Dr Paul Allen

In working with unbelievers and believers alike, we’re called to live and labour in a manner worthy of the gospel (Phil. 1:27). We should be quick to humbly confess and repent when we fall short of it. But how should we respond to coworkers who’ve taken offence not over our own actions but over those of other Christians? 1. Listen with humility. In the face of frequent, embittered accusations that all Christians are prejudiced or malignant, it may be tempting to respond with defensiveness, resentment, or even retaliation. But humility is defusing and disarming. Even the strongest and proudest among us may be persuaded by patience and a soft tongue (Prov. 25:15). Our best first step is to genuinely listen. This is more active (and self-forgetful) than silently crafting a rebuttal while the other person speaks. It involves praying for a tender heart that’s moved with compassion over the wrongs others have experienced as we mourn with those who mourn (Rom. 12:15). Our coworkers (or others...

In the Cultural Marxist account of history that has been growing in popularity and influence since the 1960s, Christianity is the villain. This is actually a new phenomenon, and because it is an anti-establishment narrative that has arisen from within the academic establishment, people have yet to come to terms with just how radical it is.  It is a product of the Sexual Revolution and the moral transvaluation of all values in the sexual realm. To be sure, Christianity has had its critics within the West for generations.  Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon argued that because Christianity was intolerant of paganism, believed in miracles, saw earthly improvement in terms of virtue rather than in material goods, and, above all, comforted itself in a belief in a better life after death, it was the bygone relic of another era and belonged on the ash heap of history. In more recent days, the New Atheists have argued similarly.    Christians irrationally believe in the s...

“For you, being so wise, tolerate the foolish gladly. For you tolerate it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face.” – 2 Corinthians 11:19–20 – The Corinthians had a tolerance problem. Earlier in the chapter, Paul said something similar. “For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” They bear with false teaching. They tolerate the intolerable. A Redefinition of Tolerance In the last 10 to 15 years, the worldview of postmodernism has come to dominate the collective intellectual consciousness of western society. And perhaps the pinnacle virtue of postmodernism is tolerance. Now, contemporary postmodern tolerance is not what English-speaking peoples have always understood the word tolerance to mean . A person was judged to be tolerant if,...

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...