Beyond Tolerance to Tenacious Love

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-louis-metzger-phd/beyond-tolerance-to-tenacious-love_b_2025400.html

Paul Louis Metzger, Ph.D.Founder and Director, The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins

The preservation and cultivation of tolerance is vitally important to the well-being of our multi-faith, pluralistic society. President Obama's recent address to the U.N. General Assembly on the subject of such themes as religious liberty, tolerance and diplomacy in a violent world illustrated well why these ideals are so critically important in our world today and also reflect what makes the United States, though flawed, such a great nation.

As a Protestant evangelical Christian, I celebrate our country's estimation of tolerance and the creation of space for freedom of religious expression in a multi-faith society, and for a variety of reasons. As the old saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unlike some evangelical Christians who talk of taking back America and making it a Christian nation, I would never want to see one religious group -- including my own -- have a monopoly given how easily those in power religiously and politically can distort the use of power to unfortunate ends. Moreover, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s particular vision of beloved community inspires me to seek to cultivate relationships with leaders of diverse religious and political backgrounds to collaborate on promoting the common good.

With these points in mind, I have cherished the opportunity to build a friendship and partnership with Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell, a leading Unitarian Universalist. My friend Dr. Sewell asked me to write an article on the subject of tolerance and related notions that would also include a response to her thought-provoking piece titled "Saying Goodbye to Tolerance" published in The Huffington Post on Oct. 19. In the piece, she refers to me and reflects upon evangelicalism. Further to what she says about our personal connection, I have been grateful for the various opportunities I have had to meet and work with Dr. Sewell on such topics as global climate change and the need to build beloved community in the face of various culture wars. I write this article in the hope that this friendship and partnership can be further nurtured and cultivated based on our shared concerns over the common good in our multi-faith society.

As the title suggests, tolerance is the subject of Dr. Sewell's article. I encourage the reader of this piece to read carefully "Saying Goodbye to Tolerance." One of the concerns often raised concerning orthodox Christians is that their belief that Jesus is Lord leads them to be intolerant of other religions. While there are countless heinous incidents throughout history, where adherents of various religions (by no means only Christians) and secular/political ideologies have oppressed people of other traditions because of their strong convictions, the connection is not a logical one. Rather, the grounds for such ungodly acts are unbiblical from the vantage point of Jesus. In fact, for Christians, Jesus calls us to love all people sacrificially, including our enemies. We are called to forgive our enemies, not hate them (Matthew 5:43-48), and to lay down our lives for them, not theirs for us, just as Jesus laid down his life for us when we were his enemies (Romans 5:6-11).

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