Hate<\\/b><\\/h2>\\n Many years ago I came across <\\/span>an observation<\\/span><\\/a> by author <\\/span>John Michael Greer<\\/span><\\/a> that has stayed with me. He noted that hate is to modern sensibilities what sex was to Victorian sensibilities. That is, during the Victorian era sex was the root of all evil, today hate is. As he points out:<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " If you want to slap the worst imaginable label on an organization, you call it a hate group. If you want to push a category of discourse straight into the realm of the utterly unacceptable, you call it hate speech. If you\\u2019re speaking in public and you want to be sure that everyone in the crowd will beam approval at you, all you have to do is denounce hate.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n First, he\\u2019s basically saying the same thing I am, if love has become the ultimate value, then hate (as its opposite) must therefore be the value most to be abhorred. But, beyond that, by tying it back to Victorian sensibilities, he\\u2019s making an additional point: The Victorians, especially the upper class, weren\\u2019t against all sex, they were against sex as practiced by people other than themselves. In the same fashion, modern sensibilities don\\u2019t oppose all hate nor are they in favor of all love. Rather, they\\u2019re against certain varieties of hate. It helps to recognize that if we replace love with tolerance and hate with intolerance, even that only closes part of the distance. Because just as acceptable sex was entirely based on class in Victorian times, now tolerance and intolerance is heavily based on ideology. Even the mildest intolerance of the LGBT community is among the worst things of which you can be accused. While on the other hand rabid hatred of Trump and his supporters is not only acceptable, it\\u2019s encouraged.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Tolerance<\\/b><\\/h2>\\n This twisting of love and hate into tolerance and intolerance has been well-documented and detailed at some length by <\\/span>better people than me<\\/span><\\/a>. But it makes a good place to bring in religion. People often justify making love into the ultimate value by bringing in Christ and Christianity. Some are actively involved in an organized Christian church. Some self-identify as Christian, with varying levels of commitment, but with minimal actual church attendance. Others put forth love as the ultimate value with no real reference to Christ except perhaps as one wise person among many. Finally there are people who use their interpretation of Christian ideology as a club to beat up on Christians for being insufficiently tolerant, at least according to their completely subjective interpretation of it.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Given that all these individuals are referencing Christ and Christianity, what did Christ have to say about love? In particular, what did he say about it being the ultimate value? One phrase that\\u2019s frequently mentioned in this context is from 1 John 4:16: \\u201cGod is love\\u201d.\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n This seems pretty clear, it\\u2019s not even something like God commands us to love, or God values love, God <\\/span>is<\\/span><\\/i> love. And yet if it\\u2019s as important as all that, why does this phrase only appear in one place in the Bible? If this is a critical part of Christianity you\\u2019d expect it to actually appear in one of the four Gospels, right? Also the New Testament was originally written in Greek. Are we sure that this phrase has the same connotation as the one we\\u2019re giving it? The difference between the <\\/span>various Greek words for love<\\/span><\\/a> is a whole discussion I don\\u2019t have space to get into, but there\\u2019s a strong argument to be made that \\u201cGod is self-sacrifice\\u201d would be closer to the original meaning than \\u201cGod is infinitely tolerant.\\u201d\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Agape<\\/b><\\/h2>\\n******* *\* *******The next best piece of evidence for the importance of love is Matthew 22:36-40:<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p>\\n******* *\* 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p>\\n *\* 38 This is the first and great commandment.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p>\\n *\* 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p>\\n *\* 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n *\* Once again we\\u2019ve got a strong <\\/span>prima facie<\\/span><\\/i> case for love\\u2019s status within Christianity. But most people pushing to make love the ultimate value aren\\u2019t pushing to make love of God their primary value. They\\u2019re skipping the first commandment and moving straight to the second (given their actual behavior, even this interpretation is rather generous). But presumably the first commandment is first for a reason. Just as skipping the first step: \\u201cTurn on the oven\\u201d will be fatal to any attempt to bake, skipping \\u201cLove the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind\\u201d is almost certainly fatal to exercising Christian love.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n *\* *******All of this is a problem; even if people today are using love in the same sense Christ was when he issued the original proclamation in Aramaic. But I don\\u2019t think that\\u2019s the case either. Not only is there more sacrifice implied in the original, but also a greater sense of commitment implied, and far less selfishness as well. To be fair \\u201clove thy neighbor\\u201d still sits in second position for a great many people, but that\\u2019s not because they have put love of God first. Instead their first commandment is \\u201cLove yourself above all else.\\u201d We can also call this self-actualization, and it\\u2019s a long way from the love of God Jesus was referring to 2,000 years ago.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Repentance<\\/b><\\/h2>\\n The idea for this post actually came to me as I was reading <\\/span>Alma 29<\\/span><\\/a>. For any non-Mormons who may have made it this far, <\\/span>Alma the Younger<\\/span><\\/a> is a major figure in the Book of Mormon and in Chapter 29, Alma mentions that if he could have \\u201cthe wish of his heart\\u201d he would want to be an angel. What would he do if he were an angel and could travel the world and speak with a \\u201cvoice to shake the earth\\u201d? He would preach repentance, not love.\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n The word love doesn\\u2019t appear in the chapter. In fact, if you compare occurrences of \\u201c<\\/span>repentance<\\/span><\\/a>\\u201d to occurrences of \\u201c<\\/span>love<\\/span><\\/a>\\u201d in the Book of Mormon, you\\u2019ll find that the word love appears 60 times but the word repentance appears 92 times. Why is this important? You would expect that Alma has a pretty good idea of what the world most needs to hear, and in his mind, if he could reach every soul, he would be declaring the need to repent not the need for more love. Now it\\u2019s possible that things have changed, and whatever was most important in Alma\\u2019s time is not what is most important in our time. That there\\u2019s no longer any need for people to repent, but that hardly seems likely\\u2026<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Another place we might turn is the <\\/span>Articles of Faith<\\/span><\\/a>. While they don\\u2019t cover every nook and cranny of LDS theology, anything that\\u2019s really important should be included there. Turning to them, the closest we get to the word love is \\u201cIf there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.\\u201d On the other hand, though it only appears once, repentance is on the list of \\u201cfirst principles,\\u201d right after faith.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n This emphasis on repentance is not just an LDS fascination. Even if we restrict ourselves to the New Testament you still have scriptures like <\\/span>Luke 24:46-47<\\/span><\\/a>:<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " 46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p>\\n 47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n Similar to Alma\\u2019s wish, it\\u2019s repentance that gets preached among all nations, not love, and certainly not tolerance.<\\/span><\\/p>\\n None of this is to say that love isn\\u2019t important, or even very important, but when you prioritize it above everything else, then you risk losing other important principles, particularly if those principles clash with your expanded and prioritized vision of love\\u2019s meaning. If love takes on the meaning of infinite tolerance then what place does repentance have which has intolerance for sin baked right into the definition?<\\/span><\\/p>\\n Cooperation<\\/b><\\/h2>\\n What if we ignore religion? Let\\u2019s say that although you\\u2019re an atheist who has nothing but disdain for Christianity, you\\u2019re still trying to make a good faith effort to live as well as possible. Where should you prioritize love? Insofar as love leads to cooperation and cooperation makes things easier to accomplish, I can still see placing a very high value on it. That said, whatever the modern definition of love, it doesn\\u2019t seem especially good at fostering greater cooperation. A focus on love and tolerance with a corresponding abhorrence of hate has, seemingly, only brought greater division. As one example <\\/span>The Economist <\\/span><\\/i>reports<\\/span><\\/a> that:<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " A survey of American adults conducted between June 27th and July 4th <\\/span><\\/i>\[of 2022\]<\\/span> by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, found that 62% of Republicans have a very unfavourable view of Democrats, up from 21% in 1994. The share of Democrats with similar views of Republicans has increased from 17% to 54% during the same period. You might suppose that independent voters who are unaffiliated with a party but \\u201clean\\u201d towards one side would hold more positive views of the other. In fact they are nearly as negative.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n I\\u2019ve pointed out how the case for a <\\/span>singular<\\/span><\\/i> prioritization of love and tolerance is not supported by religion, but the case for tolerance is even weaker if you\\u2019re expecting salvation through science or human effort. Under a religious framework you could at least imagine that even if we get the balance wrong, say too much tolerance, or too little, that in the end, if there\\u2019s a God that he might still very well be merciful. But if you don\\u2019t believe there\\u2019s a God willing to excuse our mistakes. If you believe we have to succeed or fail entirely on our own merits \\u2014 that, if we flunk the test, that there\\u2019s no higher power to appeal to for mercy, then the issue of tolerance becomes very fraught indeed.\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n If we must achieve salvation through our own efforts then there are right answers and there are wrong answers. And before we can even consider which answers are right we have to figure out what secular salvation actually is. What question is being asked of us? Will we be saved if we can make it off planet in a sustainable fashion? Must we master technology rather than being mastered by it? Is survival the only thing that\\u2019s required or do we need to flourish? What are we trying to accomplish and how will tolerance help us get there?\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n If, as an example, the only right answer is to make it off the planet, then tolerating people who aren\\u2019t interested in that becomes a fatal mistake. This is the same whether you think the right answer is creating a benevolent superintelligent AI, or solving global warming or creating a socialist utopia. The variety and importance of these goals may be the reason why a greater push for tolerance has led to a society that\\u2019s actually far more divided. If there is a God around to show us mercy then we can afford to be charitable to views we disagree with. On the other hand, if there is no God then we can\\u2019t afford that charity. We have to be right.\\u00a0<\\/span><\\/p>\\n My main point is a religious one, but even outside of that, something is clearly going on with love and tolerance, particularly the way in which modern tolerance can be so expansive, while at the same time being so incredibly narrow. I\\u2019m reminded of the words of <\\/span>The Princess Bride\\u2019s <\\/span><\\/i>Inigo Montoya, \\u201cYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.\\u201d<\\/span><\\/p>\\n I end by repeating my contention that self-proclaimed believers are increasingly minimizing the injunction to repent while stretching and distorting the admonition to love. To these people I would emphasize and conclude with the words of <\\/span>Matthew 4:17<\\/span><\\/a>:<\\/span><\\/p>\\n " From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.<\\/span><\\/i><\\/p><\\/blockquote>\\n<\\/body><\\/html>\\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Love is very important for Christians, but has there been too much emphasis placed on it? And has this emphasis warped it into something else? To put it more simply is perfect Christian love the same as unlimited tolerance? This post argues that it’s not, and that in fact if you’re looking for the ultimate Christian principle it might be “repentance”.<\\/p>\\n","protected":false},"author":5106,"featured\_media":416,"comment\_status":"open","ping\_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":\[20\],"tags":\[\],"class\_list":\["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scriptures"\],"yoast\_head":"\\nThe Overemphasis on Love and Tolerance<\\/title>\\n<meta name=\\"description\\" content=\\"Love is very important for Christians, but has there been too much emphasis placed on it? And has this emphasis warped it into something else? To put it more simply is perfect Christian love the same as unlimited tolerance? 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Pieces which were too weird for this forum can be found at wearenotsaved.com.","url":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/author\\/rrichey\\/"}\]}},"\_links":{"self":\[{"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/posts\\/407","targetHints":{"allow":\["GET"\]}}\],"collection":\[{"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/posts"}\],"about":\[{"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/types\\/post"}\],"author":\[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/users\\/5106"}\],"replies":\[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/comments?post=407"}\],"version-history":\[{"count":0,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/posts\\/407\\/revisions"}\],"wp:featuredmedia":\[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/media\\/416"}\],"wp:attachment":\[{"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/media?parent=407"}\],"wp:term":\[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post\_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\\/\\/www.patheos.com\\/blogs\\/dispatchesendofworld\\/wp-json\\/wp\\/v2\\/tags?post=407"}\],"curies":\[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\\/\\/api.w.org\\/{rel}","templated":true}\]}} " " " " " " "

{"id":407,"date":"2023-11-20T10:14:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T17:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/?p=407"},"modified":"2023-11-20T10:14:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T17:14:12","slug":"the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Overemphasis on Love and Tolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

"Header

A workman gradually replacing a traditional stained glass window with something more appropriate to our times. Generated by Dall-E 3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I want to talk about love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

See, I have a problem with love. One of my employees will often sarcastically ask me when I decided to \u201cLove hate and hate love.\u201d Particularly when I ask him to do something he doesn\u2019t want to do. Perhaps he\u2019s on to something, but to be clear I don\u2019t hate love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I do, however, think we\u2019ve put far too much emphasis on it, making it the ultimate value, above and beyond all others. In doing so we have stretched its meaning to the point where love, as most people practice it, is a long way away from its Christian or even its humanist ideal. We\u2019ve done this in many different ways, I\u2019m going to start with the most obvious and then work back from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hate<\/b><\/h2>\n Many years ago I came across <\/span>an observation<\/span><\/a> by author <\/span>John Michael Greer<\/span><\/a> that has stayed with me. He noted that hate is to modern sensibilities what sex was to Victorian sensibilities. That is, during the Victorian era sex was the root of all evil, today hate is. As he points out:<\/span><\/p>\n " If you want to slap the worst imaginable label on an organization, you call it a hate group. If you want to push a category of discourse straight into the realm of the utterly unacceptable, you call it hate speech. If you\u2019re speaking in public and you want to be sure that everyone in the crowd will beam approval at you, all you have to do is denounce hate.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n First, he\u2019s basically saying the same thing I am, if love has become the ultimate value, then hate (as its opposite) must therefore be the value most to be abhorred. But, beyond that, by tying it back to Victorian sensibilities, he\u2019s making an additional point: The Victorians, especially the upper class, weren\u2019t against all sex, they were against sex as practiced by people other than themselves. In the same fashion, modern sensibilities don\u2019t oppose all hate nor are they in favor of all love. Rather, they\u2019re against certain varieties of hate. It helps to recognize that if we replace love with tolerance and hate with intolerance, even that only closes part of the distance. Because just as acceptable sex was entirely based on class in Victorian times, now tolerance and intolerance is heavily based on ideology. Even the mildest intolerance of the LGBT community is among the worst things of which you can be accused. While on the other hand rabid hatred of Trump and his supporters is not only acceptable, it\u2019s encouraged.<\/span><\/p>\n Tolerance<\/b><\/h2>\n This twisting of love and hate into tolerance and intolerance has been well-documented and detailed at some length by <\/span>better people than me<\/span><\/a>. But it makes a good place to bring in religion. People often justify making love into the ultimate value by bringing in Christ and Christianity. Some are actively involved in an organized Christian church. Some self-identify as Christian, with varying levels of commitment, but with minimal actual church attendance. Others put forth love as the ultimate value with no real reference to Christ except perhaps as one wise person among many. Finally there are people who use their interpretation of Christian ideology as a club to beat up on Christians for being insufficiently tolerant, at least according to their completely subjective interpretation of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Given that all these individuals are referencing Christ and Christianity, what did Christ have to say about love? In particular, what did he say about it being the ultimate value? One phrase that\u2019s frequently mentioned in this context is from 1 John 4:16: \u201cGod is love\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This seems pretty clear, it\u2019s not even something like God commands us to love, or God values love, God <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> love. And yet if it\u2019s as important as all that, why does this phrase only appear in one place in the Bible? If this is a critical part of Christianity you\u2019d expect it to actually appear in one of the four Gospels, right? Also the New Testament was originally written in Greek. Are we sure that this phrase has the same connotation as the one we\u2019re giving it? The difference between the <\/span>various Greek words for love<\/span><\/a> is a whole discussion I don\u2019t have space to get into, but there\u2019s a strong argument to be made that \u201cGod is self-sacrifice\u201d would be closer to the original meaning than \u201cGod is infinitely tolerant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Agape<\/b><\/h2>\n* The next best piece of evidence for the importance of love is Matthew 22:36-40:<\/span><\/p>\n " 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 38 This is the first and great commandment.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once again we\u2019ve got a strong <\/span>prima facie<\/span><\/i> case for love\u2019s status within Christianity. But most people pushing to make love the ultimate value aren\u2019t pushing to make love of God their primary value. They\u2019re skipping the first commandment and moving straight to the second (given their actual behavior, even this interpretation is rather generous). But presumably the first commandment is first for a reason. Just as skipping the first step: \u201cTurn on the oven\u201d will be fatal to any attempt to bake, skipping \u201cLove the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind\u201d is almost certainly fatal to exercising Christian love.<\/span><\/p>\n *All of this is a problem; even if people today are using love in the same sense Christ was when he issued the original proclamation in Aramaic. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case either. Not only is there more sacrifice implied in the original, but also a greater sense of commitment implied, and far less selfishness as well. To be fair \u201clove thy neighbor\u201d still sits in second position for a great many people, but that\u2019s not because they have put love of God first. Instead their first commandment is \u201cLove yourself above all else.\u201d We can also call this self-actualization, and it\u2019s a long way from the love of God Jesus was referring to 2,000 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n Repentance<\/b><\/h2>\n The idea for this post actually came to me as I was reading <\/span>Alma 29<\/span><\/a>. For any non-Mormons who may have made it this far, <\/span>Alma the Younger<\/span><\/a> is a major figure in the Book of Mormon and in Chapter 29, Alma mentions that if he could have \u201cthe wish of his heart\u201d he would want to be an angel. What would he do if he were an angel and could travel the world and speak with a \u201cvoice to shake the earth\u201d? He would preach repentance, not love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n " Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The word love doesn\u2019t appear in the chapter. In fact, if you compare occurrences of \u201c<\/span>repentance<\/span><\/a>\u201d to occurrences of \u201c<\/span>love<\/span><\/a>\u201d in the Book of Mormon, you\u2019ll find that the word love appears 60 times but the word repentance appears 92 times. Why is this important? You would expect that Alma has a pretty good idea of what the world most needs to hear, and in his mind, if he could reach every soul, he would be declaring the need to repent not the need for more love. Now it\u2019s possible that things have changed, and whatever was most important in Alma\u2019s time is not what is most important in our time. That there\u2019s no longer any need for people to repent, but that hardly seems likely\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Another place we might turn is the <\/span>Articles of Faith<\/span><\/a>. While they don\u2019t cover every nook and cranny of LDS theology, anything that\u2019s really important should be included there. Turning to them, the closest we get to the word love is \u201cIf there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.\u201d On the other hand, though it only appears once, repentance is on the list of \u201cfirst principles,\u201d right after faith.<\/span><\/p>\n " We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This emphasis on repentance is not just an LDS fascination. Even if we restrict ourselves to the New Testament you still have scriptures like <\/span>Luke 24:46-47<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n " 46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Similar to Alma\u2019s wish, it\u2019s repentance that gets preached among all nations, not love, and certainly not tolerance.<\/span><\/p>\n None of this is to say that love isn\u2019t important, or even very important, but when you prioritize it above everything else, then you risk losing other important principles, particularly if those principles clash with your expanded and prioritized vision of love\u2019s meaning. If love takes on the meaning of infinite tolerance then what place does repentance have which has intolerance for sin baked right into the definition?<\/span><\/p>\n Cooperation<\/b><\/h2>\n What if we ignore religion? Let\u2019s say that although you\u2019re an atheist who has nothing but disdain for Christianity, you\u2019re still trying to make a good faith effort to live as well as possible. Where should you prioritize love? Insofar as love leads to cooperation and cooperation makes things easier to accomplish, I can still see placing a very high value on it. That said, whatever the modern definition of love, it doesn\u2019t seem especially good at fostering greater cooperation. A focus on love and tolerance with a corresponding abhorrence of hate has, seemingly, only brought greater division. As one example <\/span>The Economist <\/span><\/i>reports<\/span><\/a> that:<\/span><\/p>\n " A survey of American adults conducted between June 27th and July 4th <\/span><\/i>[of 2022]<\/span> by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, found that 62% of Republicans have a very unfavourable view of Democrats, up from 21% in 1994. The share of Democrats with similar views of Republicans has increased from 17% to 54% during the same period. You might suppose that independent voters who are unaffiliated with a party but \u201clean\u201d towards one side would hold more positive views of the other. In fact they are nearly as negative.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve pointed out how the case for a <\/span>singular<\/span><\/i> prioritization of love and tolerance is not supported by religion, but the case for tolerance is even weaker if you\u2019re expecting salvation through science or human effort. Under a religious framework you could at least imagine that even if we get the balance wrong, say too much tolerance, or too little, that in the end, if there\u2019s a God that he might still very well be merciful. But if you don\u2019t believe there\u2019s a God willing to excuse our mistakes. If you believe we have to succeed or fail entirely on our own merits \u2014 that, if we flunk the test, that there\u2019s no higher power to appeal to for mercy, then the issue of tolerance becomes very fraught indeed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If we must achieve salvation through our own efforts then there are right answers and there are wrong answers. And before we can even consider which answers are right we have to figure out what secular salvation actually is. What question is being asked of us? Will we be saved if we can make it off planet in a sustainable fashion? Must we master technology rather than being mastered by it? Is survival the only thing that\u2019s required or do we need to flourish? What are we trying to accomplish and how will tolerance help us get there?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If, as an example, the only right answer is to make it off the planet, then tolerating people who aren\u2019t interested in that becomes a fatal mistake. This is the same whether you think the right answer is creating a benevolent superintelligent AI, or solving global warming or creating a socialist utopia. The variety and importance of these goals may be the reason why a greater push for tolerance has led to a society that\u2019s actually far more divided. If there is a God around to show us mercy then we can afford to be charitable to views we disagree with. On the other hand, if there is no God then we can\u2019t afford that charity. We have to be right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My main point is a religious one, but even outside of that, something is clearly going on with love and tolerance, particularly the way in which modern tolerance can be so expansive, while at the same time being so incredibly narrow. I\u2019m reminded of the words of <\/span>The Princess Bride\u2019s <\/span><\/i>Inigo Montoya, \u201cYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I end by repeating my contention that self-proclaimed believers are increasingly minimizing the injunction to repent while stretching and distorting the admonition to love. To these people I would emphasize and conclude with the words of <\/span>Matthew 4:17<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n " From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Love is very important for Christians, but has there been too much emphasis placed on it? And has this emphasis warped it into something else? To put it more simply is perfect Christian love the same as unlimited tolerance? 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Richey","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/","name":"The Overemphasis on Love and Tolerance","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-20T17:14:12+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-20T17:14:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/#\/schema\/person\/d10f7f03f506eaa98284b3bfc442de43"},"description":"Love is very important for Christians, but has there been too much emphasis placed on it? And has this emphasis warped it into something else? To put it more simply is perfect Christian love the same as unlimited tolerance? This post argues that it's not, and that in fact if you're looking for the ultimate Christian principle it might be \"repentance\".","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/2023\/11\/the-overemphasis-on-love-and-tolerance\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Overemphasis on Love and Tolerance"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/","name":"Dispatches From the End of the World","description":"R. W. Richey\u2019s Dispatches From the End of the World explores the changes wrought by technology and the implications it carries for mankind\u2019s eventual destiny.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/#\/schema\/person\/d10f7f03f506eaa98284b3bfc442de43","name":"R. W. Richey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63f2a858bdaed8af05733d7cbbd8d5a6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/63f2a858bdaed8af05733d7cbbd8d5a6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"R. W. Richey"},"description":"R. W. Richey is a tech entrepreneur, blogger, and aspiring autodidact, who dabbles in LDS cosmology\/philosophy He stopped working for the man in 2007 so he could have more time to read and write. More than fifteen years later this utopia continues to elude him, but it\u2019s not for lack of trying. In his limited free time he slays dragons and explores dungeons. Pieces which were too weird for this forum can be found at wearenotsaved.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/author\/rrichey\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/dispatchesendofworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} " " " " "** " "