God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Although Christians cannot cherish religious pluralism, they must tolerate it… By tolerance I mean allowing other people to hold and to defend their own religious convictions. Tolerance does not mean that everyone has to agree with everyone else. That would not be tolerance at all. The word tolerance itself assumes disagreement, that there is something that must be tolerated. Tolerance thus applies to persons, but not to their errors. It does not require me to endorse your worldview. If you are not a Christian, I do not endorse your worldview. In the context of a friendship I will even try to talk you out of it… Yet it carries out these arguments with humility and civility.
I stake my life on the priority of right beliefs and convictions, and at the same time I want to lead so that those very beliefs are perpetuated in others. If our leaders are not passionately driven by the right beliefs, we are headed for disaster. At the same time, if believers cannot lead, we are headed nowhere.
