Words of an Angry Preacher:

Tonight, I am mad... Why am I mad? Mainly, because I have been up since 6 am... but that is merely one element of a much larger cataclysmic event of mental twisting and unwinding. Where I work, I see the ugly side of the observation of Christmas.

I say it like this because Christmas itself in it’s own right has no ugly side. What can be ugly about the all powerful, all just, all righteous God sending His one and only Son to provide salvation and empathy for the pinnacle of His created work? What has made the observation of the season ugly is the stark ignorance of people toward each other over material possessions which will be under appreciated and deteriorate.

Today was not the only thing that got me on this train of thought, but this has been a process of questions. Today was merely a reminder, in the wishes of “happy holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas,” why I pose the question I do.

Here is the main question that I have:

In a world where tolerance and celebration of diversities, why, among all groups (be they cultural, social, or religious), are Christians the least tolerated group of people?

Is it because of our failure to live up to the true standard of Christ or does it go deeper? The age old excuse that I have heard time and time again is this: Christians are intolerant.

Oh yeah?

If we’re casting stones, I have a questions before we continue destroying our glass houses:

Have you ever read the Qur'an? Have you ever attended a white supremacists’ gathering? Have you ever stepped foot in any retail location during the CHRISTMAS season? How about on Black Friday? Have you ever been cut off in traffic? Do you celebrate these things? Can you honestly sit content when you are cut off in traffic, when you have to wait in a line, when someone’s bigotry and stereotypes demean you with piercing glares, or when a man kills another over religion?

How is it unconditional tolerance when “Freedom of Speech” allows musical artists to spout hateful things like “Eff your Lord, your God, your Christ” or “get down on your mother effin’ knees, but don’t ask Him for a thing, He’s not listening,” yet be considered widely as humanitarian and people of tolerance? How is it that in our land of tolerance that the one group of people who are not tolerated are the people whose burning desire to know God outside the confines of state religion spurred them on to settling of what is now America?

Why is Christianity not tolerated? I believe it is because of this simple fact: Christianity states that there is something wrong with mankind and there isn’t crap we can do on our own to fix it... we are in desperate need of redemption, not through our own hands, but through perfect hands that were pierced for our transgressions. It is not through how many countries we walk through, but through the bloody feet of the One whom all existence was created through, in the most deadly moment in known history, offering grace through self-sacrifice. Christianity is not tolerated because we present the problem with the solution and because the solution isn’t life’s easy mode, we are called narrow-minded, intolerant, and ignorant.

Well, I say this: in this perfect world of unconditional acceptance of race, religious, opinion and creed, inTolerate me.

InTolerate me when I offer decency to the cashier who has known nothing but self-centered consumerism by impatient shoppers. InTolerate me when I am intolerant of the moral rape which the media causes to innocence through billboards, television ads and programming, and the internet. InTolerate me and misunderstand me when I offer “a cup of cold water” in Jesus’ name without strings attached. InTolerate me when I refuse to join in on your lascivious conversation about the opposite gender. InTolerate me when I offer to talk about and pray for your concerns. InTolerate me when I suggest there is something wrong with the world, our society, and even the church, but offer the only solution to that problem: Jesus Christ. InTolerate me when I refuse to sell your 7 year old a video game with sexual content and gratuitous violence. InTolerate me when I choose to protect the innocence of children. InTolerate me when I pray in Jesus’ name. InTolerate me when I wish you a Merry Christmas.

InTolerate me.