If tolerance means that we discuss our disagreements with civility: deal. If tolerance means that we engage without the use of logical fallacies such as straw man and ad-hominem arguments, I’m game. If tolerance means approval, someone else said it better than me: “Yeah, that’s gonna be a ‘no’ from me, dawg.”
Can’t we all just get along?
Do you remember the feeling of freedom we had as kids? Imaginations running wild and streams of thought that flowed unimpeded by the dams of the daily grind! Do you remember the fun of playing ball or hide and seek, pretending you were a caped crusader or some other hero or heroine?
Despite our desire for unfettered freedom, even we knew there had to be structure, there had to be rules. Every game we played had some set of laws and many times, the rules are defined by the one who owns the ball and bat. My ball. My rules! This dictatorial rule of decree was often argued but seldom overturned. Sometimes there was a cry from one of the older, wiser kids: “Guys, can’t we all just get along?”
Growing up and getting on with it
Now let’s take that concept and fast-forward well beyond adolescence and into adulthood. We all know that rules apply to life, regardless of whether you accept God’s Word as the standard. We can testify to the fact that there are many fighting for the right to assert dominance and rule over others. Even in adulthood we hear the decree: “My ball. My rules!” And a lot of people are fighting for that ball.
Words matter, meanings matter more. Control the language, control the culture. This is the playing field in the culture wars and it’s plain to see! For example, if you only used the articles of the day to define words and terms, you’d be hard pressed to figure out that tolerance differs from approval. And by approval, they mean being “on the right side of history.”
Tolerance and intolerance
The modern cry for tolerance is not merely for allowance of diverging views. It is a cry of approval of certain views and condemnation of those who reject those views as false. In the name of “tolerance,” war is waged against those who are on the “wrong side of history.”
