Welcome to Islington Baptist Church, where our doors are wide open to people from all backgrounds. Together, we're striving to become the kind of church described in the Bible, with faithful Bible teaching, heart-felt praise of God, honest friendships, and compassionate care for those in need.
Tolerance - the empty buzz word...
Friday, 27 January 2012 17:29
tolerance: sympathy or indulgence for the beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own. (Webster Dictionary)
In other words you are tolerant if you can live in harmony with someone else when they have different beliefs to you. You can agree to disagree - and still be nice to each other.
Sounds good. In fact I like that idea a lot. And so does the rest of the world it seems. It seems that in this day and age you can't appeal to a higher principle than tolerance. And you can't make a worse accusation than "intolerant"!
The funny thing is that our beloved tolerance is not really tolerance. We're really only good at tolerating a view if it is only slightly different to our own. We're terrible at tolerating a view that claims to be the only view. And we cannot tolerate a view if it tries to impose truth on us even when we don't hold to it.
So, as a Christian I'm in the hot seat!
But what if I'm right? What if people like Luke (writer of the Gospel of Luke) really did accurately describe a man called Jesus? And what if Jesus really did say and do the things these people claimed he did?
They were eye witnesses. They claim they wanted you to know the truth. People are still listening to and trusting what they say. Are you a little interested?
Come to church and I'll do my best to explain why I believe what I do and why I think you should too!
Pastor Rob