It’s easy to see why people think the Christian tradition breeds intolerance. When the Israelites invaded Canaan, they were under orders to kill its inhabitants mercilessly. Later, but without the same divine sanction, “Christian” conquerors ruthlessly fashioned Christian religion into a cultural weapon that they combined with military force. Much of the “Christianization” of the West was accomplished at the edge of the sword, and the motives of “Christian” warlords were mixed at best.
Compared superficially with biblical faith, paganism seems tolerant. Under paganism everyone has his own gods (and values), and, in theory, everyone is willing to let other people believe, worship, and act as they wish. Everyone tolerates everybody else’s gods, and everybody gets along.
In actuality, things don’t work out so amicably. Different gods represent different moral and cultural values. Inevitably the gods (and values) of pagan groups clash. In paganism, the stronger groups eventually overwhelm the weaker ones and impose their gods on them with no pretense of concern for justice. If we observe parts of the world still controlled by pagan religious and cultural values we will gain a more realistic view of pagan “tolerance.” Pagan cultures are characterized by tribalism, witchcraft, superstition, and fear. In fact, such was the state of pagan Europe before the introduction of the gospel.
It’s true that Christian faith was exploited by kings, crusaders, and inquisitors. In depressing regularity, cunning, worldly kings cynically led their “Christian” armies against other “Christian” (as well as pagan and Muslim) foes. In spite of this, the Christian gospel and the influence of the Holy Spirit was at work within the imperfect vessel of Western culture, asserting the infinite worth of each individual to a loving God. As a result, even though the Christian religious tradition continues to be labeled as intolerant by its enemies, the influence of biblical religion has made the Western world by far the most humane, enlightened, tolerant, and diverse society that has ever existed.
Much of the intolerance within Western, Christian tradition has been indefensible. But in spite of serious flaws, some of the intolerance of this tradition was aimed against real falsehood, injustice, superstition, and evil. Why? Because biblical religion alone is based on a view of God that gives both tolerance and intolerance a reasonable basis.
The Canaanites were probably surprised that the Israelites looked with horror on the human sacrifices and other kinds of inhuman depravity that they carried out in the names of their gods. They were convinced that if they didn’t perform their horrible rituals, their gods would be angered and they would be punished.1
Similarly, the Aztecs (who sacrificed thousands of victims each year to their sun god and cannibalized their bodies) were shocked and amazed that the Spaniards looked upon their sacred religious duties with revulsion.
The church today is clearly not in the position of Israel. In fact, whenever the church has sought to directly assume the reins of governmental authority, she has lost her love for her Lord and has become cruel and corrupt. But God has placed the church where she can do His work. She can (and should) influence culture and government by setting an example of purity and love. She is also in a position to make an appeal to culture and government upon the basis of reason and natural law.
In spite of glaring failures, it was the presence of the church and its witness that nurtured the ethical and humanitarian vision of the West. Only when people believe in the biblical God, a holy Creator who has established real moral law and who demands allegiance to truth and justice, are they willing to trust the process of law and justice. There can be no civility without confidence in law and justice.
But just as important as the influence of the church in establishing the worth of the individual and in promoting faith and justice was the biblical call for the transformation of the individual heart.
At the heart of both the Old and New Testaments is a declaration that the most essential thing for the human soul is individual conversion,2 being “born again” in response to the call of the Holy Spirit. This individual response is all-important, the one thing that determines each person’s eternal destiny. This biblical emphasis on personal conversion confirms the worth and dignity of the individual. Each person is responsible for his own spiritual destiny. The biblical call for personal conversion underlies the emphasis on individual freedom and dignity that are coming to fruition in the West (and in other societies that are adopting Western values). It was biblical respect for the individual conscience that led to the development of the Western political concept of “freedom of religion.” Even today in modern Islamic countries, converts to Christianity and critics of Islam are being put to death.
The Bible’s intolerance for falsehood and evil is the basis for any genuine tolerance. Although much evil has been done in the name of biblical religion, only the unwise would deny the importance of the biblical principles that nurture and uphold our most essential cultural values (Â Psalm 14:1;Â Proverbs 10:8; 18:2).
A.(Leviticus 18:21-26; 20:2-5;Â Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10;Â 2 Kings 17:31;Â 2 Chronicles 28:3;Â Psalm 106:34-41;Â Isaiah 57:5;Â Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; 32:35).
B. The ancient Middle East made a place for homosexuality and bestiality in its myths and rites. In the Asherah cult, the qedeshim priests had a reputation for homosexual practices, even as the qedeshot priestesses for prostitution. Israel eventually banned both the qedeshim and qedeshot, while in Ugarit the qedeshim and kohanim were priestly guilds in equally good standing. Baal is portrayed in Ugaritic mythology as impregnating a heifer to sire the young bull god. The biblical book of Leviticus (18:22-27) bans homosexuality and bestiality expressly because the Canaanite population had been practicing those rites, which the Hebrews rejected as abominations (Encyclopedia Britannica, Middle Eastern Religions, p.64).
C. The Baalim and the Baalot, gods and goddesses of the Earth, were believed to be the revitalizers of the forces of nature upon which agriculture depended. The revitalization process involved a sacred marriage (hieros gamos) replete with sexual symbolic and actual activities between men, representing the Baalim, and the sacred temple prostitutes (qedeshot), representing the Baalot. Cultic ceremonies involving sexual acts between male members of the agricultural communities and sacred prostitutes dedicated to the Baalim were focused on the Canaanite concept of sympathetic magic. As the Baalim (through the actions of selected men) both symbolically and actually impregnated the sacred prostitutes in order to reproduce in kind, so also, it was believed, the Baalim (as gods of the weather and the Earth) would send the rains (often identified with semen) to the Earth so that it might yield abundant harvests of grains and fruits. Canaanite myths incorporating such fertility myths are represented in the mythological texts of the ancient city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) in northern Syria; though the high god El and his consort are important as the first pair of the pantheon. Baal and his sexually passionate sister-consort are significant in the creation of the world and the renewal of nature (Encyclopedia Britannica, Biblical Literature, p.783,a).
The most shocking and significant cultic newcomer to Rome was the Great Mother in her castrating forms—Cybele, Atargatis, Astarte. These were versions of the same goddess the Hebrews deplored and whose eunuch or homosexual priests served in temples over much of the Near East. She arrived in Rome in 204 BC, and at first her adherents were few. The Galli, her priests, were all immigrants from Asia Minor, for Roman men were not allowed to emasculate themselves in emulation of Attis to serve her. In the middle of the first century AD, the emperor Claudius incorporated the worship of Cybele into the state religion. (When the basilica of St. Peter’s on Vatican Hill was enlarged around 1607, inscriptions were found showing that a sanctuary of Cybele had once stood there.) Before long the goddess had a huge following in Rome, and her shrines stood not only in Italy but in Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and Bulgaria. In the third century baptism in the blood of a bull or ram was added to her ritual of initiation, and Roman citizens were permitted to become neophytes. In the fourth century St. Augustine said that the idol of the goddess was bathed in the Tiber and carried along in a boat that aristocratic matrons pulled by ropes from the shore, while Galli danced alongside in a frenzy, shaking their tambourines (Sexuality And Homosexuality, A New View, Arno Karlen, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1971). Back To Article
