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Christianity from an Existential Perspective..
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Tolerance..
Two qualities that really attracted me to the liberal side of
Christianity were "tolerance" and "open-mindedness". Kierkegaard's
notion that we should be objective to ourselves but subjective to
others is a great principle to live by, and looking around I saw that
Christendom was in grave need of a principle like this. Christianity is
too often associated with a loathing of different beliefs and
condemnation to those with different lifestyles.
Tolerant,
however, is a very hard thing to be. I found this out very early in my
change of theology. At bookstores when I was searching for a new book I
would excitedly read through the authors who were known for their
'different' and 'heretical' doctrines, and pass the more conservative
titles with an exhausted grunt. If I looked at the blurb at the back of
the book and read anything that even remotely resembled something
dogmatic and 'close-minded' I would put it back down, making a smirk
concerning how silly some people can be. I was not being tolerant or
open-minded, I merely tolerated the people I didn’t use to tolerate,
and then not tolerate the people I used to tolerate.
Soon I
begun to realize what was going on, and that a lot of liberal
Christians (especially the ones coming out of fundamentalism) are in
the exact same boat. They spend all of their energy criticizing and
mocking the opponent, instead of working out what they believe
themselves and arguing for that. Of course this is a very natural
reaction, if somebody gets hurt or spiritually abused from
fundamentalism; it is natural for them to start despising it. But it is
not Christian to start hating it.
With Christ's maxim to loves
ones enemy, it is implied that everybody's enemies will be someone
different. For the fundamentalist the intolerance will be towards gays
and liberals, for the liberals and gays it will be fundamentalists.
There is no virtue in changing camps, even if you start to tolerate a
lot more people than you used to, if there is still a kind of person
that you abhor. I am sick of liberal Christians disrespecting and
mocking fundamentalist Christians, only because fundamentalists do it
just as much. We need to keep in mind the Christ-like principles of
"turning the other cheek" or "overcoming evil with love" or "to love
those that hate you". Fundamentalists aren't even evil or hateful, so
this intolerant situation a lot of liberals are in is even more absurd!
I am willing to admit that this is one of my many weaknesses; I just
wish that the more high-profile progressives and liberals would be
willing to admit the same.
-- By Timothy Neal |
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