You Ever Notice Nobody Talks About Tolerance Anymore?

We got duped

Everybody who's played a down of backyard football knows the value of a good pump fake. Look one way, wind up like you're going to throw the ball there, get the defender to take the bait, and then throw the ball to your now wide open teammate. It's a potent trick.

Well... Christianity got pump-faked by postmodernism.

"There's not really any one truth, it's all subjective," they said. "Speak your own truth." Hard-line stands on any particular belief were viewed as insensitive, unloving, offensive. Tolerance became the #1 virtue to uphold. Most of you are old enough to remember when that word was everywhere.

In response, churches started to move toward a lowest common denominator faith. What is the least amount of doctrinal essentials we can maintain, thereby letting each member be free to have their own truths on everything else?

The emergent movement grew to the point where they essentially had zero essentials. Others didn't go quite so far, but opted for a "Gospel-centered" movement that, on the surface, sounds reasonable. But, they then defined the Gospel as having to do almost solely with salvation.

The reign of Christ over all of life was lost in the process.

We decided not to meet the culture’s dogmas with the Scriptural truths that can combat them. How you want to live your life and run your house was up to you—outside of a couple of basic Christian principles.

Now, look around you. Is anybody actually a postmodernist anymore?

"Cancel culture" showed us the world is every bit as dogmatic as the most religious people you know. They have definitive rights and wrongs, inarguable sins and good deeds. They aren't letting everybody have their own truth. No, they're deeply religious, advocating for their deeply-held convictions.

What ever happened to tolerance? As Dune novelist Frank Herbert once wrote, “When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.” They didn’t want tolerance. They didn’t believe in “everyone’s truth.” They just wanted to win.

Postmodernism was just a short-lived trick—a pump fake. And like a rookie defender, we took the bait. This is not a level playing field in which everybody can bring their own truths. It's a battlefield with two competing truths: God's, and man's.

They tricked us with the idea that we could all leave behind our convictions for Sunday and our personal lives in order to coexist peacefully in the workplace, schoolroom, and polis. And when we agreed to leave our convictions out, they kept sneaking theirs in.

But now that we understand the play being run, we can respond to it properly.

A "live and let live, least common denominator" faith cannot stand up to a competing faith system. We have to have a robust, complete system of faith of our own. And fortunately, the Bible gives us just that.

So let's teach it. And let's stop worrying about who might leave if they're offended by clear Scriptural teaching. They aren't allowed to have their own truth. None of us are. Postmodernism was a joke, and it's time we let it die.

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Notes

The output here has decreased a bit lately as I’ve been dealing with a few health issues, but you can still catch me on this week’s Think Deeper Podcast episode on VBS, Worship, and the Place of Reverence.

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