Intolerance: A Christian Virtue
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Popular opinion in these early years of the twenty-first century has assailed our minds with “politically correct” sentiment. In keeping with this viewpoint a garbage man ought to be dubbed a “sanitation engineer” and a short person is not short he is “vertically challenged.” Even the term thief might offend so we should adopt the more tolerant “ethically disoriented.” This paradigm bares its true farcical colors when traffic signs are marked in Braille so the blind aren’t offended!
Politically-correct extremes can even creep into the evangelical Christian church under the scriptural banner of “judge not lest ye be judged.” That is, it’s easy to think that Christian “love” excludes intolerance. Though no Christian should desire to flippantly judge, when we tolerate what God does not we have imbibed the culture we ought to affect.
Many Christians are appropriately intolerant toward moral “diversity” (at least rhetorically). When it comes to doctrinal issues though, we tend to tolerate unscriptural doctrinal “diversity” believing it to be “gracious.” Jude, however, taught the church of antiquity to “contend earnestly for the faith.” With thousands of evangelical Christian denominations perhaps we’d prefer to comfort rather than to contend. Contrary to tolerant Christianity, but in line with Jude, Paul also insisted that we not tolerate doctrinal corruption:
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple (Rom 16:17-18).
Regarding the term mark them in the preceding passage esteemed expositor James Strong notes that the phrase means “to take aim at.” Is it possible that Paul, the gentle apostle of grace, wanted believers to “take aim at” leaders within the Christian faith? When considered through the lens of modern “tolerance” notions such an idea does indeed seem offensive. Paul, however, demonstrated the lost Christian virtue of intolerance when he cautioned Timothy regarding Hymenaeus and Philetus whose doctrines “will spread like gangrene.”
Can you imagine the reaction a preacher today might receive if he said that another Christian leader’s doctrine “will spread like gangrene?” It’s easy to believe that Paul’s intolerance was probably always directed at some fringe teacher. Kindly consider, however, another example of Paul openly rebuking the most prominent church leader of early Christianity:
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs (Gal 2:14).
Paul openly criticized Peter in Galatians chapter two because when popular teachers are teaching error others are set adrift. Intolerance toward doctrinal blunders isn’t harmonious with modern “coexist” dogmas, but it is biblical. Because of Jesus’ manifest intolerance of errant doctrine the believers at Pergamum didn’t need to guess as to whose teaching they should avoid. “You also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,” warned Jesus, “which thing I hate.” (Rev 2:15).
In contemporary Christianity gracious tolerance at the expense of doctrinal integrity is often held as a virtue. In the bible, however, Jesus insists that His church test its leaders and practice the virtue of intolerance toward those who err. Tolerating an errant leader in the church of Thyatira the Christians there garnered the believers there a reproof which echoed through the generations:
Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols (Rev 2:20).
As with the dangerous doctrines of Jezebel (and even Peter) which led first century Christians astray, accepted teachers within the Christian church today disseminate dangerous doctrines which minimize sin and its consequences. And in contrast to the tolerance of our age, the Christian virtue of intolerance is the order of the day as ministers with big names, big money and bigger platforms serve up theological swill to the servants of Christ.
About the author: Daniel LaLond is the author of The Lying Promise. His book tests celebrated, but mistaken doctrine inside the modern Christian church. LaLond is a Christian, a husband, a father, a pastor, an author, and seminary graduate. He, his wife of 23 years and their four children reside in the Chicagoland area where he currently serves at Living Waters Assembly. Defending The Gospel.org
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Tags:
Bible, Christian Denominations, Christianity, Culture, Daniel LaLond, Denominations, doctrinal issues, Evangelicals, Evangelism, intolerance, intolerant, judge not lest ye be judged, moral diversity, Politics, popular opinion
