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What the Bible says about Tolerance
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Psalm 14:1

Liberals, says James Hitchcock in "The Enemies of Religious Liberty" (First Things, February 2004, pp. 26-30), especially those infesting America's universities, have come to detest religion—any religion, anywhere. To these secularists, faith in the unseen God is incomprehensible and irrational. They view it as divisive to the coherence of society, as well as destructive. Stanford University professor and philosopher Richard Rorty believes that "the 'highest achievements of humanity' are incompatible with religion" (Truth and Progress, 1991). It may be instructive to see what Rorty's peers in liberal academia have to say about our religious freedoms.

Since they see religion as at odds with freedom, academic liberals are increasingly coming to believe that the state has the right—indeed the obligation—to "damage-control" religion. So, New York University Law Professor David A.J. Richards claims that it is necessary for the state to foster its own religion, "a religion and an ethics that validate the highest order moral powers of rationality and reasonableness of a free people" (Toleration and the Constitution, 1986). Chicago University Professor of Jurisprudence Cass Sunstein advocates using "the liberal state to force the intolerant to be tolerant" (The Partial Constitution, 1999). Intolerant here means espousing strong religious beliefs, beliefs by which one lives. European University Institute Professor of Legal Theory and Legal Philosophy Wojciech Sadurski argues that no state can permit religious groups that have not transformed themselves into bodies both "rational" and self-critical" (Moral Pluralism, 1990).

The state, therefore, becomes mentor, teacher, and priest. Princeton University's Steven Macedo in his book, The New Right Versus the Constitution, sees the state as "a permanently educative order," allowing the legitimate authority to use its coercive powers (read, police powers) against "illiberal churches" in order to promote greater freedom. He has no problem at all with excluding religious people from public office, such as judgeships.

The government's new "educative" power sets it in opposition to parents' rights to raise their children in their own religion. Politics professors Amy Gutmann of Princeton and Dennis Thompson of Harvard "explicitly hold that the state need not be concerned that its educational system might violate the rights of religious believers" (Democracy and Disagreement, 1996). William and Mary School of Law professor James Dwyer holds that "religious education inculcates 'reactionary and repressive' values in children, and for the good of the child, the state is not only obligated to prohibit such schools completely or monitor them closely but also to monitor closely how parents educate their children at home" (Religious Schools vs. Children's Rights, 1998). He goes on to state that "parental choice in education might be 'inconsistent with the state's aims.'" Under the banner of children's rights, parental rights are wiped away!

Not unpredictably, Dwyer demands that "all education inculcate feminism and permissive attitudes toward sexual behavior, and that religions which fail to do so be made subject to state regulation." He believes that the government does not violate the First Amendment restriction against the establishment of religion "so long as its actions are intended to inhibit religion rather than to favor it." Kathleen M. Sullivan of Stanford University Law School claims that "religion must be treated 'asymmetrically' from other freedoms, with 'entanglement' between government and religion a good thing for the purpose of restraining religion."

These haters of God would commit mayhem against the United States Constitution (and against Americans) in order to build their utopian society of sterile rationality and unfettered choice. While we are unable to stop them, we can be thankful that we side with the One who can—and will. In the utopia He builds, religion will have a paramount place.

Charles Whitaker (1944-2021)
Liberal Haters of God

Acts 17:30

God overlooked, tolerated, or bore with it because of, in this case, our ignorance. God made excuses, as it were, to Himself to restrain Himself from striking out. This is, of course, bringing God down to a human level so we can understand. This is the kind of language Paul and Luke used to allow us to grasp the fact that God bore with us. We have to learn to do the same toward others.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Unity (Part 8): Ephesians 4 (E)

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

The homosexual community, with ample help from the media, is trying to convince Middle America that deviant sexual behavior is normal. Mary Eberstadt ("The Family: Discovering the Obvious," First Things, February 2004, p. 10) summarizes evidence that proves the contrary to be true.

  • Drug Abuse: The "propensity to addiction . . . is ubiquitously documented to be worse among lesbians and gays. Virtually every study one can find on the subject confirms it." A recent issue of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy dedicated an entire issue to the topic.
  • Alcoholism: The Gay Community News points out, "The statistics do point to the gay community, particularly gay men, as being most at risk of becoming alcoholics." A website which focuses on gay and lesbian health issues claims that "alcohol, drug, and tobacco use all occur at significantly higher rates in the GLBT community than in the general population" (glbthealth.org). Eberstadt points out that gay Alcoholics Anonymous chapters flourish in "many localities—an interesting detail, given the numerically small proportion represented by the gay population."
  • Depression: Depressions and phobias of a variety of types appear disproportionately in the homosexual world. Eberstadt quotes the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which she points out is "no socially conservative rag": "The levels of depression and anxiety in our homosexual subjects, whether HIV positive or HIV negative, are substantially higher than those found in representative general population samples."
  • Attempted Suicide: The findings of a highly-respected 1978 study by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg contradict the authors' song of tolerance for homosexuals. They note that the incidence of attempted suicide by white homosexual males is no less than six times higher than that of their heterosexual counterparts. Newer evidence suggests that the attempted suicide rate of gay and lesbian teenagers is three times higher than that of their heterosexual peers.
  • Educational Dropouts: Eberstadt points to evidence that "[n]early one-third of gay teens drop out of school annually, three times the national average."

Bottom line: Members of the homosexual community are not statistically normal. On a number of measures, they manifest behavioral problems in far greater numbers than the general (heterosexual) population.

Homosexuality is not normal, any more than it is free. Rather, it is costly to the individual, who, even in these days of "tolerance" and legal protections, is racked by the guilt, fear, and disease his sin exacts from him. In addition, it is costly to society at large, which must fund disease-control centers, psychotherapy facilities, detoxification programs—all these and more to fill the gap left by an individual who is psychologically, educationally, and socially "wasted," not performing to his potential.

Do not fall for the media's preachments. The homosexual "preference" is everything but normal. It is a highly self-destructive sin.

Charles Whitaker
How Normal Is Deviance?

1 Corinthians 8:1

It is almost axiomatic that the one with the least reservoir of experience will appear as the most cocky and unyielding, while the one with a vast reservoir of experience - who has concluded that there are even vaster funds of knowledge yet to be learned - will appear as the more provisional and tolerant. In Speech 101, my professor referred to this process as "small pot soon hot." A reason why peer-group instruction sometimes fizzles is the cocky attitude displayed by the person who first "catches on" to some elementary step, lording it over the later bloomers. In the beginning stages of learning, knowledge has the tendency to "puff up", but as one continues to grow in it, a quality of meekness replaces intolerant rigidity.

David F. Maas
Servant Leadership: Practical Meekness


 




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