Sinner

Over the past 3 years I have discovered a rising star (now established writer) in writer Ted Dekker. It started with a free book I received that he co-authored with Bill Bright, the founder of the organization I work for and then, more recently, buying his books outright. His books have great conflict, action and edge of your seat turn of events. He writes in different genres including fantasy, horror, and action/adventure. And at the foundation is good story telling based on relevant themes of today.

Sinner is the latest book I have read, the third book in the Paradise Novel series and a great end to the trilogy. One theme in the book that I appreciated was the theme of tolerance. In the book, it paints a scenario in the future where race and faith relations are, by law, required to be tolerant of each other and if broken, would be considered a hate crime.

Dekker points out that in passing such a law would defeat the definition of tolerance to begin with because followers of Jesus (Christianity), by the basic beliefs it holds, clashes with the popular notion of tolerance (i.e. people who passed the law are not tolerant of Christianity's exclusive clams). Jesus states, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father (God) but by me." Pretty exclusive (or inclusive, depending on how you look at it, but that is for another post).

Tolerance, by definition, is a fair, objective and permissive attitude of other ideas that differ from your own. But when it comes to Jesus and His teachings, there usually is no permissive, fair and objective attitude towards His exclusive claims even though by standing by these claims, Christians usually are tolerant of other views (note, to be tolerant, means that you need to disagree and don't hold to differing beliefs, but you have a fair, objective and permissive attitude towards them). Although fictional, Dekker's characters who follow Jesus find themselves breaking the law by the simple statement of beliefs they adhere to and face the consequences of such a stance could be an accurate of where Western society is going.

Where do you think popular views on tolerance are leading to? Do you think followers of Jesus are tolerant?