The first-century Mediterranean world, where Christianity began, was not a world in which tolerance was an important concept. According to Bruce Malina (1981), the people of this time and region shared a certain orientation toward the world that emphasized honor in terms of power, sexual status, and religion. They were dyadic people who derived their sense of self and personality by referral to external values and external evaluation. Their focus was aligning their own behavior with an external image of the appropriate behavior.
Karen Armstrong (1993) further noted that the people of the Jewish community were actively intolerant of their neighbors' religious beliefs and practices. She indicated that this was a new religious attitude and that it was hard-fought, resulting in a monotheism that had little tolerance for other religions. Essentially, elements of intolerance are associated with the rise of monotheism, while tolerance is associated with the early paganism.
Given this context how would a concept of tolerance develop from this culture? Are there elements within the Christian Scriptures that can be used to create a Christian concept of tolerance? The intent of this paper is to explore the Christian Scriptures and literature to identify paradigms for tolerance.
The word "tolerance" itself is not one utilized in the Christian Scriptures. It might be helpful to start with a definition and understanding of the term. In looking at the first definition of tolerance, the focus is on "tolerating others' views, beliefs, practices, etc.; freedom from bigotry or prejudice" (Webster's New World Dictionary).
In Roget's Thesaurus (1978), tolerant is paired with words such as indulgent, lenient, permissive, open-minded, broad-minded, and liberal. It also mentions words such as acceptance, impartiality, and mildness. Again, referring back to the world of the first century, these are clearly not meaningful values. They ar...