OPINION:
Dear Dr. E: I’ve been reading the Bible a bit lately, and I can’t help but notice its repeated mandate to love everyone. How do conservatives reconcile this with their judgmental attitude toward LGBTQ people, social liberals, and others they disagree with? Aren’t we obligated to love everyone despite who or what they are? — COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRAT FROM FLORIDA
Dear Compassionate: It all depends on the correct definition of love. With that said, I must begin my answer by pointing out something that should be obvious: Love is not the same thing as affirmation or tolerance, and it is not synonymous with enablement or just being nice or kind.
Something we all know intuitively is that love confronts, it doesn’t coddle. Any decent parent understands this. When your child is disobedient to the point of harming himself or those around him, the last thing he needs is your kindness, affirmation, or tolerance. What he needs is correction.
A loving father is willing to stand in his son’s way when he is hurting himself and tell him to stop. He doesn’t affirm bad behavior. He instinctively refuses to let his child do foolish things. Any mother who sincerely loves her child is very intolerant when her daughter strays out into the road. Good moms and dads don’t affirm their children when they are about to put their hands on a hot stove. Any parent who loves their child understands there are times when being nice is the last thing needed. When there’s oncoming traffic or a burning flame, love demands that we stop worrying about being nice and just shout, “No!”
Love also cares enough to disagree. A real friend tells us when we are wrong and doesn’t care whether we like it or not. Love doesn’t appease. Love doesn’t enable. We do those we love no favors by supporting their mistakes, sins, and poor choices. We should want the best for them, which means being willing to tell them when they are compromising themselves — whether in body or soul.
The worldview of “tolerance” is the opposite. It demands that we abandon love to whatever “moral” code happens to be fashionable at the moment. Progressive tolerance is dangerous. It is unstable. It is constantly blown around by the winds of political fads. It has no consistent standard, and its target is always moving. Champions of tolerance openly admit they will not tolerate anyone they find intolerable. As it is defined today, tolerance quickly becomes tyranny. It squashes debate, derides dissent, seeks to control, and silences disagreement.
The political agenda of “tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance” is one where those waving banners of “love is love” believe all who dare to disagree with them should be brought to their knees in submission. In this world of affirmation, those who crave power pretend to care for the powerless. They tolerate nothing other than what they deem tolerable. Thiers is a “love” of enablement and personal power.
St. Paul gave us a very different definition of love in a letter to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not honor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
This understanding of biblical love stands in stark contrast to its political counterfeit. Patience, for example, is not found in rioting against others who disagree. Likewise, kindness is not about ruining the lives of those who think differently. And constantly focusing on yourself and your feelings at the expense of everyone around you is obviously not the same as Paul’s understanding of self-giving love.
Perhaps one of the most significant differences between this description of biblical love and progressive tolerance is highlighted in the Apostle’s use of the word “protection.” Rather than falling in line with the inferior virtues of tolerance, acceptance, and affirmation, Paul admonishes those who really love to be willing to break rank and try to protect others from doing wrong, even when doing so makes us quite unpopular. Love speaks up when tolerance is silent. True love sacrifices oneself to protect those we care for most. “Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Love, properly defined, willingly steps in the way and shouts, “Stop! The stove is hot. It will burn you!” The bottom line is that biblical love cares a great deal, while progressive tolerance could not care less. Love protects others from oncoming traffic when we know that affirming them could result in them getting run over and killed.
If you are seeking guidance in today’s changing world, Higher Ground is there for you. Everett Piper, a Ph.D. and a former university president and radio host, takes your questions in his weekly ’Ask Dr. E’ column. If you have moral or ethical questions for which you’d like an answer, please email askeverett@washingtontimes.com and he may include it in a future column.
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