Respect for Individual Beliefs

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Over the last few days, I've driven behind quite a few cars festooned with stickers that proclaim tolerance and inclusion. The truth of the matter is that this usually only extends one way. Most people do not want tolerance. They want you to tolerate them. They do this in myriad ways, but often they attach their arguments to the Judeo-Christian responsibility to exercise charity, when they are not charitable in how they campaign or how they regard others who hold disparate views. When you point this out, they tell you that you're splitting hairs, that if you love them you will do what they like. Almost every such ad hoc is fallacy.

Sometimes the claim is made on the claims of fellowship or community or society. Well, that defeats the purpose in some cases when the petitioner possesses postulates of principle that lie askew from those of the society from whom they seek approbation. A few weeks ago after kayaking, we went out to dinner. My companions first attempted to persuade me to drink and then proceeded to deride me for my choice to be sober. They of course roasted my religion as archaic and outmoded. They think nothing of the practice and want me to judge myself doing it according to their rules. Constantly, I am criticized by women because I don't sleep with women I date or live with someone before marriage. They find my principles Puritanical and insist that I adopt their perspective in order to make headway. What both of these groups ignore is that I keep my principles because my principles keep me. At the end of the day, I have to live with my decisions and the consequences concomitant with my choices. Every time I step away from my principles, I feel miserable.

Choice is ultimately a matter of conscience more than it is about fellowship. I love the movie "A Man For All Seasons" because Sir Thomas More is one of my heroes. In the scene where Lord North tries to persuade him to sign "for fellowship", More responds:

When we die and you are sent to heaven for living your conscience and I am sent to hell for not living mine, will you come with me for fellowship?

Of course North won't. He will stay because he will want to enjoy his reward. More chooses to abstain, not because he doesn't like North, but because he likes himself. People who ask you to abandon your principles don't usually care about you as much as they care about themselves. If you join in their spoils, as North desires More to do, then they will feel justified, or at least they will feel less bad about themselves. If they can bring down the great Thomas More, then they aren't so bad. Well, that sucks for More. He knows better, and he has the most to lose if he leaves his beliefs.

These people have boundaries too. They don't really want all ideas to be considered, just theirs. One of the stickers I saw claimed it was for marriage and showed silhouettes of normal couples and homosexual ones. It leaves out polygamy, polyandry, incest, bestiality, etc. I'm not an apologist for any of those, but if I love my pillow, shouldn't I be able to marry it? Why won't they let me marry whatever I want, whenever I want, for whatever reason I like, no matter what? If they are really for "love", they would support that too. What they really support is themselves. Well, isn't that special? Christ abjured such people, "If ye love them which love you, what do ye more than others?" In other words, if you only support people who agree with you, that's not love. That's politics. You only really stand for something when you defend the rights of people you do not know and do not like.

Unless you support them, you do not love them. Each of these people knows deep down that this argument is a reducto ad absurdium, because they once had parents probably who refused to acquiesce to their request. It's not because their parents didn't love them. I cannot tell you how many things God denies me constantly or at least delays, but I do not shake my fist at the heavens and taunt Him or accuse Him of hating me. I know better. I ask for patience until I can understand why the answer today must be "no". Instead, humans issue ultimatums and say, "unless you do what I demand, you do not love me" or "unless you agree with me, you're a bigot" or "unless you help me, you are greedy" when if the tables were reversed they would apply a completely different standard. Only they matter. It serves them today, and so they stand for it.

It takes very little courage to stand with people who agree with you. It takes a great deal more to stand for what is right. It takes More faith and More courage, to refuse to join "for fellowship" with people who don't really want your fellowship in the first place. Many of these same people will demand your allowances while they talk about how their friends accept them for who they are. Most of them want to be accepted for who they are without having to return the favor, and even worse they demand that you abandon who you are to make them comfortable. It is not love to alienate you from your God, to take you from your family, or to drive you from what you know in order to welcome you. "Come as you are, as a friend, as a known memory", unless of course you are different, in which case you can join or walk the plank.

People who really respect and love you will respect and love YOU. They may disagree with your behaviors or beliefs or choices or companions, but they will still love YOU. Every single one of my close friends is a chain smoker. Some of them gamble. Others drink. They do not demand me to join them in the casino or at the bar or in the back room in order to be my friend. I do not demand that they quit those things in order to be theirs. Everyone has a Goliath to slay. Everyone needs the Savior. Everyone has an Achille's Heel. Just because yours is obvious doesn't mean I should eschew your company. While I don't join them doing things I find aberrant or abhorrent, I will join them in everything they do that is virtuous and brave and true. They feel the same way about me. They don't join me at church because they don't want to live my doctrine, but they don't mind that I live it. That's what real friends will do. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.