The Intolerance of Tolerance (D. A. Carson)

D. A. Carson

I think it’s fairly safe to say that all readers of this review will not be shocked by the idea that tolerance could in fact be intolerant. After all, we live in a society where court cases arise from refusing to make a cake promoting gay rights, where banks have asked Christian charities to close their accounts and where Christian university groups across the UK have been forced to disband. D.A. Carson’s book could not be more apt to help speak a voice of biblical reason into the chaos of a society that has made so called “tolerance” its god.

Carson effectively presents a firm discourse revealing the truth of what tolerance is, how to understand what we are facing today and how to engage with it. He highlights that the 21st century has adopted a new meaning of tolerance - from accepting the existence of differing views to the acceptance of differing views. This is a subtle, yet powerful, change that has grasped our western culture as moral absolutes disappear in favour of moral relativism. Carson not only highlights how this is evident in society at large but also how it has slipped into the church under continuing pressure to accept all as truth at great cost to the truth.

Perhaps most helpfully, Carson unpicks the contradictions, folly and dangers of this new tolerance and stance of moral relativism to help us understand the importance of truth and how to contend for it in the face of intolerant tolerance. Let me leave you with this quote from the book -

“Christians who attempt to be faithful to the Bible are bound to uphold certain truths... If they are judged intolerant in the new sense, the price of escaping this charge is too high to pay: it would mean abandoning Christ.”

P.S. Get the book. Out of all the books I’ve reviewed, get this one. Feed your mind and your heart.)