The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.
Interpretation
Tolerance has shifted from allowing rational debate to silencing differing opinions.
Nancy Pearcey highlights the changing definition of tolerance, suggesting that it has evolved from an encouragement of rational discourse about differing beliefs to a state where opposing convictions are no longer open for debate. This perspective invites us to reflect on the implications of this change for public discourse and societal engagement with differing views.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about freedom of speech at a university event.
The gospel is like a caged lion,' said the great baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. 'It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of it's cage' Today, the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth- truth about the whole of reality.
I detect more good than evil in humanity._x000D_ _x000D_ Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,_x000D_ _x000D_ And men grow better as the world grows old.
The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.
Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn't get anything right.
Morality is stronger than tyrants.
The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.
One may well find oneself beginning to doubt whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random...nevertheless although the miracle of life stands "explained" it does not strike us as any less miraculous. As Francois Mauriac wrote, What this professor says is far more incredible than what we poor Christians believe.
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