Reflections on Tolerance

One of man’s greatest difficulties is learning from history. When history reveals what is most grisly, inhuman and cruel about murderous humanity, we tend to go into denial. There has to be another reason for what goes wrong, a class, a category of people defined by their race, culture or intimate convictions. I had a few annoying distractions as I was saying Mass this morning. One was on account of an article I read – Christianity Lite. I find it hard to believe the extent to which we are polarised to extremes, on one hand advocating a merciless and intolerant religion returning to Victorian morals (and hypocrisy), and on the other hand, the revisionist lobby of the Lefty revisionists, based on destructive ideologies, which has alienated us all from the “mainstream” Churches. I was brought to consider that here in France during the first four years of the 1940’s, few resisted the Nazis other than Communists! Some good decent people did what they could, discreetly, helping Jewish people and escaped prisoners to get away from the horrors of the Gestapo and the concentration camps. Others hedged their bets, hoping to escape retribution from the victor at war’s end. Others still made a nice tidy profit from the war!

Archbishop Hepworth so eloquently spelled out in his recent Pastoral Letter:

The healing of religious division has been one of the most welcome features of 20^th century Christianity.   The great conflicts of the last century between Christianity and communism, and between Christianity and Fascism, that turned that century into one of the most persecuting since the great persecutions of the Roman Empire, diminished the sense of division and emphasised the wisdom of unity.

O blessed Fault that merited for us such a Redeemer! – the deacon sings on Holy Saturday.

One characteristic of Anglicanism, conservative tolerance or tolerant conservatism, comes to some extent from our English philosophy of the Age of Reason, Matthew Locke in particular. The theme was taken up by Voltaire in France and adopted to some extent by Pope Benedict XIV. It is the age-old problem of faith and reason. Since The Anglo-Catholic was set up, we have often had thought-provoking comments from traditionalist Catholics, some of whom would like to see us fit into their mould rather than follow the ideas of the earlier twentieth century ecumenical movement (Lord Halifax, Fr Portal, Archbishop Fisher, etc.).

The problem of religious freedom is a hot and controversial subject, presently a subject of dialogue between the Society of Saint Pius X and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I cannot and will not presume how this difficulty might be resolved. It is not germane to my subject. Recently, I affirmed that religious freedom is a fundamental human right, but our freedom has its limit where the freedom of other people begins. This is the basis of tolerance, what Diderot in eighteenth century France called the "social contract". You would be right to observe that I take some of my inspiration from the Enlightenment and the roots of the French Revolution. Surely, that makes me a liberal! No, it does not, because I do not take my thoughts on tolerance to the extent of saying tolerance except to all who are enemies of tolerance. The French revolutionaries said – Liberty, equality, fraternity or death! By that last word, they negated all the three positive words they had uttered.

Tolerance is not complacency or indifference. It is the respect and appreciation of difference and diversity in human culture, race, philosophy of life, religion, political ideas and every other way of expressing our humanity and personal or common identity. It is the recognition that other people have rights and fundamental freedom. Man has a right to life and freedom from being coerced, tortured, persecuted, enslaved and likewise being a victim of any other crime against humanity. Civilised man needs to be educated in tolerance, taught to overcome ignorance-based fear and prejudice, to make independent judgements based on sound principles, to criticise and reason in ethical terms. Our diversity is an asset to our harmony in society, not an obstacle to be overcome.

Tolerance is a moral virtue. Now, some say that tolerance is condescending and only full acceptance will do. Tolerance comes in degrees. We cannot tolerate what is going to harm the common good. This is why we cannot consider homosexuality as virtuous, normal and moral. It clearly isn’t, but that does not mean we have a right to persecute, kill or enslave people who are “that way inclined”. Tolerance is the foundation of democracy and our present world. The alternative is war and killing.

Like Voltaire in the eighteenth century, being careful to moderate our thought and purge it of perverse philosophical and Masonic ideas (those of considering Christianity as intrinsically intolerant, for example), we fight against religious bigotry and sectarianism. This is our charge against those continuing Anglicans who write against us in their blog, and more so against the real enemy of tolerance, peace and freedom. I will not pronounce the name of that religion, which is far from being generally a religion of tolerance and peace!

Modern English and European society is experimenting with multiculturalism and the curbing of Christianity. Again, as always, a certain kind of tolerance slides down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and evil. When will we ever learn? We are still going to have to rehash the old stories of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot to our children. How many more are going to have to die and suffer in these social engineering experiments? Here is where we find the thorny problem of mass immigration – and the destruction of our culture and freedom. Man is desperate for peace and tolerance, and finds – in the words of Sartre – that hell is other people. The only solution is the Redemption, the life of grace, conversion to Christ and the Gospel.

Tolerance is constantly under threat. I grew up during the later Cold War years. In my childhood nightmares, I saw the mushroom clouds and people rotting away alive through radiation poisoning. That is nothing compared with a child who has actually lived through a war! The wars continue in the name of this or that ideology and through crimes against humanity. Yet, in the West, we wallow in indifference, complacency and immorality. Our churches discuss so-called inclusivism and distant issues like “global warming”, but are emptied of prayer or the Sacramental Mystery of Christ. Intolerance leads to death. The “tolerance” of revisionists also leads to death.

One way to bring about tolerance is what was tried in the twentieth century – make sure everyone agrees on a common ideology on pain of death. Humanity is negated, and freedom and the human soul are gone. It is the nightmare of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Tolerance can be imposed by law to some extent (it depends on by whom), which seems largely counter-productive. It is one thing to protect a discreet layworker who has his private life, hurts no one, doesn’t touch children, but turns out to prefer men to women. It is another to force the Church to ordain women and people who proudly announce their amoral or immoral way of life to the world.

The most important is education in the family and schools. Intolerance is usually the consequence of ignorance and fear, fear of the unknown, other people, other cultures, nations and religions. It is also linked with pride and an exaggerated notion of one’s own corporate identity (ultra-nationalism for example). These attitudes are taught to us from our tenderest age. Children need to be taught to be open-minded, curious and receptive to new things. We are learning for our whole lives. Tolerance also requires sources of information from different points of view to encourage our critical sense. I have also seen harrowing examples of intolerance from those who consider themselves as the most tolerant, liberal and inclusive. When tolerance because an “-ism”, then it is the worst totalitarianism. Those who hate the freedom of others deprive them of information, as Hitler and Goebbels did to the Germans in the 1930’s and 40’s – just the same with“padlock” bishops who would like to ban the Internet! The Internet and the blogosphere have done much to dissipate intolerance, and have also done much to bring about the opposite! The reason for this is that this medium is accessible to tolerant and intolerant people alike.

We are drawing close to the beginning of Lent. The Church asks us, requires us, to fast and pray – to deny ourselves and take up our cross, to be intolerant in regard to our own sins and failings. We are also asked to follow the themes of the Lenten liturgy, in particular asking God for light, to purge us from our wickedness and to bring us to renew our baptismal commitment of renouncing the world, the flesh and the Devil in order to embrace God. One way to work on this is to meditate on tolerance and work on our own prejudices and intolerance, wherever they lie.

I too see the danger of waging war against Rev. Hart and his crew. In this kind of conflict, there is neither a winner or a loser. We give him five, and he’ll give us ten, and when we answer with twenty, he’ll answer with forty. A bullet leads to an atomic bomb! I’m just as much at fault myself with the caricatures of overweight (not identified with real persons) and cantankerous bishops! I am very fond of Umberto Eco's book The Name of the Rose, in which the motivation of all the killings and monks being poisoned by turning the pages of a forbidden book is exactly that of keeping that book secret. That particular book was by Aristotle, whom Saint Thomas Aquinas called The Philosopher and that book contains an explanation of humour and comedy. The quote from Eco's book tells it all – Jorge feared the second book of Aristotle because it perhaps really did teach how to distort the face of every truth, so that we would not become slaves of our ghosts. Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in freeing ourselves from insane passion for the truth.

Those people have to work on their tolerance and openness as we have to. We have to defend ourselves and prune back the weeds growing from our neighbour’s garden. That is different. Rev. Hart wants to uproot and poison our garden, and we will defend ourselves, but we must not spray the weed killer his side of the fence. It’s difficult, but an effort we are called to make.

I am convinced it is possible to take a position for tolerance without swallowing the politically correct stuff we get from the Left! We can exercise our own critical and rational faculties, and make distinctions where distinctions are to be made. We are all part of the solution to intolerance and conflict. Modern industry and business study and implement methods of conflict management, and some of those would be highly appropriate for helping to resolve conflicts and intolerance in church contexts. I am sure each parish could hold talks and question-and-answer sessions for reflecting about these problems from a spiritual point of view.

The real enemy of the Gospel, and therefore our credibility as Christians, is intolerance, violence and hatred. Lent is coming…