Negative Effects of the New Tolerance on Christians

Adherents of the New Tolerance are intolerant of those who disagree with them, dogmatically insisting that logically incompatible belief systems have equal merit. Freedom of speech and religious freedoms are being squelched. Christians are being discriminated against, their religious free speech slanderously called “hate speech” (in some Western countries religious free speech is actually being criminalized). The belief that there is no absolute truth- is being pushed as absolutely true (quite funny, but equally alarming).

A number of atheistic bestselling authors are now calling “religious fundamentalists” the cause of the world’s problems. Christian college students are being openly ridiculed or attacked by their professors. Could it get any worse?

Research by the Barna Group indicates that "... more and more people are engaged in hybrid faiths, mixing elements from different historical eras and divergent theological perspectives...In some ways, we are creating the ultimate ecumenical movement, where nothing is deemed right or wrong, and all ideas, beliefs and practices are assigned equal validity. Everyone is invited to join the dialogue, enjoy the ride, and feel connected to a far-reaching community of believers. Screening or critiquing what that community believes is deemed rude and inappropriate. Pragmatism and relativism, rather than any sort of absolutism, has gained momentum.” Also, the Barna Group found that: "Feeling freed from the boundaries established by the Christian faith, and immersed in a postmodern society which revels in participation, personal expression, satisfying relationships, and authentic experiences, we become our own unchallenged spiritual authorities, defining truth and reality as we see fit."   http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/325-barna-studies-the-research-offers-a-year-in-review-perspective

Increasingly, even people who call themselves Christians are saying that there are many paths to God, because they don’t want to be considered “intolerant”. Apostasy- the abandonment of essential or defining elements of the Christian faith- is on the rise in our churches. Dr. David Reagan, in his book “Living for Christ in the End Times”, observes that the New Tolerance is having a large impact on mainstream Christianity. He notes that the Christian Church is falling into ever increasing apostasy by saying that there are “many paths to God” or that all religions really worship the same God. This apostasy is moving mainstream “Christian” churches toward the prophesied “one world religion” (Rev. 13:12).

The Bible prophesies that there will come a time when many Christians will not endure sound doctrine. It looks like we’re already there. 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the father except through Him (John 14:6). The New Tolerance is certainly popular, but the question every Christian must answer is –“Is it right?” The New Tolerance seems to provide a way for people to sit on the fence and feel like they will somehow get the safety of Christ’s salvation by calling themselves “Christians”, but avoid persecution by saying that He is not the One and only God. But can we truly be servants of Jesus Christ if we don’t assert that He is the one and only Savior? Isn’t that denying Christ, calling Him a liar?

Negative Effects of the New Tolerance on Everyone Else

As we have seen, much of the power of the New Tolerance lies in emotional manipulation; either through misleading, emotionally loaded phrases like “hate speech”, or through intellectual-sounding gobbledygook like “cultural proficiency”. People don’t want to be looked down on or thought of as hateful, and they don’t want to look stupid, so immediately there is some pressure to conform to the group in order to be considered “nice” and “intelligent”.

Now, think back to the beginning of this article, to the quote: “Fascists taught that reality is a social construction, that culture determines all values.” Hitler’s Germany taught the same thing that our society is teaching! Are we gullible enough to imagine that we will have a different result than they did?

Part of the success of the New Tolerance is that the general public is unaware of where it comes from. They don’t know that it has been tried before (or by whom), and so they don’t know what results it has a history of producing. Also, since the general public tends to lack knowledge about the Bible, they may be unaware that the Bible predicts that there will be a dictator who will be far worse than Hitler. A dictator whose coming the Bible warns about extensively, who will rule not only Europe, but the entire world. This dictator will require the allegiance of every world citizen. At some point, everyone who wants to continue buying and selling will have to have to give their allegiance to this dictator, and will indicate this allegiance by receipt of some kind of mark on their right hand or forehead. Given the biblical description of events leading up to and concurrent with this dictator, it is possible that we could be seeing him (the Antichrist) in the fairly near future.

This seems like a pretty significant coincidence. A “dictator-friendly” ideology is becoming widespread, and this is happening concurrent with a time period in which it appears the Bible predicted that the greatest dictator in all of history would appear. We saw above that there is a growing trend of apostasy in our major denominations, one which insists that we should accept all religions as equally valid, and the Bible predicts a one-world religion. Big dots are being connected here.

Preparing the World for Antichrist?

Oprah, the icon of millions of American housewives was recently doing a book study on Eckhart Tolle’s book, “A New Earth”. It’s on the bestseller lists, millions of copies have been sold. How is this book different from some of the other titles featured on Oprah’s Book Club?

Well, for one thing, Tolle declares there is no such thing as “right” and “wrong” (while all the time very strongly implying that his belief system is right), and discards the categories of “true” and “false”. He advises against thinking, which he refers to in convoluted terms, such as : “the density of the conditioned mind structure”, condemns reasoning and absolute truth, wildly misquotes the Bible, slanders “religious people” by implying that they are potential murderers (while failing to mention that atheism is far more guilty in this regard), and says that man is God.

Millions of housewives are swallowing it whole. How is this possible??? Is it simply a result of widespread biblical ignorance? We spoke about how the Bible predicts a world dictator, and that it is possible he could appear in the fairly near future. Let’s imagine for a moment- if a dictator were to appear, what qualities would he encourage in the general public, to best serve his purpose? Or, to put it another way, what qualities would he be pleasantly surprised to find already conveniently developing? Well, it would be very useful if the populace was highly malleable, not too likely to think for themselves, ignorant of the Bible, self-serving, and above all else dedicated to preserving the illusion of their own superiority (a trait that can be easily manipulated).

If they could be convinced that “not thinking” was somehow smarter than thinking, the dictator’s job would be done for him. But, surely it would be impossible to convince a literate, technologically endowed public of something so obviously inane, wouldn’t it? Apparently not. Eckhart Tolle is doing a marvelous job of it. By shamelessly stroking people’s egos (while saying that he is actually teaching them how to get rid of their ego), and attaching a very complimentary term (“being enlightened”) to a set of behaviors that most people would otherwise shun, Tolle is in the process of convincing a large segment of the public that thinking is bad, and being passive is good, because it will make them “enlightened”.

This is all very similar to the New Tolerance, both in ideology and methodology, except that Eckhart is a little more unabashedly bold. Now, with the biblical description of the Antichrist in mind, consider this next quote from Eckhart Tolle: “The surrendered state of consciousness opens up the vertical dimension in your life, the dimension of depth. Something will then come forth from that dimension into this world, something…that otherwise would have remained unmanifested.” (Tolle, 2006, p. 211)

Is that a line from “The Exorcist”? No, we’re still quoting Tolle, who suggests that you surrender your consciousness, in order to allow yourself to be influenced by other dimensions. In his view, more “awareness” which is achieved through “surrendered consciousness” leads to “enlightenment”. The Bible, on the other hand, warns that you should by no means surrender your consciousness, as you could open yourself up to demonic influences or even demonic possession. The Bible warns that there are very deceptive evil spiritual beings who do not have your best interests in mind.

Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Tolle says that evil has only a relative reality. The Bible says that evil has an absolute reality, and it’s a reality you absolutely do not want to face without God’s protection, the salvation of Jesus Christ. It’s obvious Tolle and the Bible are telling you very different things. Let’s compare these two very different views of reality, and then we’ll discuss how an individual’s decision on which view to believe could have a large (and very real) impact on his or her life.