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Apologetics
7. Questions about 'the fake New Tolerance'
(The
growing deception of intolerance)
A
series that helps consider the foundations for faith
Contents:
Introductory
Comments
•
Pulling together
previous pages.
1.
How is the 'New Tolerance' seen and heard?
•
Two
examples explain it.
2.
What is Traditional Tolerance?
•
Definitions
and clarification.
3.
What are the Characteristics of the New Tolerance?
•
Examining
its working.
4.
Are we to Value all Beliefs Equally?
• The
unreasonableness of this position.
5.
How can we Distinguish between a Person and their Behaviour/Attitudes?
•
It is important to do this!
6.
What is the Irony of the New Tolerance?
• See
it for what it really is!
7.
How does the New Tolerance Clash with Biblical Truth?
• It
seeks to disempower Christian truth.
8.
How does this Usher In the Death of Civilised Society?
• How
the New Tolerance pulls down civilised society.
9.
What are the Consequences of the New Tolerance?
• Observing
some of the outcomes.
10.
So how do we Counter the New Tolerance?
• Basic
guidelines.
Questions
These
preliminary pages have all been about 'thinking'. It is possible
that for some of us we may have found them difficult and we
may have wondered what the value has been in going through
these things.
Hopefully
on this page a number of these things will come together and
you will see why we have spent time on them.
For
the contents of this page we would refer you to The New
Tolerance (TNT) by Josh McDowell and
Bob Hostetler published by Tyndale House
Publishers which we thoroughly recommend you buy and read
if you find your appetite whetted by what you find on this
page.
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| 1.
How is the 'New Tolerance' seen and heard? |
Answer:
In
order to explain what we mean by the 'New Tolerance' it is
perhaps best to see it in action. Here are two examples of
it:
Example
1 from TNT P.5 
“You
have your value system, and I have mine. The fact that they're
different doesn't mean one is right and the other wrong, and
it doesn't mean we can't respect each other's opinions. In
fact, that's the whole point. We need to respect and honour
differing value systems—yours, mine, and everyone else's—just
as we honour and respect our own. Anything else would be intolerant.
We can't force our values or beliefs on other people. It's
just not right.”
Note
from here, the 'New Tolerance':
•
says we need to respect everyone's
opinions,
•
failure to do so is intolerance,
•
this stops Christians saying,
“This is wrong” to a particular form of behaviour.
Example
2 from TNT P.14 
A
father has just been expressing his concern over homosexual
lifestyles. His son is upset:
“All
you said was that people shouldn't have the right to live
and believe whatever they please. But isn't that what Christianity
is really all about? Loving and accepting people the way they
are? Isn't that what the Golden Rule says – to treat others
the way you want to be treated? Don't you want to be treated
with respect? Because if you do, then you need to treat other
people the same way.”
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| 2.
What is Traditional Tolerance? |
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Answer:
TNT
cites (P.15,16) Webster's Dictionary Definition of ‘tolerance':
“to
recognise and respect [others' beliefs, practices, etc.] without
sharing them”
and
“to
bear or put up with [someone or something not especially liked]”
This
is NOT what the New Tolerance does!
Traditional
Tolerance
- respects rights of
others who are different from us (& allows us to be
different from them)
- allows everyone to
have the right to his own opinion (& allows ours to
be different)
- listens and learns
from others (and them from us)
- lives peaceably alongside
others despite our differences
- accepts other people
regardless of race, creed, sex etc.
- but without
necessarily approving or participating
in their differences.
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3.
What are the Characteristics of the New Tolerance?
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Answer:
The New Tolerance believes:
- all truth is relative
to communities (now you see why the pages about Relativism
are so important),
- no one truth can be
true in the ultimate sense,
- truth is created by
humans,
- if all humans are
created equal, then all ‘truth' is equal,
- all values and beliefs
are elevated to a position worthy of (your) respect.
Is
this just an American thing?
Are
the things reported in TNT purely an American experience?
To answer that we include extracts from a Times
article on November 18th
2006 by David Lister
& Ruth Gledhill:
Students
sue over Christian rights at colleges
CHRISTIANS
on campuses across Britain are preparing to take legal action
against university authorities, accusing them of driving their
religious beliefs underground, The Times has learnt.
Christian
unions claim that they are being singled out as a “soft target”
by student associations because they refuse to allow non-Christians
to address their meetings or sit on ruling committees.
The
dispute follows the associations' decisions at four universities
to ban the unions from official lists of societies or deny
them access to facilities or privileges. Christian unions
at Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Birmingham
universities are all taking legal advice after being
accused of excluding non-Christians, promoting homophobia
and even discriminating against those of transgender sexuality.
At
Exeter University the Christian union issued
a statement on Thursday stating that it has given the students'
guild 14 days to reinstate it in full or face legal action.
It was suspended from the list of official societies last
month for allegedly breaching rules on equal opportunities.
The
Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, the umbrella
group for Britain's 350 Christian unions with a membership
of up to 20,000 students, accused student authorities of extreme
political correctness. It said that Christian unions faced
a struggle “unprecedented” in their 83-year history. Pod Bhogal,
the fellowship's head of communications, said: “The politically
correct agenda is being used to shut people up under the guise
of tolerance when, in fact, you tolerate anything
other than the thing you disagree with.”
In
Exeter, the Christian union had privileges
suspended, including free access to university rooms and funding,
after the guild deemed its core statement of beliefs too exclusive.
At Edinburgh University, where copies of
the Bible were banned from halls of residence last year after
protests from the students' union, the Christian union has
been banned from teaching a course about sex and relationships
after complaints that it promoted homophobia. At Heriot-Watt,
Edinburgh, the union has been told it cannot join
the students' union because its core beliefs discriminate
against non-Christians and those of other faiths.
Just
in case you haven't seen the point, remember that Christian
Union meetings are open to anyone who wants to go to them
– but no one is forced to go. The objective of a Christian
Union is to promote Christianity in the same way that a political
party group would exist to promote that particular political
party.
Thus,
say the Labour party, would not have a prominent Conservative
on their steering committee or addressing the party faithful
– but no one says that is intolerant.
These
cases in the U.K.
are clear examples of intolerance by those in power in Student
Unions, on the pretence that it is the Christians who are
being intolerant.
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4.
Are we to Value all Beliefs Equally?
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Quoting
Edwin J. Delattre (TNT P.20) 
“[All
values, beliefs, lifestyles, and truth claims] do not deserve
to be respected for [their] own sake without regard to ...
content.... The values of the Ku Klux Klan do not deserve
respect; nor of any other racial, gender, or ethnic supremacist
group. Neither do we owe respect to the values and beliefs
of the organized crime cartels operating in the United States.
We do not owe respect to the values of countless other individuals
and groups you can think of as well as I, that are ambitious
for power and use it without regard to considerations of morality."
They
comment (TNT P.20):
“The
Bible makes it clear that all values, beliefs, lifestyles,
and truth claims are not equal. It teaches that the God of
the Bible is the true God (Jeremiah 10:10 ), that all his
words are true (Psalm 119:160), and that if something is not
right in God's sight, it is wrong (Deuteronomy 6:18). This
is not just the view of Hebrew culture or Christian culture
or Western culture; it is the truth, according to the God
who rules over all cultures, revealed in God's Word.)
This
brings us back to why we believe the Bible is God's word,
which is what we cover in detail in later pages .
Similarly,
quoting American Federation of Teachers president, Albert
Shanker, (TNT P.24) in response to a New York educational
policy requiring all students to “respect and accept the values,
beliefs and attitudes of all different people," the point
is well made:
“Do
we really want [students] to ‘respect and accept the values,
beliefs, and attitudes' of other people, no matter what they
are? Do we want them to respect and accept the beliefs
that led Chinese leaders to massacre
dissenting students in Tiananmen
Square? And what about the values
and beliefs that allowed the Ayatollah Khomeini to pronounce
a death sentence on Salman Rushdie? Is exposing unwanted children
to the elements and
certain death, a custom still widely practiced in some countries
in Asia and Africa, to be respected and accepted because it
is part of somebody else's culture? Is female circumcision?
Must we respect the custom of forcing young children in the
Philippines or Thailand to work in conditions of virtual slavery?
And must we look respectfully on Hitler's beliefs and actions?"
Many who espouse the New Tolerance would counter some of the
things in the quote above by suggesting that what other communities,
societies, and countries do, should be left up to them - we
shouldn't judge their behaviour.
The
obvious response to this is, would you be happy to accept
that oppression etc. if you were a poor person living in one
of those countries?
As
we pointed out on a previous page, we need to confront such
chaotic thinking with "How about it your life? Would
you like it to happen to you?"
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How can we Distinguish between the Person and their Behaviour/Attitudes?
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Answer:
One
of the key issues in the New Tolerance is the inability to
distinguish between these two. Elsewhere on this site you
can find links to the book, Creating a Secure Church,
and in the ninth chapter of that book you will find the following:
You
can love and hate at the same time
Imagine you have a young son. He is a wonderful
young son, and he grows up to be the apple of your eye. He
is intelligent and good to have around. Your heart is
strong for him. Then supposing he falls into bad company,
supposing he starts taking drugs and becomes addicted.
What will you feel? I suspect we would avidly HATE what
he's doing, HATE the lifestyle he's living, and everything
about it would be an anathema to us. Yet underlying that
there would be a deep anguish within for him, for we love
him, he's MY son, my flesh. I've got years of history with
him; I remember the childhood years with such joy that it
hurts now in the face of what is happening at the moment.
I had such hopes for him for I saw the potential that is there.
Indeed now if there was anything I could do to get him out
of this slavery I would do it, for my heart is a heart of
love for him, my heart is full of anguish and compassion for
him. Do you see it? Hate and love can exist side by side.
………………………………………………………..
In
this limited-view New Tolerance thinking, “What
I believe cannot be separated from who I am. To criticise
what's important to someone is to criticise that person,”
and similarly, “If you don't approve
a person's lifestyle, you don't love the person.” (TNT
P.41)
TNT
P.42 quotes British philosopher R. M. Haire,
“who
defines tolerance as ‘a readiness to respect other people's
ideals as if they were [your] own.' Haire's idea of respect
does not mean an attitude that says, ‘I love you, I respect
you, but I disagree with your ideals'; it means an attitude
that says, ‘Your ideals are just as valid as my own' because
in the lexicon of the new tolerance, respecting me means accepting
and approving my ideals ... because ‘what I believe
represents who I am.' In other words, if you do not respect
my values, my beliefs, my claim to truth, my lifestyle, as
much as you do your own, then you are intolerant because you're
making a value judgment on my beliefs ... and that, according
to the new tolerance, is a judgment of me as a person.”
It is therefore very important that we learn to distinguish
the person from the philosophy of life - and explain it to them!
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What is the Irony of the New Tolerance?
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Answer:
TNT
P.43 cites Dr. Frederick W. Hill, a school administrator, who
said: ‘It is the mission of public schools
not to tolerate intolerances.'
They
then ask: 
“But
what does it mean to be ‘intolerant,' according to such people?”
And
answer:
“According
to the United Nations Declaration of Principles on Tolerance,
‘Tolerance ... involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.'”
And
comment aptly,
“Ironic,
isn't it, that the proponents of the new tolerance are so dogmatic
about dogmatism and so absolute in their opposition to absolutism?”
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| 7.
How does the New Tolerance Clash with Biblical Truth? |
TNT
P.44 suggests that the result of all this is that, “any
system or individual that believes dogmatically in anything
– and especially in absolute truth- is by definition
guilty of intolerance!” 
Thus
because Christians declare the Bible to be truth, that is
an example of intolerance.
Similarly
this applies to Jesus and the Cross, Sin, and the mission
of the church (TNT P.44-46).
The
New Tolerance sees anyone sharing the Gospel is implying that
the other person's beliefs are inferior to your own, and “Such
an implication is unacceptable because it is self-righteous,
biased and intolerant.” (TNT P.47)
The
following is an extract from our ‘Difficult Questions' pages,
‘Aren't All Viewpoints Equally Valid?', under the heading,
‘The Lie about Equality':
…
'pluralism' purports to give equal respect to all views. However,
in reality that is far from the truth! For
anyone wishing to question this, you probably couldn't do
better than read Franky Schaeffer's book,
"A Time for Anger - the Myth of Neutrality",
published by Crossway Books. … IF pluralism was
genuine, then indeed ALL viewpoints would be respected and
NO particular viewpoint would be declared 'PC'. ….Those
who deny there is no 'truth' push their alternative views
as if they alone are the truth! ….There is a blatant lack
of intellectual integrity in our society.
That
page referred to a Times article which has, in the
following years, gained great significance, and so for that
reason we include extracts of it here:
Since
when was it a sin to be the best school in town? by
Stephen Pollard April
28, 2003
Imagine
a school where 98 per cent of pupils, not one of whom has
been selected by academic ability, gained five or more A*
to C passes at GCSE. With the average school managing to achieve
these grades with only 52 per cent of pupils, you'd think
the school must be doing something right and it would be worth
replicating. There is such a school, in Gateshead .
Wonderful
news. The people behind it … should be lauded as heroes. Except
that to many in the liberal education establishment, they
are not heroes but villains. The man who funds the school
is blind, as are some of the teachers. To some in the local
education authority, in neighbouring schools and in the media
it's simply beyond the pale having blind people involved in
the education of children. They might, you see, somehow pass
on their blindness.
It's
foul, isn't it — and quite astonishingly stupid — that there
should be such prejudice? Like most prejudice, it's not only
baseless, it's self-defeating. The way the blind people run
the school brings only positive benefits to the pupils, but
that counts for nothing in the face of bigotry.
Oh,
sorry. Did I say they were blind? Scrub that. I meant they
are Christian. The school with a 98 per cent pass rate is
Emmanuel College in Gateshead, and the man who has given millions
to it, and wants to repeat his munificence elsewhere, is Sir
Peter Vardy, who is — ugh, how revolting — an evangelical
Christian, as are — excuse me while I hold my nose — some
of the teachers.
Because
they are Christians who believe in creationism, and the literal
truth of the Bible, they are, it seems, unfit to teach children,
lest they infect them with their foul ideas. 
Ignore
for a moment Emmanuel's exam results. Ignore the fact that,
as a state school (it's a city academy, so Sir Peter, as the
school's sponsor, works in tandem with the Government) it
teaches the national curriculum — unlike plenty of what we
might call “normal” schools. Ignore that it passed its Ofsted
inspection with flying colours. Ignore that it is always heavily
over-subscribed. And ignore (as many of its critics do, since
this is rather inconvenient) that many of its pupils are Muslim.
Just
think about this: is there any group more intolerant, more
narrow-minded and more, yes, racist, than the liberal secularists
and the old Labour Left who demand the abolition of schools
such as Emmanuel College?
….By
the way, I'm not a Christian, and I think creationism is nonsense.
But what, in Heaven's name, has that got to do with it?
Not
only does this article speak about the intolerance of the
New Tolerance, it also shows the potential for good of Christians
working into society, which the enemy does not like!
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How does this Usher In the Death of Civilised Society? |
Answer:
Where
a society espouses a philosophy that says there are no absolutes
and everyone's ideas and values are equal, logically it becomes
impossible to take any moral stand.
A
writer in the Washington Times commented, “In
30 years of college teaching, Prof. Robert Simon has never
met a student who denied that the Holocaust happened. What
he sees increasingly, though, is worse: students who acknowledge
the fact of the Holocaust but can't bring themselves to say
that the killing millions of people is wrong.” (TNT
P.25)
In
what follows we will consider examples of the outcomes that
may be expected with the New Tolerance.
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9.
What are the Consequences of the New Tolerance?
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Answer:
Virtue
(moral excellence,
uprightness, goodness) may be doomed:
“If
all beliefs, lifestyles and truth claims are equal, how can
one exalt humility as a virtue? Who can say that civility is
any more right than insolence or that bravery is more commendable
than cowardice or that truth itself is better than a lie?”
(TNT P.57)
Similarly
Justice is doomed by this way of
thinking:
“In
order for someone to say the actions or words [are unjust],
they are assuming that a moral order [apart from one's self]really
does exist.” (TNT P.57)
Likewise
Conviction (the state of being convinced)
is doomed by this thinking:
“If
I sincerely consider everyone's beliefs lifestyles, and truth
claims as equal to my own (even when they contradict my beliefs,
lifestyles, and truth claims), I can no longer feel any genuine
conviction regarding my own beliefs. The new tolerance requires
me to admit that I may be as easily mistaken or deluded as my
neighbour.” (TNT P.58,59)
The
Privatisation of Faith is also an outcome
of this new thinking:
Of
those of us who are part of faith communities, you “will
be expected to keep ‘your morality' private. You… will be barred
from juries and banned from public forums because your opinions,
coloured as they are by religion, will be considered ‘prejudiced'.”
(TNT P.60)
The
new thinking gives power to create the tyranny of
the individual:
Consider
the example of a school choir practising for a graduation ceremony
and singing two songs involving the words “God” and “Lord”.
One of the choir member objects to these words and instead of
dropping out of the choir (which would have been reasonable),
sues the choir claiming that these words were ‘offensive' and
they ‘violated her civil rights' so the Court of Appeal prohibited
the choir from singing those songs at the graduation.
A
classic case of intolerance by one who espouses tolerance as
she made sure the rest of the choir did not sing songs she did
not agree with!
It
is likely that those of us living in Britain
will consider the activities
with the USA
extreme but the logic is the same here and it is likely that
it is merely a matter of time before these things happen here
– as the University Christian Union cases indicate.
TNT
goes on to also cover
-
genuine Christian love as an
answer to the confused lives of the New Tolerance
- the
New Tolerance and
- Education,
- Government,
-
Society
- the
Church
It's
well worth the read!
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10. So how do we Counter the New Tolerance? |
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Answer:
Be
clear in your mind what it is and how it works, as you've
seen above.
An
Approach:
As a
Christian, graciously accept the person, even though not their
confused thinking.
Be
ready to point out the specific failures of the New Tolerance
as you've seen above.
Receive
God's grace and wisdom to refute what is simply another form
of deception, a means the enemy uses to attack the Christian
faith, and undermine morality in society.
An
Awareness:
To
conclude, let's be aware of something: Unbelieving atheists
use other world religions to beat Christianity because
deep down it knows that Christianity is unique and truth.
In
a Times article of 21st December 2007, the
Bishop of Gibraltar, in an article he wrote, spoke about travelling
to Cairo and finding himself sitting next to a Muslim. He
noted, "Questioning
me about my own Christian faith, he reminded me of the Muslim
veneration of Jesus as a prophet. He assured me that he had
no problem with school Nativity plays, even though a nervous
secular society all too often believed he might, and ought,
to have."
Real
tolerance means that we Christians accept the practices of
other religions (while not agreeing with their fundamental
beliefs) and they (mostly) don't have a problem with us celebrating
Christmas or Easter (even though their beliefs are very different
from ours).
The
people who DO object are unbelievers, those with no faith
at all - probably because we stir their consciences, that
thing that the Bible says God has put inside every person
to point them towards Him.
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The
purpose of these questions is to help you go back over the material
and take it in. We suggest you highlight, copy and paste these
questions and put them into your own word processing package
and then alternate between them and the text and put your answers
in your word processed page under each question.
QUESTIONS:
1.
How Seen & Heard
1.1
In example 1, how does the NT ‘level' value systems?
1.2
Failing to do what is said to be intolerant?
1.3
How do you think the word ‘force' in the penultimate
sentence is
emotional?
1.4
In example 2, what is the deceptive ply being used to
distort truth?
2.
What is Traditional Tolerance
2.1
What do you think is the crucial wording in the first
definition?
2.2
What is the crucial point made under the section on Traditional
Tolerance?
3.
Characteristics
3.1
Choose two of the beliefs of the New Tolerance that particularly
stand
out to you and say why
you believe they are so deceptive or
destructive.
3.2
How in what follows, are we seeing one rule for religion
ad another for
everything else?
4.
Valuing Beliefs Equally?
4.1
Summarise in your own words the point of the first quote.
4.2
Ditto the second quote about the Bible.
4.3
How does the Teachers' president show the fallacy of
this thinking?
5.
Distinguishing between a Person and their Behaviour
5.1
Summarise the points being made in the illustration account
given there.
5.2
How does NT thinking conflict with this?
5.3
In the quote about R.M.Haire, distinguish again between
the two ways
of thinking.
6.
The Irony of NT
What is the irony of this new way of
thinking?
7.
NT versus the Bible
7.1
Who, according to the first quote, is guilty of intolerance?
7.2
From the extract, what is the logical outcome IF all
views of pluralism
were ACTUALLY considered
equal?
7.3
From the Times article, a) on what grounds
is opposition brought against
the school being referred
to, and b) what was being ignored. and c) how
does this article support
your answer to 6.1 above?
8.
Death of Civilised Society?
8.1
What is being suggested in this short section?
8.2
What specific example is given?
9.
Consequences of NT
9.1
How does the NT destroy a) Virtue, b) Justice, and c)
Conviction?
9.2
How does it push faith into the ‘private area'?
10.
Countering the NT
10.1
Explain again the second of the points given here.
10.2
How would you negatively show that the ideas of someone
espousing
NT beliefs
are error, which they themselves don't even hold to fully?
10.3
How would you positively show that Christianity stands
out from all
other beliefs
which are clearly not the same?
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