Tolerance and Openness

In The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2009), R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in the preface:

Indeed, the abdication of biblical faith is one of the hallmarks of our age—whether you prefer to call it postmodern, hypermodern, or post-postmodern. Yet, once the faith is severed from biblical authority, Christianity becomes essentially plastic; a malleable and changeable belief system that just begs for transformation into some other shape and substance.

The situation is complicated further by the embrace of an “openness” that is not open to authentic biblical Christianity. Tolerance becomes a code word for avoiding truth, and openness means never having to make a judgment about truth at all.” (pp. xii-xiv)

We live in an age where we are supposed to tolerate everything and be open to everything. Otherwise, we are being labeled as close-minded, rigid, judgmental, conservative, etc…

One of the examples that the author uses when he comments on the Emerging Church is homosexuality. When one of the Emerging Church leaders, Brian McLaren, was asked about the issue of homosexuality at a conference, here is his position: “McLaren insisted that there is no good and satisfactory position for Christians to take, because all positions will hurt someone… McLaren also took refuge in the assumption that homosexuality as we know it today may not be the behavior or phenomenon so roundly condemned in the Bible.” By using D. A. Carson’s own words, “As Carson explains McLaren’s position, ‘that is always bad.’” (p. 82)

Many in the Emerging Church Movement prefer to take refuge in an either/or, both/and, and inherently ambiguous understanding of truth. All this leads Carson to ask a crucial question: “Is there at least some danger that what is being advocated is not so much a new kind of Christian in a new emerging church, but a church that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise?” (p. 83)

When we are open and tolerate without firmly standing on the authority of Scripture, we make God disappear in our age, for we fail to promote the presence of God with biblical beliefs about God.