Want to love your neighbor today? Then stand against false tolerance

We live in an interesting, ever-changing, and challenging day. As Christians, learning to navigate such a reality can be very confusing and intimidating. In one of Jesus’ central teachings, he commands us to love our neighbor (cf. Mark 12:31). And while we can and should often do this by meeting physical needs, there is another vital, but often overlooked, application of this passage. We need to stand up for the possibility of truth. We need to protect the endangered species of honest disagreement concerning the nature of reality. Today a not so subtle battle is raging from newspapers columns to college classrooms concerning the nature of tolerance. There are 2 competing definitions:

• False Tolerance: We can make no judgments at all about the truth of others’ beliefs.
• True Tolerance: We allow others the freedom to hold beliefs which we judge to be false.

If we cannot tell our neighbors or ourselves the truth about reality, then we cannot really love them. Because love involves seeking another’s highest good, and goodness is anchored in reality (after all, the truth sets us free). We must fight the false tolerance that seeks to intellectually bully our culture into agreeing that every viewpoint (especially when it comes to religion and morality) is equally valid. We must speak up in love for the possibility of truth. Loving our neighbor requires this.

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Is Hell For Real? How Would You Answer?

Everyone is talking about hell these days. In response to Rob Bell's new book--love Wins--TIME magazine even had a cover story on it during Holy Week asking—Is Hell Dead? When it comes to this topic everyone has questions:

• How could a loving God send people to hell?
• Is hell forever?
• Will everyone be saved in the end?
• What about those who have never heard of Jesus?
• Did Jesus really believe in hell?

Last month I responded to these and other issues from a distinctively Christian worldview so that we can better understand what the Bible teaches about this topic and how we can engage others when these issues come up in conversations at work, home, or on campus (cf. 1 Peter 3:15).

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If I Had been born in India, would I Have been a Hindu?

The short answer to this question is that nothing really follows (with logical necessity) from where I happen to be born; the truth or falsity of a religion is not determined by where someone is born. Paul Copan responds, “the same line of reasoning applies to the pluralist himself. If the pluralist grew up in Madagascar or medieval France, he would not have been a pluralist!” Furthermore, this question seems to imply that people can’t escape the cultural views they were born into. Also, the number of conversions from within closed countries to a different belief system undercut the weight of this objection. Finally, the notion of the Christian God’s providential ordering of the world rules out people being born somewhere by historical accident:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of you." - Acts 17:24-27

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Are Christians intolerant? Should they be?

It is common to hear many in our culture say that Christians are intolerant, ignorant, bigoted and close-minded—the chief of those sins being intolerance. But should Christians be tolerant? Well, that depends on what one means by tolerance. There’s a lot of confusion out there because ‘tolerance’ is being defined in two very different ways.

The traditional understanding of tolerance means that you (1) extend to others the right to disagree with your opinions or beliefs (2) treat others with respect, fairness, and dignity even though you disagree with them and (3) recognize that all ideas and beliefs are not created equal (i.e., some ideas are better than others). Philosopher Paul Copan sums it up well, “if disagreement didn’t exist, then tolerance would be unnecessary….It is because real differences exist between people that tolerance becomes necessary and virtuous.”

The new definition of tolerance isn’t found in a textbook. It is more of a mood; a cultural background belief. But it is the default view for most people on the street and in the classroom. Disagreement itself is now what is intolerant. Today, someone can be treating another person with respect but arguing against what they believe and be labeled intolerant. This is especially true when it comes to ethics and religion; everyone’s deeply held beliefs must be validated regardless of how irrational they might seem.

So what happened to the traditional view of tolerance? Quite simply, truth was removed. If there is no truth, no fact of the matter then you can believe whatever you want. All views can be equally right because they are not describing anything real. They are not actually talking about the way things actually are. And one of the reasons truth is so unpopular is that it’s frustratingly and painfully exclusive. Reality is what we bump into when our beliefs are false.

Let’s illustrate how this plays out with an example: Jesus is the only way to God (cf. John 14:6). Now Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all disagree on this. As Christians, we should tolerate our Jewish and Muslim friends by doing our best to represent their views fairly and treat them with respect. But there is a fact of the matter. Either Jesus was not the Messiah (Judaism), was the Messiah (Christianity), or was a great prophet (Islam)—but not all three. They could all be false, but they can’t all be true!

Suggesting this kind of conversation is extremely unpopular and seen as the height of intolerance today. How dare you or anyone else say that someone else’s private beliefs are false? Unfortunately, this response may be unavoidable if we are faithful to what the Bible clearly teaches. But we are also called to love our neighbor, and loving others—willing their highest good—means telling them things they may not want to hear at the time (Luke 10:27).

A word of caution is needed here. If you or I come off as arrogant, condemning, or mean, then shame on us. That is not being a good ambassador for Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). We need to give an answer for the hope we have, yet always with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15 cf. Col. 4:6).

For more on dealing with common issues and challenges like these, check out Welcome to College:

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New "Narnia" Film Stirs Religious Controversy

C.S. Lewis' classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, opens this friday. And it is getting some headlines. ABC has an interesting article: "Case in point is Liam Neeson, who voices Aslan, the resurrected lion in the upcoming film. The actor said at a news conference last week that his character doesn't necessarily represent Christ. That might be news to Lewis, though, who wrote the opposite before he died in 1963...."Aslan symbolizes a Christlike figure, but he also symbolizes for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries," Neeson said.

Really?

Ahh yes...the old "all religions basically teach the same thing" and "that may be true for you but not for me" slogans at work once again in pop-culture. But this is instructive--look at what Neeson says: "but he also symbolizes for me Mohammed..." He subjectivizes the claim. He is no longer talking about reality out there somewhere (objective reality) but rather his own preferences, feelings, and tastes (subjective). As a matter of historical record it would be hard to find two historical figures more different than Jesus (who forgave and died for his enemies) and Mohammed (who killed his enemies and died for no one). I don't say this because I am a Christian or because I want to belittle Islam--this is simply a fact of history. And, regardless of preferences, no one (not even celebrities with cool voices) has the ability or authority to redefine reality according to their own desires.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Living as a citizen of the kingdom in the city of man

Politics. Few words are more controversial today. How should Christians, who seek to be thoroughly biblical, engage in the arena of politics? Great question. Here are three books to set you on your path and one just came out (City of Man by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner) with a foreword by Tim Keller.

Here is an interview with Michael Gerson by Hugh Hewitt.

These are challenging days. We need to think carefully and Christianly about how we engage in the public square.

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Do All Roads Lead to God?

Here is an excellent video by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig:

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:12 (1 Tim. 2:3-5; John 14:6)

Do All Roads Lead to God? from The Veritas Forum on Vimeo.

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Latest think Christianly Podcast - Spiritual But Not Religious?

CNN recently had an article about the growing number of emerging adults who are self-identifying as a "spiritual but not religious." What does this mean for Christianity and its claim to be Total Truth? Find out on the latest think Christianly podcast.

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Religion Among the Millennials

Here is the latest study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Political Life:

"By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents' and grandparents' generations were when they were young. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation - so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 - are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Indeed, Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20% in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13% in the late 1970s). Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives....." More

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Latest think Christianly Podcast - Britt Hume, Tiger Woods, and Christianity in the Public Square

Latest Think Christianly Podcast now available. Please enjoy, and subscribe today with iTunes. We will be podcasting more this year!

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Supreme Court will decide appeal of Christian student group

This story will be one to keep an eye on. Diversity, tolerance, identity, religious freedom, and other issues will be talked about.

See LA Times article...

Here is the press release from the Christian Legal Society:

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear lawsuit against UC-Hastings

High Court will hear case involving right of religious student organizations
to determine their own leadership

WASHINGTON — "The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to decide whether a public university can refuse to recognize a religious student group because the group requires its leaders to share its religious beliefs. Attorneys with the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom represent a student chapter of CLS, which Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco refused to recognize because the group requires all of its officers and voting members to subscribe to its basic Christian beliefs.

“Public universities shouldn’t single out Christian student groups for discrimination. All student groups have the right to associate with people of like-mind and interest,” said Senior Counsel Kim Colby with the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “We trust the Supreme Court will not allow Hastings to continue to deprive CLS of this right by forcing the group to abandon its identity as a Christian student organization.”

“Christian students have the right to gather as Christians for a common purpose and around shared beliefs,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor with the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “It’s completely unreasonable--and unconstitutional--for a public university to disrupt the purposes of private student groups by forcing them to accept as members and officers those who oppose the very ideas they advocate.”

CLS Litigation Counsel Timothy J. Tracey, now with ADF, argued the case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in March. The appellate court refused to reverse a district judge’s decision against CLS, so the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court."

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How Can Jesus Christ Be the Only Way to God?

The exclusivity of Christ is a Christian doctrine. But it does raise some difficult questions. The following article by William Lane Craig offers a reasonable way of working through them and a possible solution to those who have never heard good news.

Introduction

I recently spoke at a major Canadian university on the existence of God. After my talk, one slightly irate co-ed wrote on her comment card, “I was with you until you got to the stuff about Jesus. God is not the Christian God!”

This attitude is pervasive in Western culture today. Most people are happy to agree that God exists; but in our pluralistic society it has become politically incorrect to claim that God has revealed Himself decisively in Jesus.

And yet this is exactly what the New Testament clearly teaches. Take the letters of the apostle Paul, for example. He invites his Gentile converts to recall their pre-Christian days: "Remember that at that time you were separated from Christ, aliens to the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2.12). It is the burden of the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans to show that this desolate condition is the general situation of mankind. Paul explains that God’s power and deity are made known through the created order around us, so that men are without excuse (1.20), and that God has written His moral law upon all men's hearts, so that they are morally responsible before Him (2.15). Although God offers eternal life to all who will respond in an appropriate way to God's general revelation in nature and conscience (2.7), the sad fact is that rather than worship and serve their Creator, people ignore God and flout His moral law (1.21-32). The conclusion: All men are under the power of sin (3.9-12). Worse, Paul goes on to explain that no one can redeem himself by means of righteous living (3.19-20). Fortunately, however, God has provided a means of escape: Jesus Christ has died for the sins of mankind, thereby satisfying the demands of God's justice and enabling reconciliation with God (3.21-6). By means of his atoning death salvation is made available as a gift to be received by faith.

The logic of the New Testament is clear: The universality of sin and uniqueness of Christ's atoning death entail that there is no salvation apart from Christ. As the apostles proclaimed, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4.12).

This particularistic doctrine was just as scandalous in the polytheistic world of the Roman Empire as in contemporary Western culture. Early Christians were therefore often subjected to severe persecution, torture, and death because of their refusal to embrace a pluralistic approach to religions. In time, however (more...)

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Christian Review of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Ben Witherington reviews Dan Brown's newest novel, the Lost Symbol. Yes, the author of the Da Vinci Code is at it again. With a print run of 5 million, it will leave a mark.

"Its Number One on Amazon, and has gone to the top of several best seller lists, and the reviews are pouring in for Dan Brown's latest blockbuster novel, sure to be made into a movie. But even Mr. Brown's fans, reviewing the book on Amazon, are about equally divided as to whether this novel makes Mr. Brown a dude or a dud...."For More...

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Homeschooled Girl Ordered to Attend Public School Over Her 'Rigid' Faith

Came across this article...very interesting

"Amanda Kurowski is a 10-year-old homeschooled girl who performs well academically and is socially well-adjusted. But her strong Christian beliefs were reason enough for a New Hampshire court to order her out of homeschooling and into a public school.

The daughter of divorced parents, Amanda has been homeschooled by her mother, Brenda Voydatch since first grade. Her father, Martin Kurowski, is opposed to homeschooling, arguing that it prevents "adequate socialization" for Amanda with other children. He requested that she be placed in a government school.

In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the Guardian ad Litem – who acts as a fact finder for the court – reported that Amanda was found to "lack some youthful characteristics," partly because "she appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith."

The GAL concluded that Amanda "would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs." (more)

I do wonder if a child of an atheist family--who thought they could do a better job homeschooling their children than sending them to public school--would be critiqued in the same manner if their child showed similar "rigidity" to people of faith? hmmm....

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What is the New Atheism?

I am speaking on this topic this Thursday at Fellowship Bible Church Brentwood, click here for details. If you are in the area, come on out.

Here is a 2 minute video of Tim Keller on the New Atheism. It is important that we engage the issues and arguments (i.e., not demonize critics of Christianity), but do so with gentleness and respect (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15-16):

Case for Faith by Lee Strobel DVD

This is a great resource exploring the difficult questions of how Jesus can be the only way and if there is a God, and he is good and all-powerful--then why evil?

This is a high quality, honest and engaging DVD.

The Case for Faith

Will We See Gandhi in Heaven?

This question was raised recently at a gathering of college students (the Oasis). We had a good discussion and it is a very good question.

Gandhi, a very moral person, far exceeds the moral lives lived by many Christians. Moreover, what about those who have never heard of Jesus? difficult questions to be sure.

There are two ways to respond to this. Biblically or Emotionally. If we don't want to be biblical, then answering these questions become much easier. So as we think about these issues, we need to let the Bible define the key boundaries of the discussion.

Here are 12 that I have found helpful and I think they will help us see where the appropriate place to admit tension and mystery is. A biblical answer must include the following:

1. God is compassionate and just (Gen. 18:25; Deut. 32:4; Ps. 7:9; 85:11; 89:14; 145:8-9; Rev. 16:7)
2. All are sinners in need of a savior (Rom. 3:10-18, 23; 5:12-21; 6:23; Eph. 2:1-3)
3. Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim 2:5; 1 John 2:2)
4. God desires all to be saved (Ezek. 18:23; John 3:16; 1 Tim. 2:3-6; 2 Pet. 3:9)
5. God has revealed himself to the whole world both in creation (Ps. 19:1-2; Acts 14:15-17; Rom. 1:19-20) and human conscience (Eccl. 3:11; Rom. 2:14-16) so that people are without excuse
6. Christians are commanded to take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8)
7. God’s Spirit is at work convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11)
8. God has commanded us to take the gospel to the whole world (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8)
9. God has providentially arranged the world so that people might seek him (Acts 17:24-28)
10. There will be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation in heaven (Rev. 7:9)
11. The awful reality of hell indicates that everyone is not saved in the end (Matt 10:28; 25:31-46; 2 Thess. 1:7-9)
12. There does not seem to be a second chance after death to accept the gospel (Heb. 9:27)

Take some time to look up these passages and allow them to shape the discussion. More to come. If you found this helpful, you can find more information on questions surrounding religious pluralism in my book Welcome to College.