Christians: Is Christianity a religion that preaches tolerance?

Question

Regardless of whether you think it does, or does not, please cite an example from the bible.

No Prosthelyzing. Just once, I'd like to have an open religious discussion without trying to be saved. Please keep your answers relevant to the question.

No, I'm not attacking Christianity, I just honestly want to know. I have a Christian friend and during a discussion she stated that nowhere in the bible did it discuss free will or tolerance for others. That kind of seemed contradictory to what I know of Christianity. Looking for open discussion from either side of the issue for my own education.

Answer 1

Christ absolutely taught tolerance. God is clear about his intolerance toward sin (Romans 6:23), but just as clear about how Christians are to treat people. Jesus passionately befriended many whom society rejected; John the Baptist was pretty wild, wearing camel skin and eating locusts (Matthew 3:4), Jesus touched a leper (Matthew8:3). Matthew himself was a tax collector, and as such was hated more them as they are now; they were known for corruption. (Matthew 9:9). He struck up a comversation with a woman (which may have been scandalous enough). But she was a Samaritan. Samaritans were hated by Jews because they were descendants of Jews who had intermarried with Gentiles. This particular Samaritan had been divorced five times and had a live-in lover. (John 4:17-18)

In addition, I want to add that while homosexuality (and even sexual slavery), and abortion were common practices in Roman culture during the life of Christ, these were not the issues he chose to spend his time rebuking. He was much more concerned about teaching people to love God and each other. Those he rebuked were those respected by most Jews; the Pharisees and other religious leaders. The superficially pious and arrogant were the ones Jesus had no tolerance for. (Luke 10:27) (Matthew 23:25)

Unfortunately, we have too many people who are associated with Christianity, and are probably sincere in their actions, but much more strongly resemble the Pharisees than Christ himself. I hope this helps; I'd love to discuss this further if you wish, [e-mail].

Answer 2

I have never seen anything specific to tolerance. The free will thing came from many of Jesus's sermons on people having a choice to serve god or not, but I don't see any place where he actually says "free will" Most Christians confuse these teachings and get them a wound up in the rules of service to the god. What Jesus was trying to get across, was that if you choose to worship the Jewish god, he had rules you had to choose to follow, BUT you are free to bow out of the whole deal with no consequences. If you chose to follow, then you are supposed to follow the rules with a generous and willing heart, and not just follow along for the sake of conformity.

This seems so simple to me, but the Christians don't seem to be reading the same bible as me.

Answer 3

I was raised Catholic, and I still follow Christianity, although I dont' truly believe in any organized religion these days. There are many different sects of Christianity, each with their own variation of beliefs and interpretations of the Bible. Sadly, Catholics arent' really up on their Bible study, and since this is the only "religion" I know, I can't site you anything from the Bible without spending days researching.
BUT.......what I CAN tell you is what I have listened to being preached in Church at mass on Sundays, and that is definitely a message of tolerance. Tolerace of all religions I mean, and tolerance of those who aren't perfect and those who dont' quite fit into the Catholic mold. Is the CAtholic church tolerant of blatantly sinning without remorse and doing whatever the hell you want when you feel like it..........and then showing up to Sunday mass for no good reason?.....No of course not. But it IS tolerant.......and promoting of forgiveness, no matter how many times you need it/give it.
What I see.........especially in the Catholic sect of Christianity......is a few bad apples ruining it for the rest of us. You'd be suprised how a preacher/priest varies his teachings to the crowd from church to church. I think in the end.......no matter what your Faith, you are subject to whoever is leading the congregation and how closely the people follow that leader.
Are there verses in the Bible that teach tolerance? Yes, I know there are because I remember reading them.......I can't quote them exactly right now. Do they literally say, "be tolerant"? No, but they teach alot about acceptance and forgiveness and..........actually I think the story of the good Samaritan is one of them.......the story of the man laying half dead on the road and after being passed by by 3 of his countrymen, he is helped and saved by a person who is enemies with his own country. I think that's a good example of tolerance being taught.

Answer 4

As God's character is revealed in the Bible, I don't believe that God is tolerant with sin. (Idolatry, worshiping other gods, lying, sexual immorality, murder, etc...) The Bible does say that God is patient and slow to anger with us. He gives us time to change because He does love us and He doesn't want anyone to go to hell. Jesus was very patient with people, but yet He also drew the line by saying that He is the Way, The Truth, and The Life, no one comes to the Father except through me. That statement implies that every other way is false and does not lead to heaven. That doesn't sound very tolerant to me.

But if tolerance means that other people can't express their viewpoints even if it disagrees with what you believe, then that's just plain censorship.

Calling someone intolerant is a double-edged sword. Because it also convicts the the one who wields it.

Answer 5

Well, compared to Islam, Christianity teaches a significant amount of tolerance.

Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

OR

Matthew 9:10 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

Jesus tolerated all manner of sinners, as should we. Some Christians are quite vigilantic, and I condemn that. But in general, Christianity is extremely tolerant.

Answer 6

Jesus' whole work was sharing the love and salvation message to all people Jew's and gentiles alike. Then Paul carried on the ministry by spreading the word of God and the story of Jesus to all people of all the known world at that time. Free will is expressed in the bible many times. God presents himself to us, we decide to act upon that free gift by accepting. We were given free will so that God would fell truly loved when we turn our lives to him. Otherwise we would be nothing but robots....

Answer 7

Jesus taught us to love and pray for those who disagree with us - even those who openly persecute us:

Matthew 5:43-48
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

When Jesus was being crucified he prayed:
"Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."

When Paul went out into the gentile world and started telling them about Jesus he ran into alot of trouble. The Pagans had their own gods and godesses - like athena, apollo etc. Paul would come to a city and tell them that their gods weren't gods at all, and that there was only one god, the god of the Jews.

People started to believe them, and so the people who made their money by making statues and shrines to Athena got very mad at Paul because nobody was buying their statues anymore! So they tried to have Paul stoned and run him out of town.

Paul never reacted violently against them, he just continued to preach his message: that there is only one God and Apollo ain't it and neither is Athena!

So I guess you can call it tolerance in that Christians are taught to love and pray for those who disagree with us and never force people to believe what we believe. But, it is not tolerance in that all religions are equal.

Part of loving someone is telling them the truth. In this case, the truth that there is only one God. People won't like that - and they will react violently to it - Jesus was crucified, Paul stoned and eventually crucified, all but one of the apostles was crucified etc. But never did any of them do any violence or harm to those who disagreed with them.

I hope this answers your question?

Answer 8

i am a christian by birth. my knowledge of bible is not extensive. the new testament in the bible preaches tolerance and the old does not , according to my understanding. and christianity is actually concerned with new testament ( from christ ) .
also , i believe that current american govt is headed by zealous christians. i may be mistaken . and what is tolerance by the way?

Answer 9

Here are some verses of tolerence.....

When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.
Matt.:10:23

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy...
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of rightousness,for theirs is the knigdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Matt:5:7,9-11

This last quote of Jesus came from his famous sremon on the Mount. Jesus never talked about fighting in the name of God, so of course he never offered rewards for doing so. However Jesus did speak of rewards for those who refused to fight.

Answer 10

Yes I believe when you are free to choose a path of behavior, this is free will,and God allows us out of love to find out for ourselves where these paths are leading. Amongst the many directions of standard,His standard is most promising, yet he lets us choose paths of vanity if we wish to escape realism. We are free moral agents!