HUMANS EXCLUDE

'Cultural exclusion seems to happen almost universally. People are shamed and punished in our modern, pluralistic societies if they do not conform to the reigning parties. For all our talk of tolerance, we demand that others adopt our characteristics and beliefs. They must express no difference from us, or we will name them as beyond the pale of engagement. It is common for us to insist that everyone "respect difference" - allow people to be themselves - but in the very next moment we show complete disrespect for anyone who diverges from out cherished beliefs. We sneer at people more liberal than us as social justice warriors; we disdain those more conservative than us as hateful bigots.' 

Timothy J Keller, The Prodigal Prophet, p.171. 

CONFIDENT PLURALISM

'Confident pluralism rejects stigmatising others through our speech. At the same time, it requires ut to distinguish between stigmatizing and causing offence...the civic aspiration of tolerance includes the space to make moral judgements. The liberal progressive must be able to say that the conservative moralist holds a view that he finds wrong, misguided, or immoral. And vice versa. Those assertions will likely cause offenses. But they are an important part of the effort to coexist with deep and genuine differences and to allow for people to be persuaded and to change their minds.'

John D Inazu, Confident Pluralism, p.101. 

THE CHALLENGE OF TRUE TOLERANCE

'Tolerance is the most important civic aspiration. It means a willingness to accept genuine difference, including profound moral disagreement. Achieving it is no easy task. As the philosopher Bernard Williams has observed, tolerance is most needed when people find others' beliefs or practices "deeply unacceptable"vor "blasphemously, disastrously, obscenely wrong." The basic difficulty of tolerance, Williams notes, is that we need it "only for the intolerable."'  

John D Inazu, Confident Pluralism, p.87. 

YOU CAN LOVE WITHOUT APPROVING

'Last year an old friend of mine came out to me as a lesbian. She called and said, "I've been avoiding telling you this, but I like girls. I know that you don't approve."

I was grateful that she called me. She is an old, dear friend. So I asked her a simple question: "Do you think I wouldn't understand?"

She: "No, I know you'd understand. It's that you don't approve. I can't take knowing that you don't approve of me."

Me: "Did we always approve of each other?"

She: "No. No, we didn't."

Me: "We've disagreed on everything! Pixar films, chicken nuggets, spankings! We have never approved of each other, but we have always loved each other. True?"

She: "Very true. We've never approved. We've always loved."

ME; "So why are you changing the rules on me?"

Rosaria Butterfield, The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World, p.52. 

TOLERANCE

'We need to make a distinction between the tolerant mind and the tolerant spirit. A Christian should always be tolerant in spirit - loving, understanding, forgiving and being patient with others, making allowances for them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, for true love "always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" [1 Corinthians 13:7]. But how can we be tolerant in mind of what God has clearly revealed to be wrong?'

John Stott in 'Andrew Atherstone & Andrew Goddard, Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church, p.9.

EXCLUSION VS.TOLERANCE

'I want to suggest that when we accept the terms of the debate - exclusion vs. tolerance - we lose. When we chose exclusion, the church circles the wagons and becomes a fortresslike, members-only organization overcome by a siege mentality. We bar the door to everyone who looks scary or asks questions that make us uncomfortable. 

When we choose tolerance of every person and ideology, on the other hand, we shrink from sharing the very, very good news of Good's love, demonstrated like never before or since in Christ, and from confronting sin and suffering that is sin's results. Exclusion lacks love; the wrong kind of tolerance lacks courage. 

At the heart of the Christian story, however, is the Triune God's rejection of both exclusion and tolerance. The Creator was not content to exclude those who had rejected him, but neither was he prepared to tolerate our hatefulness and sin. So what did he do? He became one of us, one of the "other," identifying with us to embrace us in solidarity, empathy, and selfless agape love - all the way to the cross.'

David Kinnaman, You Lost Me, p.180.