March 1 1999

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Those Messy Gray Areas
* Daniel Taylor's article on tolerance ["Are You Tolerant? (Should You Be?)," Jan. 11] recalled a line from Oswald Chambers: "There never was a more inconsistent Being on this earth than Our Lord, but He was never inconsistent to His Father. The one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life." The easy answer to tolerance is to see issues in black and white. Taylor's admonition to practice unconditional love often leads us into the messy gray areas where it turns out we find the face of Christ as we serve our brothers and sisters. And that love is never understood by either side as the Cross demonstrates; but take heart, the One who died on the cross understands and empowers.

Bob Martin
Walnut Creek, Calif.

We must be mindful of the fact that we are Christ's witness in our society. If every Christian were to demonstrate the love of Christ, to every sinner, the often flippant use of the word intolerant would become powerless in silencing the voices of many thoughtful Christians. Let us not become accepting of sin, but in all cases certain to temper our outrage with love.

Joseph C. Wise
Milligan College
Milligan College, Tenn.

It is amazing that the misunderstood and ambiguous charge of "intolerance" can compel so many to oppose Christianity. Taylor correctly showed that we have two weapons against tolerance. One is education. If national discussion of tolerance could be brought about, many would recognize its self-contradictory nature and flee from it. Our other weapon is love. Christians need less hating of sin and more loving the sinner. By showing Christ's love to homosexuals or abortionists we will enact more moral change than a thousand social agendas will.

Jonathan ...