He says: “I am a liberal; I am not pleading for sectarianism or conventional orthodoxy or anything of that sort. What I want most of all is that Roman Catholics, Jews, and Protestants should prepare together some book or books by means of which the best elements in the spiritual heritage of our race can be presented in our schools, objectively and without offense, as a matter of information.” Whether or not that is possible might be open to debate. But listen to what he says next.
“Meanwhile,” it’s this meanwhile that I am interested in, “Meanwhile, however, I am fed up with a familiar type of course in some of our institutions, where religion may not be taught but where, by innuendo and clever sniping, irreligion is taught. The Jewish prophets, Christ, and the creative seers of our spiritual tradition might as well never have existed, while Freud, for example, not simply as the great pioneer in psychiatry but as an atheistic materialist, is presented at length as though he were infallible.”
2. If I were to go into some of our public schools and teach the truth on church unity and the meaning of baptism, I would be considered intolerant, narrow minded and out of order in using the public schools to teach religion. But when a man gets up and teaches that the Bible is not true, he is teaching religion, even though it is a false religion. He is teaching a religion just the same as the man who says that the Bible is true.
That reminds me of one college professor who asked his class at the beginning of the course how many of them believed that God existed. Several students raised their hands. He said, “I predict that by the time this course is finished there won’t be any here who believe in God.” He was teaching religion—false religion. He was opposing the truth. He was taking advantage of a state school in which to do it.
3. When I was going to high school nearly every chapel speaker who was not a member of the church of Christ would tell us that one church was as good as another. The members of the church of Christ who came never gave us the opposite side of that. They should have told us that one church was not as good as another—that there is only one church. However, if they had done so, they would have been accused of being narrow minded and of preaching their own peculiar doctrine. But the man who says that one church is just as good as another is preaching what he believes just as much as I am preaching what I believe when I say that one is not just as good as another. So you see this matter of tolerance ought to work both ways in public institutions. If one is not allowed to say that there is just one church, then someone else who believes differently ought not to be allowed to say that one is just as good as another.
But to continue with Mr. Fosdick. “The separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of American democracy, but we are allowing it to mean what the fathers of the republic never dreamed it should mean: that youth, in our public institutions of learning, may be taught the denials of faiths but not the affirmations of them. Our postwar world cannot be reconstructed on the basis of any negative futilitarian philosophy. We desperately need great faiths about life issuing in great ethical standards for life.”[1]
In other words, Mr. Fosdick is saying that if it is contrary to the principles of democracy for one to teach in public schools the tenets of his faith, it is equally contrary for an infidel to teach his infidelity and try to destroy the faith of his students. Both are forms of religion. On that point I agree with Mr. Fosdick. It is wrong for infidels to hide behind a hypocritical plea for tolerance while they ply their evil trade of making unbelievers of American youth.
V
Righteous Intolerance
1. Now, I want to give you some Scriptures to show that we ought to oppose, that we are obligated to oppose, what we believe to be wrong. 1 Timothy 5:20 says, “Them that sin reprove in the sight of all, that others may also be in fear.” That is active opposition, isn’t it? According to Webster, that is intolerance, but it is the sort of intolerance which the Bible demands. Paul said in Galatians, chapter 2 and verse 11, that he withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed. The apostle Paul opposed the apostle Peter concerning his attitude toward the Gentiles.
“Wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:13). This doesn’t say merely “Rebuke them,” but “Rebuke them sharply.” That is active opposition. “Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). Here again earnest contention is not only permitted, but even commanded. Second Corinthians 5:11 says, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”