[bit.listserv.christia] JEK: re John Cromartie on "tolerance" and "Christ in all people"

JEK@NIHCU (James Kiefer) (02/07/90)

John Cromartie writes:

 > . . . we have to be open to "the Christ" in all people . . .

This statement suggests to me the words of our Lord, "What you have
done to the least of my brothers, you have done to me" (Matthew
25:40). We are told that we must love even our enemies, because God
loves them (Matthew 5:44-45), that every man (I habitually use the
word in a gender-inclusive sense -- when I mean a male human, I
write "male") is an actual or potential temple of God, a vessel made
for the indwelling of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19).

However, there is a distinction that I believe you would agree with,
John, but that in the interests of avoiding misunderstanding I wish
you had made a little more explicit: Although all men are to be
loved because God loves them, and although all men are to be viewed
(in a sense) with awe because they are potential temples of the
Spirit, are called to be saints, nevertheless not all men have
answered that call, and to ignore that difference is to risk giving
our non-Christian friends the impression that all is well with them
just as they are. The Scriptures sometimes call all men sons of God
(Psalm 68:6; Malachi 2:10), yet they also restrict the term (in
another sense) to those who have received Jesus (John 1:12-13), and
(in another sense) to Jesus Himself. And Christian writers have made
a distinction, based on Genesis 1:26-27, by saying that all men are
made in the image of God, but that through union with Christ we who
have received Him as Lord are to be given the likeness as well.

   *****   *****   *****

John, you also say:

 > Jesus preached tolerance.

Here I am reminded of Mark Twain's dictum that for a writer the
difference between the right word and the almost-right word is like
the difference between lightning and a lightning-bug. "Tolerance"
means leeway. When a lathe operater is given a tolerance of half a
millimeter, it means that anything within half a millimeter is close
enough. Tolerance means that the degree of compliance is negotiable.
Jesus does not negotiate -- ever! He demands unconditional surrender
and total allegiance. He has no time for a wishy-washy concept like
tolerance. He says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the
scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the Kingdom" (Matthew
5:20). We tend to miss the point here, because we have come to think
of the Pharisees as frauds. In fact, many of them were earnestly
trying to follow God's will as best they knew. We read, "Unless you
do better than Jimmy Swaggart..." and think to ourselves, "No
problem!" But Jesus' original listeners heard him saying something
like, "Unless you do better than Mother Teresa, you have no chance
of earning God's approval," and this is a very different matter.

What Jesus offers, to Pharisee and publican alike, is not tolerance,
but love. No man is so wicked that God does not love him enough to
be crucified for him (Romans 5:8), and none so good that God will
"tolerate" his sins -- will wave them aside as too trifling to
bother about. Jesus says, "Be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven
is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). He does not say to us, "Unless you are
perfect, I will not help you." He does say to us, "The only help I
will give you is help to become perfect. You may want less, but I
will give you no less. I mean to make of you a perfected saint, and
if you are wondering what that means, I assure you that Mother
Teresa as you see her now is only a rough draft." (Those of you
who, like John, are C S Lewis fans, will know the passage I am
paraphrasing.)

   *****   *****   *****

As you will readily see, my complaints (proposed clarifications,
really) about the wording of both statements really boil down to the
same point. It is not that God sees men as already "good enough,"
but that he intends to make them good enough, by a zero-defects
standard. It is not that men are by their nature such that Christ
automatically dwells in each of them, but that each was made to be a
divine dwelling-place, that there is no human heart at the door of
which Christ does not knock, no one for whom he has not prepared a
glory that we cannot now imagine.

 Yours,
 James Kiefer