YOU'RE WRONG TO SAY I'M WRONG...

Ask any twenty random people on the street which belief system they believe is the right one and you're likely to get twenty different answers. Or would those answers have more in common than you'd think? Almost without fail when I speak of this with people, they are of the mindset "if it's true for them, then that's okay" and "to each his own". That may sound like the loving thing to say or think, since you seem to be considering other's feelings and beliefs. But how loving is it really, especially if you happen to profess to be a Christian?

I'd venture to say that it's not "loving" at all! 

Let me explain. There are truly only two "belief systems" in the world. You have that of man's works and what he can do to get to heaven (or what they may call their version of it). And then you have that of God's work and what he did for us to get to heaven. The former would entail almost every religion in the world from Islam to Mormonism. The latter is Christianity and it pretty much stands alone in this regard. Furthermore, the reason that Christianity is looked down upon and even hated in so much of the world is because of one unique claim found therein. Namely, it's exclusivity! 

What do I mean by exclusivity? I'm referring to Christ's very own claim, 

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through  me.'" John 14:6

It is this claim that sets Christianity apart from every other system we see practiced today and indeed is the reason that Christians are met with hostility in world. Because, this claim leads us to tell others the one thing that is often falsely labeled intolerant...."you're wrong"! Regardless of their zeal or sincerity, we have tell others that what they believe will get them to heaven and who they think does this is wrong.

Now, I admit this is often not an easy thing to say to someone. I once had a conversation with a gentleman at the laundry mat. I believe he was in his late forties, had no children and had been divorced. With all sincerity he told me that it was the Mormon church that saved him and kept him from committing suicide. He had a book of Mormon with him and clutched it as if his life depended on it. 

I could have taken the easy route and just not delved deeper into the topic. But I realized that this wouldn't be the loving thing to do. After all a soul was at stake here. While he spoke, I silently prayed to God about what I should say and how I should say it. When he finished telling me about his experience I calmly and gently began a dialogue with him that I knew would lead him to pick apart his own faulty theology. 

I understand that this would or perhaps will be labeled as intolerant or wrong on my part. But I am convinced that we all have a duty to carry out the Great Commission and carry the gospel to all the people in the world. It just so happens that when we do this we often encounter someones "truth". It may seem feasible to have one person's beliefs to be true for them and ours be true for us and have them both equally accepted as valid. But what happens when our truth says their truth is false? At this point we obviously can't both be right.

This brings us to the label "intolerant". By definition, if I'm tolerant of someone it means I disagree with them about what they think or believe, but I'm okay with them continuing to believe it. I'm tolerating their contradictory beliefs and perhaps even their lifestyle. I'm content to let them live on that way if they choose to do so. Intolerance on the other hand would be if I attacked or ridiculed them and attempted to force them to change their minds or views to match my own. Ironically this is what we see directed towards Christians all the time, be it by the threat of death under Islamic law abroad or in our own cities by the LGBT community doing such things as boycotting their businesses or outright attacking them.

All that being said, you may not find it comfortable that we say you're wrong. But if we didn't do it, then we'd be displaying the lack of love you accuse us of. Do we always do it the right or best way? No. And I apologize for that, but we are human and we tend to err. But in the end your ego and feelings don't matter as much as your soul and believe me it's with all the love in the world that we say...you're wrong!