Happily Intolerant

 It's  an odd but constant refrain when we minister in public that we are 'intolerant'. This is usually parroted by  someone who refuses to tolerate us. We are  often called 'hateful' or 'judgmental' by people who are being hateful and judgmental. If we were truly any of those things, at least the accusations would make sense, but since people hear what they want to hear it's fairly common for exhortations  of God's love as displayed on Calvary to be called 'hate speech'.  We tell them God loves them, and they hear that God hates them, or at the very least they  hear that we hate them.   The evidence that we hate them is the fact that we spend our own money and our own time to go tell them that God loves them.  We  quietly and  graciously (for the most part)  take their  verbal abuse while pleading  with them on the Saviour's behalf. We do this because, apparently, we hate them. Hmmm....


 In the George Orwell  opus 1984, Big Brother  was constantly changing what words mean. This was done  in order to not only steer the conversation of  his subjects, but to  steer their thoughts.  We don't have a Big Brother ( although we're getting really really close) but we do have a woefully mis-educated public that can no longer think, opting instead to   repeat  buzz words or catchphrases whose  true meaning they no longer understand. It's not just that they all use words that  don't mean what they think they mean, it's that there is a frightening uniformity as to the vocabulary of the scorners.This groupthink (another Orwellian contribution) is  quite obvious when you   realize that over the last  two decades while preaching to thousands on both coasts in cities big and small, the same phrases and words are hurled at us over and over again. Words like 'intolerant' and 'hateful' and  'judgmental' pop up as if  on some spiritual level  everybody was reading off the same cue cards.
  But to the scorners, I'll  will play your game. I will concede that there are at least 2 definitions to these words; the correct ones and then  the ones you use.  I will grant you that although I  may not be intolerant or hateful or judgmental according to the actual definitions of the words, I may  very well be all those things in the scorner-alternate-universe dictionary.
 Tolerance in the scorner lexicon appears to mean that you are willing to tolerate sin without once mentioning it.  It's akin to having  supper at someone's house without mentioning the  rotting corpse underneath the table.  No matter how bad it smells, and now matter how  many flies circle around your head, you are expected to smile and continue eating. You are  expected to choke back your gag reflex and  , for the truly tolerant, praise the presence of the corpse with  cheerful words like "He  seems so lifelike, except for the squishy parts!" To point out the obvious , such as 'What's up with the stiff?', would be the height of impoliteness.  The more sin you are willing to ignore, the more tolerant you are.  The more tolerant you are, the more understanding and enlightened you are. The  more understanding and enlightened you are, the better a person you are. A good person will ignore or even  approve of  gross, and destructive behavior.  Maybe your dinner host likes the smell of rotted flesh during their meal. After all, who are you to judge?
  Which  brings us to the next  term; judge. To judge is to ascertain that one item or activity is better  or preferable to another.  Judging  implies an objective standard;ergo water is superior to arsenic for drinking purposes. That is the true definition of judge, but in the scorner dictionary, to judge is commit an unpardonable crime against society.  Water is not necessarily superior to arsenic , you know.  And corpse dinner company  isn't necessarily superior to non-corpse dinner company. How intolerant of you to suggest such a thing!
  Rounding out this ridiculous trinity is the word hateful. Now hateful is a tricky one, I must admit. You would think that to  scream verbal abuses at a total stranger would  be hateful.  But  in the thesaurus of scornfulness, hateful behavior  can only be displayed by the intolerant. In fact, anything done or said by  the intolerant can be declared hateful by a tolerant person. Having  sufficiently displayed how tolerant they are (by welcoming the fetid corpse of sin with open arms) the tolerant are then free to  abuse the intolerant by yelling or  swearing or even throwing things.  Such behavior is actually virtuous in the scorner lexicon, and should be protected  behavior by the authorities. Conversely intolerant behavior such as public preaching or tract distribution or standing for righteousness should be punished. If this is  hard for you to get your brain around, it's because you're intolerant. And stupid.  So says the  tolerant who are being neither judgmental nor hateful.
  I guess there is no need to beat around the bush, I am, by their definition, all three.  Guilty as charged. I am intolerant in that I point out   things that grieve God according to the Bible. I  judge that such things bring condemnation upon those that practice them. And I am completely hopelessly hateful in that  I stand in public and point out the corpse of sin under the dining room table, and I do so without apology.
  The reason I  am happily intolerant (by their definition) and happily judgmental (by their definition) and happily hateful (by their definition) is because their definitions are absolutely moronic.  Their definitions are upside down and backwards and are not only an affront to  linguistics, and an affront to common sense but they are an affront to the God that made them, and to whom they will give account.