If Christians really cared about promoting peace and love, they wouldn’t be so flipping INTOLERANT!

Some Christians are intolerant, and the word is not being used unfairly every time it is aimed at us. But the charge only works if tolerance means something specific, and that definition is usually left unstated.

1. Tolerance means bearing what you reject. To tolerate a view is to permit it though you think it false. That is the classical meaning, and it presupposes disagreement. Redefine tolerance as approval of every view and the word collapses, because no one approves of everything and no one could tolerate what they already endorse.

2. The objection is itself an absolute. “You ought not to be intolerant” is a rule you believe everyone should follow, with no exceptions, including the exception of people who think they are right. That is exactly the moral confidence the objection says it distrusts. The standard being used to judge Christians is one the critic has not accounted for.

3. A truth claim is not coercion. Christians do claim that Jesus is the way to God (John 14:6). But a claim is offered for assessment, not enforced. Saying “I think you are wrong” is not the same as saying “shut up,” and conflating the two ends discussion rather than protecting it.

4. The New Testament forbids coercion. Christians are told to answer objections “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15–16), to bless persecutors (Romans 12:14), and to live at peace with everyone so far as it depends on them (Romans 12:18). Jesus told Peter to put the sword away (Matthew 26:52) and rebuked disciples who wanted fire called down on a village that rejected him (Luke 9:54–55). Coercion is a departure from the texts, not a product of them.

5. Love without truth is not love. If a person is wrong about something that matters, silence is not kindness; it is abandonment with good manners. Paul's formula is “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), which holds both words and refuses to trade one for the other. The command to love enemies (Matthew 5:44) assumes real disagreement and answers it with love rather than with silence.

6. Christians are told to judge themselves first. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3–5). Whatever else that passage means, it rules out the smug posture the objection describes. Judgment is supposed to begin at home, and often it does not.

7. Concede the record: it is bad. The Crusades, the Inquisition, and the execution of dissenters were real, and they were wrong. Christians should say so without qualifiers. But note what is happening when we do: we are judged by the Sermon on the Mount, which is our own book, and the verdict comes from inside the faith rather than outside it.

8. The new tolerance is less tolerant. The older ideal made room for people you thought mistaken; the newer one makes certain conclusions unsayable. D.A. Carson traces that shift in The Intolerance of Tolerance, and the result is a rule that tolerates every view except the view that some views are false. That is not a neutral public square; it is a different set of convictions with its own enforced boundaries.

9. Peacemaking is commanded, not optional. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). The objection measures Christians by a standard Jesus himself set, and it is right to do so. The question is whether the failure of some Christians disproves the instruction, or merely shows that the instruction is hard.

The charge of intolerance usually means “you think I am wrong,” and thinking someone is wrong is not a crime — it is what disagreement looks like. Judge Christians by whether they argue with gentleness and live at peace, which is what their own book requires, and there is a real standard to hold us to.

Sources: Gregory Koukl; D.A. Carson; The Intolerance of Tolerance; Tactics.

Related challenges:
• What does it mean to be a Christian? There are over 30,000 different groups, all of which answer this question differently. If agreement cannot be found on THIS issue, can the claims of Christians themselves be taken with any degree of seriousness?
• ALL sins are forgiven if you ‘accept Jesus as your savior’, right? What about the non-forgivable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit? We have a little CONTRADICTION problem here?!
• Why do arrogant Christians think they’re right about everything?