence as we sit and quietly tolerate our world, quite literally, to death.
