True tolerance is not a total lack of judgment. It's knowing what should be tolerated, and refusing to tolerate that which shouldn't.
Interpretation
True tolerance involves discernment and the ability to judge what is acceptable and what is not.
This quote by Charles Colson emphasizes that tolerance does not mean accepting everything unconditionally, but rather understanding the importance of making judgments about what behaviors or beliefs are worthy of acceptance. It advocates for a discerning form of tolerance that acknowledges the difference between acceptable and unacceptable conduct.
In practice
In a discussion about social issues, you might say, 'True tolerance is not about accepting everything; as Charles Colson said, it's knowing what should be tolerated.'
The life function of [the local church] is to love the God who created it - to care for others out of obedience to Christ, to heal those who hurt, to take away fear, to restore community, to belong to one another, to proclaim the Good News while living it out. The church is the invisible made visible.
Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.
Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical understanding are likely to give us solutions that are worse than the problems.
Tolerance once meant that we could use our reason to discern good and evil in open debate. Today tolerance has been used to call good evil and evil good.
People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well
One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that I don't ever get up in the morning and wonder if what I do matters. I live every day to the fullest because I can live it through Christ and I know no matter what I do today, I'm going to do something to advance the Kingdom of God.
The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.
When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda.
Two urns on Jove's high throne have ever stood, the source of evil one, and one of good; from thence the cup of mortal man he fills, blessings to these, to those distributes ills; to most he mingles both.
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.
This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.
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