Tolerance and Love

 "Tolerance is the virtue of a man without conviction."
- G.K. Chesterton

Tolerance. It's a word we hear a lot today. The cry for tolerance is deafening. People must tolerate political differences, religion, sexual orientation, drug use, and morality. If you do not show tolerance, you are swiftly ostracized as a bigot, or worse, a fundamentalist.

Now, there is little wrong with tolerance in itself. As Catholics, we should look past race, religion, and other differences to see the Christ inside of everyone.

The problem comes when we are asked to tolerate sin: to allow the "marriage" of homosexual couples, to respect a woman's "right" to chose death for the human child in her womb, and to stay silent as debauchery, pornography, and vulgarity are protected as expressions of free speech.

No, sin must not be tolerated. It CANNOT be tolerated. The works of the Enemy should not stand unmolested. We should vigorously attack the manifestations of sin within the bounds of God-given authority. We need to hate sin.

Does that then mean that we should hate the sinners too? The junkies, the gangsters, the abortion clinic workers, the immoral rappers, the arrogant businessmen and politicians? Don't they deserve to be punished for what they have done? Shouldn't we avoid them so as not to compromise ourselves?

Brothers and sisters, the answer lies in Scripture. When Jesus saw the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned (John 8), he did not praise the actions of the crowd as being just. Nor did he stand by as her sentence for death was carried out. Jesus confronted the crowds with the inconvenient truth. "'Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'" (John 8:7). Jesus turned the mirror back onto the crowd. They were just as guilty as the woman, perhaps even more guilty. The less publicly scandalous sin of pride is far more deadly than the sins of the flesh.

So we should love the sinner. Jesus Himself ate with tax collectors and prostitutes (Luke 7:40 is a fine example of this). Jesus looked beyond sin and saw the light of God within them, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. He embraced them, not for their sinfulness, but for their brokenness. Jesus is a Healer, and not just of physical maladies.

Indeed, some of the greatest saints began as the lowest of sinners. Saint Augustine lived with a woman out of wedlock and embraced the heresy of Manichaeism. Saint Francis was the modern equivalent of a frat boy. He went to parties and dances without number. They were not damned for their sins. They were saved and redeemed by their repentance and the unfathomable mercy of God.

But if we are to love the sinner, should we then tolerate sin? The Word of God has an answer for this as well. Upon entering the Temple in Jerusalem during His ministry, Jesus saw the people who were "buying and selling" (Matthew 21:12). They were defiling the Temple. This is the only time in the Gospels where Jesus became angry.  He "overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves" (Mark 11:15). What we must remember, however, is that Jesus did not attack the sinners themselves. He attacked the devices of sinfulness to end their defilement of the Temple.

Therefore, we must love the sinner, but attack the instruments of sin. Our war is against the culture of death. We are trying to save the sinners, not to condemn them. Love the sinners and hate the sin.

No, we are not called to tolerate sinners. We are called to do so much more.

Deus Volt!

The Call to Arms

In the year 1095, Pope Urban the II called for a Crusade in response to the threats that the Church faced in his age. Hundreds of thousands of faithful headed his call and joined the ranks of the militia Christi.

Today, the Church is faced with far more existential threats to its Message. There are foes on every side, from relativism to drug abuse. This is a world consumed with war. Do you see it? The culture of death is striving to overthrow the Truth of Christ.

This is not a battle fought with conventional weapons over lines in the sand. This is a war for souls. The Enemy's goal is to turn aside and deceive every last soul in Creation. Satan does so with the false wages of sin. His ammunition is the snares of temptation and vice. Since the beginning of his existence, man has been in the midst of a battle for the preservation of his soul. He fights against temptation every second of every day of his life.

Throughout history, this war has raged on. There have been sinners and there have been saints. There have been heroes and there have been monsters. Every man has to wrestle with pride, with lust, with anger. The Israelites faced the same challenges as the Jesuits. In a sense, it is the same today. Certainly, the world appears to be a different place than it was centuries before. But at the core, in his soul, man is still the same.

While our fight is the same, the conditions have changed. The culture of death has replaced a culture of life. The field of battle is no longer in our favor. In the Middle Ages, we still sinned the same sins as we do today. The only difference is that in the Middle Ages, we knew that we were indeed sinning. The culture of death has perverted the concept of morals through the hands of men like Nietzsche and Freud to the point that there is no right and wrong, only what the individual deems best.

The culture of death's cunning goes beyond shifting philosophies. It has penetrated global culture. Relativism and sin have crept beyond the halls of intellectuals into households. This began in the 1960's with the counter culture movement. Drug abuse and sexual permissiveness went beyond being problems, they became normalized, accepted behavior.

Today social media, politicians, scientists, YouTube stars, celebrities, and athletes are all contributing to the moral decay of our world. One needs only to watch the news or look through Twitter to see the effects of this. What people say no longer needs to be meaningful or true, it only needs to be entertaining.

How does the Church of God respond to this cultural crisis? The culture of death is stealing away souls who have been conditioned to feel no remorse if what they are doing "feels" right. We need to teach the world the difference between what is really right and wrong. We need to bring the light of the Gospel into a world that has been overwhelmed with darkness.

That is the purpose of this blog. The Crusade for Truth is a place for Catholic soldiers to gather. It is a base of operations of sorts in this our spiritual warfare. Here we can gather strength and inspiration, learn and share tactics, and encourage each other.

Deus Volt!