love > tolerance

If you think love = tolerance, I feel sorry for your kids. Growing up, my parents and I had fundamental disagreements. I always thought I should be able to clean my room whenever I wanted to, date whoever I wanted to date, buy whatever I wanted to buy, etc. Classic teenage rebellion stuff. As I continued to age, I began to develop my own view points. I had my own views on politics - views my parents did not share. I began to develop my own views on parenting, finances, and all sorts of other things. The crazy thing was that even though my parents disagreed with me on some things, they still loved me. Even though we could have polar opposite perspectives on any given subject, we still landed in love. You see my parents did not tolerate everything I believe/said/did, but they loved me more than any other people ever possibly could. In doing this, they instilled in me this crazy idea: I can disagree with you and love you at the same time. I can tell you that you are wrong and still love you. I thank God everyday that love did not equal tolerance for my parents but instead looked more like love > tolerance. Had they not taught me this, I would be a completely different person or dead in a ditch somewhere. I would argue that to disagree and yet love someone is a DEEPER kind of love than to tolerate everything I say and placate me. A married couple who has many disagreements over an issue and yet still co-exist peaceably and lovingly have a deeper love than the couple who sweep things under the rug and "tolerate" each other by never disagreeing over anything. There is this erroneous lie in our culture that says love = tolerance. It's the idea that says you CANNOT disagree with someone and love them at the same time. Some have called this the "new tolerance". Perry Noble puts it like this: "People are screaming for 'tolerance;' however, tolerance has morphed into the idea that, 'if you believe EXACTLY what I believe then you are RIGHT, and ANYTHING you believe other than EXACTLY what I believe is wrong and hateful.' The irony of that argument is actually the intolerance of the argument itself." If you have your own viewpoint that disagrees with the liberals, it is called "hate speech". If you have your own viewpoint that disagrees with the conservatives, it is called "liberalism" or "heresy". The party that is wronged by the offensive opinion proceeds to label the other party and typify them as evil. This is actually a propaganda tactic - just as the Nazis made the Jews scapegoats for the problems of their society, many of those who claim to be "tolerant" have made "Religion" the scapegoat of our society. What is so ironic is that the people who preach tolerance in many cases are the most intolerant people. For example, Phil Robertson gives his opinion on what he believes to be Truth and he gets suspended by A & E. What is more intolerant?: A man who give his opinion on the issue of homosexuality, then says, "I love all of humanity" OR people who SUSPEND someone for giving their own opinion? Another example: Katy Perry, known for her ideas of tolerance, love, and liberalism banned her parents from coming to the Obama inauguration, saying: “'My parents are Republicans, and I’m not,' she told the magazine. 'They didn’t vote for Obama, but when I was asked to sing at the inauguration, they were like, ‘We can come.’ And I was like, ‘No, you can’t. I love you so much, but that — on principle.’ They understood, but I was like, ‘How dare you?’ in a way.'" Many preachers of tolerance and relativism are just as (and in some cases MORE) intolerant as those who preach an exclusive ideology or religious preference. There is hope though. This idea of "I disagree with you, but I love you" has been and can be done. I recently read this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane-l-windmeyer/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_2564379.html) where Dan Cathy, the President and COO of Chik-fil-a who publicly opposed marriage equality and stirred up a great deal of controversy, invited LGBT Advocate Shane Windmeyer to be his personal guest at the Chik-fil-a Bowl in January of 2013. The article, written by Windmeyer, expresses his surprise and new-found respect for Dan Cathy. To the Christian: There is no greater than sign when it comes to God’s view of sin (James 2:10). We are inconsistent in our passion against certain sins. I wish we would be as passionate about divorce, adultery, divorce, pornography, social injustice, etc. as we are about homosexuality. God hates all of our sin (Romans 3:23). Thank God for His grace because our struggles are not our identities – Jesus is our identity (Galatians 2:20). May the Church be willing to be full of Grace and Truth – for that is how our Savior positioned Himself in society (John 1). I believe Jesus would have gay friends. And I believe those gay friends would know where Jesus stood on the subject as well. God showed us what love looks like – even though he hated and disagreed with our sin, He was willing to die for us. We can disagree with people and still love them. We do it in our families and stop there for some reason. Jesus invites us to do it with everybody. To the LGBT Advocate: I am so sorry for the way the Church has responded in the past. Please forgive us and allow us to introduce you to a God who loves you and cares about you deeply. However, please know that you are no better than those you deem "intolerant" when you label someone a religious bigot for expressing their opinions. True tolerance is where we both have our disagreements, but land on love for one another. Love > Tolerance