Some people are arguing these days for inherent tolerance of people and religious beliefs. Tolerance particularly "religious tolerance" may be politically tolerable and comfortable but it misses the real issue.
It is not whether I can tolerate you, work with you, not be scornful, or judgmental toward you. The issue is can I genuinely embrace you as a fellow human being and can I embrace your right to believe what you believe. Being right in my heart toward you as a fellow human being while believe in the human rights of all beings is essential. Behind the veiled posture of religious tolerance is the fundamental belief in right and wrong as justification for moral and religious judgement. Playing and working with you while believing that my "way of believing about God means you are going to hell" puts me in a double bind. Either I do not say anything to try to convert you which means I do not care that you are going to be in hell fro eternity. Or I say something about caring about you as a person share my faith but in the end let you know that I respect your way of believing.
Either integrity or sensitivity are sacrificed. Those are true human values.
About Me
- Don Paine
- I am a pastor and a clinical psychotherapist. My life's passion is defining healthiness from a human perspective and paralleling it to the holiness of God, divine perspective. Shifting perspectives creates a paradigm that is alongside of rather than over and against. The parakalein of God and the paradoxes of humanity are redefined. Humanity is all about winning and yet we are losing ground everywhere. Divinity is all about letting go of the desire to win and the fear of loss. The Divine embraces the world with loving care regardless of anything.
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