The push for non-judgmentalism and tolerance and reckless acceptance of all things harms us all, and harms cultures and nations as well. Being free of all limits, constraints and boundaries may sound quite liberating, but in the end it simply and inevitably leads to servitude, and finally, to death.

That worldlings can greatly misunderstand and misconstrue what tolerance is all about is understandable. That so many Christians can do the same is not. But of course the long-standing meaning of the term ‘tolerance’ has changed radically over recent times.

It used to reflect the well-known adage attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. One could disagree—and disagree strongly—with what someone had said yet still tolerate the person saying it.

Tolerance of course presumes disagreement. If you love your wife and agree on most things, you have no need to tolerate her. But today the notion of tolerance has been turned on its head. Now tolerance means you must agree with what the other person is saying, or you are a narrow-minded bigot, and guilty of the sin of intolerance!

And this is used all the time by the secular left. If you dare to differ with them and their beliefs, values, lifestyles and activities, you are an evil intolerant hater who should be removed from polite society. So if you dare to insist that marriage is between a man and a woman, that children have a fundamental right to their own mother and father, that killing babies if not morally acceptable, or that Islam is not a religion of peace, you are called every name in the book.

There is now NO tolerance coming from the secular left even though they are the ones shouting ‘tolerance’ the loudest and the most often. So the conservative and Christian just has to expect this as the new normal. But of course this is a recipe for cultural and civilisational suicide.

No one and no nation can last long in a ‘let’s just tolerate everything and condemn nothing’ climate. It is a path to certain ruin. Without drawing boundaries and maintaining limits, we are just in a moral and mental meltdown. The Christian should know this.

Scripture makes this clear. Recall that God himself is NOT tolerant and does not wink at everything. As Habakkuk, speaking of God, puts it in Habakkuk 1:13: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” And Paul said this: “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9).

We should never tolerate that which is evil, sinful, false, or contrary to Scripture. As our Lord said of the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2:20-21: “But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.”

Years ago A. W. Tozer had it right when he said in Man: The Dwelling Place of God:

A new Decalogue has been adopted by the neo-Christians of our day, the first word of which reads ‘Thou shalt not disagree;’ and a new set of Beatitudes too, which begins ‘Blessed are they that tolerate everything, for they shall not be made accountable for anything.’ It is now the accepted thing to talk over religious differences in public with the understanding that no one will try to convert another or point out errors in his belief…. Imagine Moses agreeing to take part in a panel discussion with Israel over the golden calf; or Elijah engaging in a gentlemanly dialogue with the prophets of Baal. Or try to picture our Lord Jesus Christ seeking a meeting of minds with the Pharisees to iron out differences.

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