Dr Paul Allen

Zero Tolerance (1995 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Post-modernism's veneration of tolerance is its most obvious feature. But the version of "tolerance" peddled by post-modernists is actually a twisted and dangerous corruption of true virtue. Incidentally, tolerance is never mentioned in the Bible as a virtue, except in the sense of patience, forbearance, and longsuffering (cf. Ephesians 4:2 .) In fact, the contemporary notion of tolerance is a pathetically feeble concept compared to the love Scripture commands Christians to show even to their enemies. Jesus said, " Love your enemies , do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you" ( Luke 6:27-28 ; cf. vv. 29-36 ). When our grandparents spoke of tolerance as a virtue, they had something like that in mind. The word used to mean respecting people and treating them kindly even when we believe they are wrong. But the post-modern notion of tolerance mean...

Image via Wikipedia In a society obsessed with tolerance, we are actually not tolerant at all. It’s all a big lie, a big fiction, and we’re all playing along. In order to claim  tolerance  we’ve had to rewrite the definition of the term and in so doing we’ve put ourselves on dangerous ground.  Tolerance has become part of the Western “plausability structure”—a stance that is assumed and is not to be questioned. We are to be tolerant at all times. Well, almost all times, that is.  Tolerance presupposes disagreement. That’s the beauty of being tolerant—one person expresses disagreement with another but still tolerates him, accepting that differing views exists even while holding fast to his own. He puts up with another person even though they do not believe the same thing. But over time there has been a subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle shift in the word’s meaning. Today’s version of tolerance actually accepts all differing views.  We’ve gone fr...