The Intolerance of Tolerance

D.A. Carson, in his book The Intolerance of Tolerance (2012), makes the point that the notion of tolerance has changed for the worse...

The older notion of tolerance encouraged you to accept the fact or existence of different views, but you were not discouraged from opposing other peoples' views and you were certainly not asked to "respect" the various views (whatever that might mean). The more recent notions of tolerance make it clear that you have a sort of civic-minded duty to "respect" not only the people who hold the different views but (somehow!) the views themselves.

The newer conceptions of tolerance, with their prissy focus on "community cohesion" and related values, can (ironically) be remarkably intolerant, especially to those who hold conservative beliefs of one sort or another.

The bottom line here is that there is a significant difference between:

(a) The legitimate right of people to hold certain beliefs and values, without being persecuted, silenced, interfered with, or personally insulted.

(b) The bogus "right" (which exists only in the world of political correctness) of people not to be offended by the airing of contrary views.

Be ever vigilant that the entirely reasonable mandate "Be courteous to people who hold views that are different from your own, and discuss their views with courtesy" does not quietly mutate into the different (and more insidious) mandate: "Have the courtesy not to imply that there is anything invalid or untrue or unworthy or socially problematic about the different views that people do hold, especially their religious and political views".

Evangelical Christians are often accused of being "intolerant" because they hold exclusivist views in areas like Christology and soteriology. Exclusivism does sometimes go hand in hand with intolerance, but the former does not automatically entail the latter.