The issue of “tolerance” is a key term in our society today. It is used to reframe the debate in countless areas. Somehow, claiming that some one is intolerant has become the unpardonable sin of any conversation or issue.
Dr. D.A. Carson’s new book, The Intolerance of Tolerance, evaluates the inconsistency and incoherence of this view.
This short 5 minute excerpt of of audio on YouTube is worth your undivided attention if you would like to be relevant in dialogue in our society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9PVJlnvVeSM
Also, Monergism is having a sale on this hardcover book that is a terrific deal. Click here to check it out.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this issue. Listen to the audio first and then add your comments.
Tim
. . . As I Follow Christ 
I thought Ryan Dobson put it best when he entitled his book Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid
“Now tolerance means that you must say that nobody is wrong.” “You are not in a position to say that anything is wrong.” Another example of how crafty and deceptive Satan is.
Provided is a link with news about Vanderbilt University’s crackdown on religious groups with their “nondiscrimination” policy — http://nation.foxnews.com/vanderbilt-university/2012/02/01/vanderbilt-university-defends-crackdown-religious-groups — Perhaps this news story will help others understand how the highjacking of this word “tolerance” and it’s re-definition is reaching out into our society and culture and affecting rules, policies, legislation, etc…. It is corrupting people with its deception.
People who stay silent are, in effect, giving permission for this kind of thought to prevail. It can be such a convoluted subject — I listened to the audio clip several times – and would probably pick up more information if I listened to it several more times again.
The bottom line to all this is that in our society that tries to be kind of all inclusive, which is good in a lot of things as far as equal rights, fair treatment of people, etc., but does not apply in ways when we think about God. This all is in essence an attack against Christianity in it’s purest form, as God operating out of His Sovereignty can choose to save whom He wants and not whom He wants out of nothing but His Own Eternal and Internal Sovereign Counsel within Himself. The message of the cross is really, when it comes down to it, an exclusive message which saves only the elect. When Jesus says things like “whoever is not for Me is against Me, and He who does not gather with Me scatters,” and speaks of people being dead in their trespasses and sins, well, this will not be tolerated by some people. Speaking these things is part of what Jesus chose us out of the world to be doing, and where Jesus says “the world will hate you,” (for saying such as what I have said), is directly linked to such people wanting to be tolerant of everything but such “exclusivity,” in a way
Really what people do not and will not tolerate is the truth that all are sinners, and the fact that if you really asked God to be “fair,” He could save no one, but for His Glory does save some, and that from His Own Eternal and Internal Sovereign Counsel from within Himself, as Romans 9 is saying, as to whom it is His Gracious Will to save, and not to save. This is when it comes right down to it, the bottom line what people are intolerant of, and are at enmity with God about. When it comes down to some more specifics, we know some general things about the revealed Sovereign Mind of God, but as far as certain specific things (such as who may be an elect to come),
and other things, when one speaks out on such as abortion, and them being actually a person at conception, that God created in His image (as Jesus was in the womb of Mary, Jeremiah saying along the lines of “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and Paul saying in Galatians 1 along the lines of “He who set me apart before I was even born), and we are not to
“play God” in such things, that the world will also be intolerant of (as far as after a person is born, God still has the right to do with them whatever He chooses, though).