This may sound a bit too “Christian” for some people, but “the truth shall set you free” - you, me, and the rest of the folks in our nation.
Lest any narrow interpreters of Scripture suggest that the John 8-32 truth admonition applies only to the truth of the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, it does in fact apply to all truth.
The truth is, truth appears to be the new hate speech. Truth is not just politically incorrect, but socially and morally as well. Whether expressing facts about Christ, Judeo-Christian morality, or facts about Islam, truth is considered to be bigoted hate speech. Out of ignorance truth is slandered. That is exactly what happens when I talk with my liberal friends about the truth of the Islamic ideology. They will say, “oh, you’re being hateful. That’s just what you believe. They [Muslims] are entitled to their own beliefs.” To the blind and ignorant, truth has indeed become the new hate speech.
Closely aligned with the slandering of truth is the perversion of tolerance. Tolerance used to be defined as “the power or capacity of enduring; or the act of enduring.” “I tolerated his bad behavior” was a common usage. Tolerance did not mean “accepting”, “enabling”, or “respecting” as it is applied today. We do not “accept”, “enable”, or “respect” bad behavior. We “tolerate” bad behavior until we do all we can to make it go away. Applied to Islam, we endure (tolerate) it until we can make it go away. We do not “accept”, “enable”, or “respect” Islam as Islamic apologists command. We endure it. That’s what tolerance used to be. We need to tolerate Islam like we would tolerate the Black Plague – until we can make it go away.
C. K. Chesterton saw the distortion of “tolerance” coming a number of years ago when he correctly observed that “tolerance is a virtue of a man without convictions.” We are convicted of nothing except rejection of moral absolutes.
Our culture has perverted the meaning of key words in our vocabulary. To get Biblical again, Isaiah 5:20 comes to mind:
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet bitter!”
The consequences to society are very ugly when reversals of God-given morality occur. Truth is called bigotry and tolerance is called acceptance. Phooey! That is self-deception out of ignorance. If not ignorance, then out of some unstated vile purpose.
Most of this perversion is the consequence of our society’s rebellion against absolutes, moral or otherwise. But what makes the situation really peculiar is that the absolutes of Islam are infinitely more strict and harsh than the absolutes of Christianity. Why would those who disbelieve absolutes defend an ideology like Islam that is raging with absolutes? Suggested answer: Christians are applying truth (which involves absolutes) to reveal Islamic ideology and intentions while Muslims defend Islam with lies claiming how tolerant (devoid of absolutes) Islam is. The lie is easier to believe and accept than the truth.
“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Romans 1:22-26a (NIV)
We no longer recognize or acknowledge what is shameful and what is honorable – what is the truth and what is a lie. And even if we did, we wouldn’t care. This is the direction our nation has chosen.
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