Voice of Youth: Tolerant? Why not try forgiveness?

Sydney
27 April 2003

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Voice of Youth: Tolerant? Why not try forgiveness?

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Voice of Youth: Tolerant? Why not try forgiveness?

By Stephen Peterson

Do you remember ever being in a religious discussion group discussing a miscellaneous contemporary issue when one of the participants concludes, “we need to be more tolerant!” and someone else responds along the lines of, “yes, and we ought to preach tolerance to others”?

Do you remember everyone nodding in agreement, while a warm, fuzzy feeling filled your whole being?

Someone else then says “we have to do something about people who are intolerant”, followed by everyone nodding sombrely with determination.

Do you remember what conclusions you came up with for dealing with the intolerant?

Have you ever wondered why, 30 years on, people seem to be getting more intolerant? (Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that question. It detracts from the warm-fuzzy feeling.)

I mean, we need to preach tolerance. After all, the virtue of tolerance is the one thing that secular society and religion can finally agree on … isn’t it?

Funny, I can’t actually remember Jesus … or St Paul for that matter, actually preaching tolerance.

Come to think of it, I can’t remember ever seeing the word “tolerant” or “tolerance” anywhere in the bible.

There is, however, something that Jesus preaches plenty of: forgiveness. I supposed that if you confused tolerance and forgiveness, you could be forgiven (excuse the pun).

But is there actually a difference between the two?

What do they both mean? “Forgiveness,” according to my dictionary, means “cessation of resentment, pardoning, remission of debt”.

On the other hand, “tolerance” means “the capacity to tolerate”, i.e. “the capacity to endure, permit; allow to exist, etc, without interference”.

In other words, when we preach tolerance, we are preaching that we ought to put up with others without comment.

Let us examine the practicalities of both these positions:

If a person is in debt to you, the tolerant person will simply endure the debtor. The forgiving person will remit all or part of the debt to reduce the strain on the debtor.

If a person is oppressing you, the tolerant person will endure the oppression. They may breed resentment at the way they are being treated. They may even complain. But they will endure it.

The forgiving person will, however, pardon the oppressor for their injury and direct their prayers and actions to bringing the oppressor to understand what they are doing in the hope of mutual benefit.

(“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” - I seem to remember that quote from somewhere.)

When a person is oppressing others, the tolerant person can either allow the situation to exist, or they can preach tolerance.

They might even encourage the oppressed person to give the intolerant oppressor a taste of their own medicine.

(Isn’t it funny how tolerance can’t encompass the intolerant very well?)

The forgiving person, on the other hand, will try to explain to the oppressor that what they are doing is wrong and work and pray with them to find reconciliation between the parties.

Do you notice a difference? One leads to healing and reconciliation, the other to resentment and revenge.

Do you think, perhaps, that it is time that we stopped preaching tolerance to others and started preaching (and practising) forgiveness?

Stephen Peterson is a second year arts student at Sydney University. This article comes courtesy of the university Catholic Chaplaincy based at JPII Student Resource Centre, Level 1, 245 Broadway NSW 2007. Phone 9518 6415 or visit www.usydcc.org