In an increasingly secular western world, there are growing numbers of non-religious and even anti-religious young people in our country. I enjoy dialoguing with these people, because they offer a perspective that is rarely encountered here at Houghton: a perspective without God in the picture. Oftentimes the conversation drifts towards the criticisms of Christianity in particular, since it is the largest and most influential faith in our society and since Christians tend to make themselves easy targets. While there are plenty of valid arguments that arise from the critic’s corner in these talks, one criticism that I hear over and over again bothers me because is often spewed without much thought. That would be the sentiment that “I dislike Christians because they are intolerant”.
Intolerance. What does that word mean? I think before answering this question, I should explain what it doesn’t mean. That’s because it is a word thrown around so casually and frequently in religious conversation that it can easily overstep its boundaries. Some people that I’ve talked to seem to think that Christians are intolerant just because they have exclusive beliefs that don’t fit into a relativistic culture. This just isn’t the case. Yes, Christianity could be classified (in most of its orthodox strains) as an exclusive religion. It affirms that Jesus Christ is the only way to most fully experience God in this life, and that Jesus is also the only way to gain access to God in the next life. By default, Christians must admit that other faiths are incomplete, misinformed, or at least lacking in some key way. Unfortunately for modern western Christians, this doctrine of exclusivity doesn’t bode well in a society that increasingly seeks to minimize religious differences, stress similarities, and ultimately claim that all faiths lead to the same place. Society basically puts all faiths “on the same team” in hopes that in this way religious tensions and sensitivities can be put to rest; so that instead the moral cores that religions tend to bring out in people could thus shine through. When a stubborn adherence to a non-relativistic belief system, such as that of Christianity, threatens the secular agenda, it is labeled as “intolerant” in order to scare or shame people away from the church. But this is an inaccurate label.
Believe it or not, a person who subscribes to an exclusive faith can indeed be as tolerant of other faiths as someone who doesn’t believe in any God at all. In fact, overzealous atheists and secularists, usually those who most often throw around the term “intolerant”, are actually a pot calling the kettle black. What most people don’t seem to recognize about the word “tolerance” is that it requires or assumes a degree of disagreement to be relevant. After all, what need is there for “tolerating” of a belief, lifestyle, ideology, or stance if you have no difference of opinion with that position? Then you would not be tolerating that position at all, but simply agreeing with it. Tolerance is the trait of having something you don’t fully agree with, and yet being okay with that. In a sense, tolerance is an “agreeing to disagree” with someone and respecting their right to hold that opinion with peace and dignity. For example, a Christian will not share the beliefs that a Hindu holds, but both men can still be friends and not let the differences in beliefs become a barrier to their relationship. The Christian can believe that the Hindu is mistaken in certain regards, but at the end of the day, the Hindu has reasons for believing what he does just as the Christian does, and has the right to retain those beliefs without feeling shamed or attacked.
What is intolerance then, and where does religious adamancy cross the line? Intolerance is where one not only disagrees with something, but fails to respect someone else’s rights to hold that belief. Intolerance can also cross the threshold of actually performing slander or violence against an opposing belief. This threshold has been crossed many times by both religious parties and secular groups, but is not necessitated by either. As I briefly alluded to earlier, many atheists or secularists who accuse Christians of intolerance are sometimes guilty of that very same thing. A main characteristic of the latest surge of “new atheism”, for example, has not only been the disagreement and argument against religion, but an aggressive and brutal slander of religion and religious followers. Certain prominent atheist speakers, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, have made out religious people to be necessarily deluded, uneducated, fanatical, or a detrimental threat to society. Taking away the dignity and respect from millions of people who have done nothing to deserve such a reputation is what makes the new atheist movement intolerant.
Christians can certainly fall guilty of the same sin, when evangelism or dogma turns into a weapon aimed against the intelligence, autonomy, morality, or dignity of an opponent.
There is also a time where it is a good thing to be intolerant. None of us would tolerate the murder of the children at Sandy Hook last month, for example. It is a moral imperative for people of all faiths to take active stands against the types of immorality or sentiment that cause harm to others. The difficulty comes in identifying what battles are those against threats to society and moral atrocities, and which ones are battles against a mere difference in belief. The responses to these different types of disagreement must be handled in different ways. Being a Christian does not require compromising one’s faith in order to be liked by other groups, nor does it require taking a sword to those who don’t share our beliefs. What Christians are commanded to do, among other things, is to love one another and to fight injustice. Against such things there is no law, and against such things there is no valid label of intolerance.