18 Dec., 2018<\/p>\n
“A person who is utterly intolerant of any creed that differs from his own.”\u00a0 That is the definition of the word we commonly hear tossed against folks who hold opinions contrary to the prevailing or popular doctrine.\u00a0 And that opinion which is popularly held (or,\u00a0 by radio or TV media enhancement, seems so) is the standard by which a bigot is identified and contrasted against a regular good guy.<\/p>\n
So the Christian – one who holds to the Big Ten and which upholds sexual morality and forbids perversion of the same – is judged thereby to be “the bigot.”\u00a0 Indeed, he holds the Creed to be true<\/em> and regards all creeds holding to the\u00a0 contrary to be false<\/em>.\u00a0 (That is the nature of truth and falsehood; they are contradicting stipulations,\u00a0 affirmations, postulates, declarations, assertions, edicts or decrees.\u00a0 Those on the opposite sides of a given postulate may thereby regard each other as contradicting bigots.)<\/p>\n But we lose the practical meaning of the word when we apply it to anyone we heartily disagree with – personally.\u00a0 Do we not?<\/p>\n Certainly we do.\u00a0 On matters where there is no static standard, no means of settling upon a “final answer” or, well, “the truth,”\u00a0 that is the place where we must be content to land (or, rather,\u00a0 not<\/em> land):\u00a0 agree to disagree and tolerate one another’s artistic or musical or dining preferences!\u00a0\u00a0 But we don’t apply that principle to – say: the issue of chopping off the finger of someone who points it somewhere we don’t like.\u00a0\u00a0 We don’t cut the heads off of people we reckon to be ugly.<\/p>\n But we do call upon them to shut their mouths when foul speech and\u00a0 blasphemy flow from them.\u00a0 We call for silence against those who slander others or profane God’s name or His law.\u00a0 This is not “bigotry.”\u00a0 The dutiful effort to honor and uphold the Law – justice, decency, order, and goodness – is not bigotry.\u00a0 It is loyalty and faithfulness to the Truth, to justice, to mercy.\u00a0 It is a blessing for a people, for a nation, to have the Law of God and to honor it publicly.\u00a0\u00a0 The Big Ten are good for the people, for the nation, for the world.<\/p>\n Who is the bigot but the one who exalts his own creed above God’s law and calls those who honor Him bigots?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 18 Dec., 2018 “A person who is utterly intolerant of any creed that differs from his own.”\u00a0 That is the definition of the word we commonly hear tossed against folks who hold opinions contrary to the prevailing or popular doctrine.\u00a0 And that opinion which is popularly held (or,\u00a0 by radio or TV media enhancement, seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,12,49,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-character-or-not","category-media-matters","category-speech-lawful-and-unlawful"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2731,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}