Tolerance is Intolerant.

If you're expecting me to go on a huge rant about something, you would normally have been right. However, I have nothing in particular to rant about today. I just found an awesome quote and I really want to put it out here, so it can get more of the attention it deserves.

“We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty — these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it’s never an end itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil.”

That was said by Archbishop Chaput, and I couldn't agree more. Tolerance is like the idea of saying that all beliefs are right. Umm... excuse me, but such a thought contradicts the Principle of Non-Contradiction, upon which all logic and indeed all of our actions throughout the day (subconsciously) are founded. If two things are diametrically opposed, they both may be wrong, but only one may be right.

I view it as something similar with tolerance. At its best, it makes a good servant but a bad master, like ambition. You can be tolerant of people, I think, without being tolerant of their wrong actions or wrong ideas. Love the sinner, hate the sin, anyone? But, at its worst, tolerance is used as an excuse to paralyze people into taking no action whatsoever against things that are wrong. Sure, it's good not to go out and blow people up or discriminate against them for whatever trivial reason, but that doesn't mean they get to impose their tolerance beliefs on you.

Really. We Christians get blamed so much for 'imposing' our beliefs on others. Now, it would be imposing if you were just about cramming Christianity down someone's throat, but most of the time it's nowhere near that. We just do something small to show our faith and it gets jumped on... phew! At the same time, however, those who jump on us and it insist on us being tolerant, and I think that's a little hypocritical, as they're obviously not being tolerant of us.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this post, and it seems that I have accidentally gotten on a rant anyway, but I'm ending it here, so breathe easy. I just want to add another quote that I (for some reason) find hilarious, even if I have, ahem, slightly edited it.

"The (expletive deleted) tolerance shall cease."

I can't remember who said that- it was one of Constantine's sons, but when you realize that their names were Constantine Jr. (okay, minus the 'Jr.' part), Constantius, and Constans.... yeah, it's easy to get them mixed up. Anyway, the followers of the Arian heresy were tearing his empire apart, and efforts to placate them only encouraged them more. So he decided that their heresy and their rebellion would no longer be tolerated. Wish we had a few more like that now- people who have the courage to stand up for what is right and demonstrate the true meaning of tolerance.

Ooh, now I have the urge to go pull out my G. K. Chesterton book and go nuts with it over 'intolerance' and love... but I think I'll hold off.

Good night and joy be with you all!
In Pace Christi,

Elyse