|
[ After you've
read this, don't forget to Open the Attachment
which is entitled "THE SHAM
OF LIBERAL TOLERANCE"
(I always knew this, but the
article is convincing evidence.) ]
------------------------
Media Push Homosexuality
as Part of P.C. Agenda
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.comIn part one of this series on William McGowan's book "Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism," NewsMax.com reported on how, in the name of "diversity," American journalism manipulates the news concerning racial matters. In this second of our three-part series we show how, and why, a political agenda has damaged honest coverage of homosexual issues. Four decades ago, media coverage of homosexuality was universally hostile. McGowan recalls Time magazine's description of homosexuality as a "pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life" deserving "no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste, and above all no pretence that it is anything but a pernicious sickness." Straight News quoted Mike Wallace as calling the average homosexual "promiscuous" and "not interested in or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage." In 1974 the Los Angeles Times referred to homosexuals as "fags" on its front page. McGowan notes that as late as the 1980s homosexual reporters were mistreated by their editors. How times have changed. Big Media's commitment to increase the number of homosexual reporters and editors has succeeded to the point where at the New York Times alone, according to McGowan, "three of the [newspaper's] top political reporters, an advertising columnist, theater critic, film critic, architecture critic and classical music critic are all openly gay, along with the page-one picture editor and the top editor of its Sunday magazine .... "But the notion that the presence of more openly gay reporters in the newsroom has translated into more and better coverage of gay issue, is, I think, without foundation." McGowan explains that the presence of homosexuals in the newsroom has "intensified the attention given to incidents where gays have been the victims of homophobia." He cites the widely publicized case of Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming youth who "was lured from a bar by two thugs in the fall of 1998, beaten unconscious and left to die, tied to a fence post in sub-freezing temperatures." "The implicit assumption of the coverage was that Shepard had fallen victim to the often invisible but always sinister homophobia embedded deeply in American society, a pathology that could only be cured by hate crimes legislation." Frank Rich Blames Shepard Murder on Trent Lott The Times' Frank Rich typified the hysterical reaction of pro-gay liberal columnists. He described the killing as an outrage "that happened against the backdrop of a campaign in which the far right, abetted by political leaders like Trent Lott, was demonizing gay people as sick and sinful." Compare the avalanche of press coverage given to the Shepard case with the coverage concerning the murder of 13-year old Jesse Dirkhising and the trial of two homosexual neighbors who killed him. Commenting on the scanty coverage of that case, McGowan notes that "when homosexuals are the perpetrators of violence instead of the victims the sense of moral urgency seems to vanish." The details of the Dirkhising case were incredibly gruesome, involving the very worst kind of homosexual behaviors - the boy was tied to a bed, had underwear shoved into his mouth, which was also covered with duct tape. "As one man stood in a doorway and masturbated, the other raped the boy for hours, using a variety of foreign objects, including food," McGowan reports. He was left to die slowly of suffocation. Yet the coverage given to the case, compared with that given the Shepard murder, which was far less brutal and had no sexual overtones, was minuscule. Leftist Media Cover Up Dirkhising Murder McGowan did a Nexus search and learned that the Shepard case generated a massive 3,007 stories. "And when the case finally went to trial ... it was all over the broadcast news, received front-page coverage in all major newspapers, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. (In all, the New York Times ran 195 stories about the case.)" "In the month after the Dirkhising murder, however, Nexus recorded only 46 stories. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC ignored the story altogether and continued to do so through the March 2001 trial of one of the murderers which resulted in a conviction. (The other assailant later pled guilty)." McGowan notes that the Washington Post ran "but one tiny AP item about the case, along with an unusual ombudsman's defensive explanation of the paper's decision not to cover the case." While most of the major media found all sorts of excuses for their failure to cover the Dirkhising case when they had gone to extremes covering and overcovering the Shepard killing, the fact remains that, as McGowan puts it, the Dirkhising murder was simply "too hot to handle because it raised the explosive issue of gay pedophilia and because it threatened the sanctity of the gays-as-victims script which as attained the status of holy writ in the media." One Brave Voice Explains the Hypocrisy He sums up by quoting the surprisingly candid Andrew Sullivan - an openly gay columnist for the liberal New Republic. Wrote Sullivan: "The Shepard case was hyped for political reasons: to build support for inclusion of homosexuals in a federal hate crimes law. The Dirkhising case was ignored for political reasons: squeamishness about reporting a story that could feed anti-gay prejudice and the lack of any pending legislation to hang a story on ... Some deaths - if they affect a politically protected class - are worth more than others. Other deaths, those that do not fit a politically correct profile, are left to oblivion." This is more than mere "coloring of the news." It is outright dishonesty - propaganda disguised as reporting. And McGowan cites countless other instances where the pursuit of so-called "diversity" has turned journalists into mouthpieces for the homosexual agenda. Next: feminism and "diversity"
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/8/165348.shtml
Archibald |
DECONSTRUCTING LIBERAL TOLERANCE by Francis J. Beckwith
"Absolute tolerance is altogether impossible; the allegedly absolute tolerance turns
into ferocious hatred of those who have stated clearly and most forcefully that there
are unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature of things."
Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern
SYNOPSIS
Liberal Tolerance is perhaps the primary challenge to the Christian worldview current
in North American popular culture. Proponents of this viewpoint argue that it is
intolerant and inconsistent with the principles of a free and open society for
Christians (and others) to claim that their moral and religious perspective is correct
and ought to be embraced by all citizens. Liberal tolerance is not what it appears to
be, however. It is a partisan philosophical perspective with its own set of dogmas. It
assumes, for instance, a relativistic view of moral and religious knowledge. This
assumption has shaped the way many people think about issues such as homosexuality,
abortion rights, and religious truth claims, leading them to believe that a liberally
tolerant posture concerning these issues is the correct one and that it ought to be
reflected in our laws and customs. But this posture is dogmatic, intolerant, and
coercive, for it asserts that there is only one correct view on these issues, and if
one does not comply with it, one will face public ridicule, demagogic tactics, and
perhaps legal reprisals. Liberal Tolerance is neither liberal nor tolerant.
_________________________________________________________
Our assessments of the future are always at the mercy of unexpected
contingencies. Perhaps, like the Berlin Wall, current academic and cultural fads that
challenge Christian orthodoxy will soon crumble by the sheer force of their internal
contradictions, coupled by the ascendancy of both the vibrant movement of Christian
thinkers within the discipline of philosophy and the growing criticism of Darwinism
and naturalism by Phillip Johnson and others. Perhaps. But barring such a
near-miraculous cultural turnaround, I offer a number of observations. This article
will suggest some ways that Christian thinkers and cultural critics may defend their
faith if present trends continue.
First, do you remember the words of John Lennon, put to song in the mid-1970s?
Imagine there’s no heaven; It’s easy if you try
No hell below us; Above us only sky....
Imagine no possessions; It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion too
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
Someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.
Those who came of age under the tutelage of Lennon and his contemporaries are now
dominant in our most prestigious institutions of cultural influence: law, education,
the media, and the social sciences. Although the optimism of these former flower
children may be waning, their totalitarian impulses, implied in Lennon’s call for
global unanimity on matters controversial, are in full bloom. We will call their
project liberal tolerance.
Relativism: The Ground of Liberal Tolerance
Liberal tolerance is grounded in relativism, the view that no one point of
view on moral and religious knowledge is objectively correct for every person in every
time and place. This notion, as understood and embraced in popular culture, feeds on
the fact of pluralism, the reality of a plurality of different and contrary opinions
on religious and moral matters. Against this backdrop, many in our culture conclude
that one cannot say that one’s view on religious and moral matters is better than
anyone else’s view. They assert that it is a mistake to claim that one’s religious
beliefs are exclusively correct and that believers in other faiths, no matter how
sincere or devoted, hold false beliefs. Thus, religious inclusivism is the correct
position to hold.
Relativism, pluralism, and religious inclusivism are the planks in a creed
that does not tolerate any rivals. Its high-minded commitment to "openness" prohibits
the possibility that anything is absolutely good, true, and beautiful. This was the
central thesis of Alan Bloom’s 1987 best seller, The Closing of the American Mind.
Bloom writes: "The relativity of truth [for college students in American culture] is
not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or
so they see it.... The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right;
rather it is not to think you are right at all. The students, of course, cannot defend
their opinion. It is something with which they have been indoctrinated...."[i]
According to Bloom, by dogmatically maintaining there is no truth, people who are
relativists have become close-minded to the possibility of knowing the truth, if in
fact it does exist. To understand what Bloom means, consider the following dialogue
(based loosely on a real-life exchange) between a high school teacher and her student,
Elizabeth:[ii]
Teacher: Welcome, students. Since this is the first day of class, I want to lay down
some ground rules. First, since no one has the truth, you should be open-minded to the
opinions of your fellow students. Second....Elizabeth, do you have a question?
Elizabeth: Yes, I do. If nobody has the truth, isn’t that a good reason for me not to
listen to my fellow students? After all, if nobody has the truth, why should I waste
my time listening to other people and their opinions. What would be the point? Only if
somebody has the truth does it make sense to be open-minded. Don’t you agree?
Teacher: No, I don’t. Are you claiming to know the truth? Isn’t that a bit arrogant
and dogmatic?
Elizabeth: Not at all. Rather, I think it’s dogmatic, as well as arrogant, to assert
that there is not one person on earth who knows the truth. After all, have you met
every person in the world and quizzed them exhaustively? If not, how can you make such
a claim? Also, I believe it is actually the opposite of arrogance to say that I will
alter my opinions to fit the truth whenever and wherever I find it. And if I happen to
think that I have good reason to believe I do know the truth and would like to share
it with you, why won’t you listen to me? Why would you automatically discredit my
opinion before it is even uttered? I thought we were supposed to listen to everyone’s
opinion?
Teacher: This should prove to be an interesting semester.
Another Student: (blurts out): Ain’t that the truth. (the students laugh)
The proponent of liberal tolerance, it turns out, is not the celebrant of
diversity he portrays himself to be. Perhaps another example, one from popular
culture, will be instructive. In 1997, in her acceptance speech for an Emmy for
cowriting the "coming out" episode of Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres said, "I accept this on
behalf of all people, and the teen-agers out there especially, who think there is
something wrong with them because they are gay [homosexual]. There’s nothing wrong
with you. Don’t ever let anybody make you feel ashamed of who you are."
There are many who, after hearing or reading Ellen’s speech, applauded her for her
liberal sensibilities, concluding that the actress is an open and tolerant person who
is merely interested in helping young people better understand their own sexuality. If
you think this way, you are mistaken. Ellen’s speech is an example of what I call
"passive-aggressive tyranny." The trick is to sound "passive" and accepting of
"diversity" while at the same time putting forth an aggressively partisan agenda and
implying that those who disagree are not only stupid but also harmful. In order to
understand this point, imagine if a conservative Christian Emmy-award winner had said,
"I accept this on behalf of all people, and the teen-agers out there especially, who
think there is something wrong with them because they believe that human beings are
made for a purpose and that purpose includes the building of community with its
foundation being heterosexual monogamy. There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t ever let
anybody, especially television script writers, make you feel ashamed because of what
you believe is true about reality." Clearly this would imply that those who affirm
liberal views on sexuality are wrong. An award winner who made this speech would be
denounced as narrow, bigoted, and intolerant. That person could expect never again to
work in Hollywood.
Ironically, Ellen’s Emmy speech does the same to those with whom she disagrees. By
encouraging people to believe there is nothing wrong with their homosexuality, she is
saying there is something wrong with those (i.e., Christians and other social
conservatives) who don’t agree with this prescription. This condemnation is evident in
the script of the show for which Ellen won an Emmy. In that famous "coming out"
episode, the writers presumed that one is either bigoted or ignorant if one thinks
Ellen’s homosexuality is deviant and that such a one is incapable of having a
thoughtful, carefully wrought case against homosexuality. Such hubris is astounding.
It presumes not only that Ellen’s detractors are wrong but also that they are stupid,
irrational, and evil and should not even be allowed to make their case. They are, in a
word, diseased, suffering from that made-up ailment, "homophobia."
What a strange way to attack one’s opponents! After all, whether one fears homosexuals
is irrelevant to the question of whether homosexual practice is natural, healthy, and
moral. No one would say that the arguments of an antiwar protestor should not be taken
seriously on the grounds that he is "hemophobic," that is, fearful of bloodshed.
Moreover, if one is homophobic (assuming there is such a thing), that is, suffering
from a phobia as one would suffer from claustrophobia, then the homophobe cannot help
himself and is therefore suffering from a mental disorder, perhaps one that is the
result of his genes. Consequently, calling someone homophobic is tantamount to making
fun of the handicapped, unless of course the accuser is himself homophobic.
Ms. DeGeneres has every right to think those who don’t agree with her judgments on
human sexuality are wrong. The problem is that she and her more cerebral and
sophisticated colleagues present their judgments as if they were not judgments. They
believe their views to be in some sense "neutral." From their perspective they are
merely letting people live any way they choose. But this is not neutral at all. It
presupposes a particular and controversial view of human nature, human community, and
human happiness. It assumes that only three elements, if present, make a sexual
practice morally permissible: adult consent, one’s desire, and the lack of intrusion
into another person’s lifestyle orientation (i.e., "it doesn’t hurt anybody").
This, of course, is not obvious. For example, an adult male who receives gratification
as a result of pedophile fantasies while secretly viewing his neighbor’s young
children, though he never acts on his fantasies and nobody ever finds out, is acting
consistently with these three elements. Nevertheless, it seems counterintuitive to say
what he is doing is on par with heterosexual monogamy and ought to be treated as such.
By what principle can the Ellenites exclude this gentleman from the "tolerance" they
accord more chic sexual orientations? At the end of the day, Ellen’s viewpoint is one
that affirms what its proponents believe is good, true, and beautiful, while implying
that those who dispute this viewpoint are incorrect. Ellen is as intolerant and narrow
as her detractors.
In the words of Lieutenant Columbo, the proponent of liberal tolerance is pulling a
fast one. She eschews reason, objective morality, and exclusivity, while at the same
time proposing that liberal tolerance is the most high-minded, righteous, and
philosophically correct perspective that any reflective person with a university
education can possibly embrace. Even the most sophisticated defenders of this
viewpoint, whether intentionally or not, cannot seem to avoid this philosophical fax
paus.
A More Sophisticated Defense
Consider the work of social scientists Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy. They argue
that although there are no objective universal norms of knowledge and morality, there
are interpretive communities (i.e., cultures, civilizations, nations, ethnic
heritages, etc.) within which objective norms are valid. Choi and Murphy explain:
"Each community, accordingly, values certain norms. Therefore, some norms may be
irrelevant in a specific community, because behavior is not random but is guided by
expectations that are known by every competent member of a region. Exhibiting just any
behavior would certainly result in a negative sanction. Within an interpretive
community the idea that anything goes [i.e., relativism] is simply ridiculous, for all
norms do not have equal validity."[iii]
Supporters of this view deny it is relativistic because, they argue, it affirms that
each community has its own "absolute" norms of knowledge and morality, though these
norms do not apply to other communities. For example, if I live in community X and my
community believes it is morally permissible to torture babies for fun and you live in
community Y, which maintains that it is morally wrong to torture babies for fun,
according to Choi and Murphy, there are no moral norms that transcend communities X
and Y by which we can say that Y’s opposition to torturing babies is better than X’s
acceptance of torturing babies.
Perhaps another example will help clarify this view. Suppose that the people in
community X believe that the best method of making major medical decisions in life is
consulting the zodiac and/or a Ouija Board. So, for example, if Dr. Jones recommends
an appendectomy for Mr. Smith but the Ouija Board says no, then it would be best for
Mr. Smith not to undergo the appendectomy. Now, the people in community Y used to
believe the same thing as the people in X, but they have discovered through numerous
double-blind experiments that consulting the zodiac and/or Ouija Board was no better
than guessing, flipping a coin, or just plain luck. The people in Y rely on the
science behind their medicine as a major part of their decision-making and for that
reason have far fewer number of dead patients than community X.
If Choi and Murphy are correct that norms of knowledge are community-relative, then
there is no basis for asserting that community Y’s view of medical knowledge and
decision-making is better than the view held by community X. Yet, it is clear that Y’s
perspective is more true, and for that reason results in a larger body of life-saving
knowledge than X’s perspective.
Even though they may deny it, the position defended by Choi and Murphy, and those who
agree with their perspective, is relativism. It denies that there are universal norms
of knowledge and morality that transcend diverse cultures and communities.
When Choi and Murphy attempt to marshal a philosophical defense of their viewpoint,
their position unravels, for they are unable to defend their position without relying
on the very notions they deny. For example, Choi and Murphy, after arguing for the
concept of interpretive communities, go on to defend the work of literary scholar
Stanley Fish, by arguing that
sociologists of various hues have verified a long time ago what Fish is saying.
Symbolic interactionists, for example, have illustrated that persons evaluate their
actions with regard to their respective "reference groups." Therefore, in terms of a
single city, very different pockets of norms may be operative. To understand what
deviance means in each circumstance, a priori definitions of normativeness must be set
aside. For norms are embedded in symbols, signs, and gestures that may be very unique
and restricted to a specific locale.
Upon crossing one of these relatively invisible boundaries, an individual quickly
learns which behaviors are acceptable. This diversity, moreover, has not resulted in
the disaster that conservatives predict. Yet navigating through this montage of norms
requires interpretive skill, tolerance, and an appreciation for pluralism. (94,
emphases added)
We learn from this quote that such sociologists verify the perspective that knowledge
and morality are bound by interpretative communities. Apparently sociologists, at
least the sociologists who verify this perspective, are not restricted by their
interpretive communities. To claim that sociologists verify this perspective as true
is to say that they have knowledge about reality. According to Choi and Murphy,
however, this is impossible, for we are all (including sociologists) restricted by our
interpretive communities. In other words, if these sociologists are restricted by
their interpretive communities, and thus can give us no objective knowledge of
reality, how can Choi and Murphy claim that their viewpoint has been "verified"? It
seems, therefore, that Choi and Murphy must ironically presuppose that one can have
knowledge of the real world in order to verify the perspective that one cannot have
knowledge of the real world. But if their perspective is the correct one, the norms
and observations put forth by these sociologists as well as Choi and Murphy cannot be
true claims about the world. Thus, the appeal to sociologists who "verify" this view
presupposes that the view itself is false!
In addition, Choi and Murphy presuppose certain objective moral norms when they
maintain that interpretive skill, tolerance, and appreciation for pluralism are
virtues by which one navigates "through this montage of norms," for this view is
offering objective moral guidelines that apparently transcend any particular
interpretive community. Put differently, Choi and Murphy are requiring that all
people, regardless of what interpretive community in which they may reside, abide by
certain universal objective moral norms. Yet, if this is not what they mean, then
these virtues do not have to be followed by the members of some interpretive
communities that don’t accept these norms (e.g., Nazi Germany, a skin-head commune, or
a group of sociopaths). Of course, it is absurd for any moral theory not to account
for the objective wrong of Nazism, neo-Nazism, or the callous disregard for others.
Liberal Tolerance and the 2000 Southern Baptist Convention
In addition to what we have covered thus far, there are other ways by which we may
defend the Christian worldview in a culture that celebrates liberal tolerance.
Consider the recent controversy over the plans of the Southern Baptist Convention
(SBC) to evangelize Jews, Muslims, and Hindus in the summer of 2000 in conjunction
with its meeting in Chicago. SBC plans to bring 100,000 missionaries for the task. But
this does not sit well with religious leaders who embrace liberal tolerance. According
to a 28 November 1999 story in the Chicago Tribune, "The Council of Religious Leaders
of Metropolitan Chicago, representing the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and 39 other
major Christian and Jewish institutions, sent a letter Saturday [27 Nov. 1999] warning
that the high-profile evangelical blitz proposed by the Southern Baptists in June
would poison interfaith relations and indirectly contribute to violence."[iv]
The letter states that "while we are confident that your volunteers would come with
entirely peaceful intentions, a campaign of the nature and scope you envision could
contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes."[v] Although the letter acknowledges
the Baptists’ constitutional right to religious expression, "it cites last July’s
[1999] shooting of six Jews in West Rogers Park and vandalism of a mosque in Villa
Park in May as evidence of the vulnerability of people targeted because of their
faith."[vi] It is interesting to note that the Council did not tease out its own logic
and conclude that perhaps its call for Southern Baptist self-censorship while
connecting a time-honored Christian practice (i.e., evangelism) to vandalism and
battery could itself "contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes" and result in
the Baptists themselves being victims.
In any event, how should we as Christians respond to such hysterical and outrageous
assessments of our Christian practice? First, the Council is not claiming that
Christian doctrine is false, but rather, it is claiming that religious beliefs are not
legitimate claims to knowledge at all. So it is not that the Southern Baptists are
mistaken about the truth of Christianity; they are mistaken about the nature of
religion. For if the Council truly believed that religious doctrines, and Christian
truth claims in particular, are claims to real knowledge, they would not have relied
on demagoguery and scare tactics to make their point. In other words, the Southern
Baptists are dangerous not because Christianity is false and they believe it is true,
but because they really believe that Christianity is true and they believe other
people from contrary religious traditions should become Christians as well. This, for
the proponent of liberal tolerance, is absurd, because, as we have seen, liberal
tolerance is grounded in relativism — the view that no one point of view on moral and
religious knowledge is objectively correct for every person in every time and in every
place.
This is why Bishop C. Joseph Sprague (of United Methodist Church’s Northern Illinois
Conference) can say of the Southern Baptists’ plans for evangelism in Chicago: "I’m
always fearful when we in the Christian community move beyond the rightful claim that
Jesus is decisive for us, to the presupposition that non-Christians...are outside
God’s plan of salvation. That smacks of a kind of non-Jesus-like arrogance."[vii] Of
course, if Jesus’ disciples had followed the Bishop’s advice rather than their Lord’s
Great Commission, there would have been no Christianity as we know it today, if at
all, and hence no Methodist bishops calling for the revocation of the Great
Commission.
Second, the Council’s letter is itself a form of evangelism for the gospel of liberal
tolerance, for it is suggesting that the Southern Baptists, the letter’s target,
abandon their religious tradition and embrace the Council’s relativist view of
religious truth. If the Southern Baptists don’t follow this suggestion, then there
will be a type of punishment (i.e., "a campaign of the nature and scope you envision
could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes"). Like most calls for openness
and sensitivity by proponents of liberal tolerance, the Council’s letter in reality
calls for neither. It requires its recipient either to behave and think in accordance
with what the Council believes is the only appropriate way for religious believers to
behave and think or to be prepared to face opposition. This opposition may include
everything from uncharitable judgments (e.g., "non-Jesus-like arrogance") to threats
of violence (e.g.,
"could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes") to far-fetched McCarthyesque
guilt by association accusations (e.g., "last July’s [1999] shooting of six Jews in
West Rogers Park and vandalism of a mosque in Villa Park in May [cited] as evidence of
the vulnerability of people targeted because of their faith").
The Tribune article states that the timing of the Council letter "throws Chicago into
the center of a debate already raging in other parts of the nation."[viii] A couple of
examples are cited: "In New York, a Jewish coalition protested a Southern Baptist
campaign to pray for the conversion of Jews during the Jewish High Holidays in
September. A similar campaign Nov. 7 targeted Hindus on their holiday, Diwali,
triggered protests not only across India but also outside a Southern Baptist church in
Boston."[ix]
These examples are instructive because they show the incoherence of liberal tolerance.
In neither case were the Southern Baptists interfering with, or calling for the state
or any other agency or group to interfere with, the worship or religious practice of
the Jews and Hindus, for whose conversion they were praying. In fact, the Southern
Baptists were exhibiting true tolerance. They showed respect for the religious freedom
of those who did not share their faith, while at the same time praying for them to
come to a belief in what the Southern Baptists believe is the truth. On the other
hand, both the Jews and the Hindus tried to exert public pressure on the Southern
Baptists through protest so that they would cease to engage in fundamental practices
of their Christian faith, that is, prayer and evangelism. If anything, the Jews and
Hindus showed less tolerance than the Southern Baptists, whom they sought to silence.
I do not doubt that some Hindus and Jews fail to appreciate and understand why
Southern Baptists would choose their holidays to pray for their conversion, and that
they find this practice offensive. But do these Hindus and Jews understand and
appreciate that, because evangelism is a central aspect of the practice of Christian
faith, when they tell Christians not to pray for them the Christians are equally
offended?
Just as the Southern Baptists hope that non-Christians are converted to what
Christians believe is true about God and religion, proponents of liberal tolerance
hope that the Southern Baptists are converted to what proponents of liberal tolerance
believe is true about God and religion, namely, relativism. Both groups are committed
to a creed they will not compromise, though only the Southern Baptists seem thoughtful
enough to understand this. The liberally tolerant are not as insightful, for they do
not see their dogmas as dogmas. For that reason, in the name of liberty and tolerance
they will likely continue to use their social and political power to punish Christians
and others who will not submit to their doctrines.
THE SHAM OF LIBERAL TOLERANCE
Liberal tolerance is a sham. Although portrayed by its advocates as an open, tolerant,
and neutral perspective, it is a dogma whose proponents tolerate no rivals. Those of
us who are concerned with presenting and defending our faith in a post-Christian
culture must be aware of this sort of challenge, one that masquerades as open,
tolerant, and liberating, but in reality is dogmatic, partisan, and coercive.
Although the Christian worldview is marginalized in our culture and considered
dangerous by some, we cannot lose our confidence. After all, this is God’s universe,
and He has made human beings in His image. We must be confident that when we unpack
these undeniable notions that are "written on our hearts," those who unreflectively
and unthinkingly dismiss our case really do know the truth as well (Rom. 2:15). But
this must be balanced with the knowledge that the human heart is incredibly wicked
(Jer. 17:9). This tension will remain as long as we attempt to defend our faith in a
culture hostile to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus of Nazareth.
Francis J. Beckwith (Ph.D., Fordham), Ethics Editor of Christian Research Journal, is
associate professor of philosophy, culture, and law at Trinity Graduate School,
Trinity International University, where he is also adjunct professor of law (Trinity
Law School) and adjunct professor of philosophy (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School).
He is also senior research fellow at Nevada Policy Research Institute.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i]Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987),
25.
[ii]This dialogue originally appeared in Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl,
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 74.
[iii]Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy, The Politics and Philosophy of Political
Correctness (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), 93-94. The remaining citations of this book
will appear in the text.
[iv]Steve Kloehn, "Clergy Ask Baptists to Rethink Area Blitz," The Chicago Tribune, 28
November 1999, at
www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-38638,FF.html (28
November 1999).
[v]Council letter as quoted in ibid.
[vi]Kloehn.
[vii]Ibid.
[viii]Ibid.
[ix]Ibid.
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