Jim: Topic I: Tolerance: Methodology

In my first post on this topic, I argue that Matt had the cause and effect backward. That in reality Christianity drove people to be more tolerant. I provided some textual evidence from the Bible to demonstrate that the Judeo-Christian tradition supports loving the stranger and the enemy. {See comments to that response for a brief discussion of whether my choice of scripture is fair.}

As we've said before, "the Bible says so," is not the end of the discussion. In fact, because I've rejected the idea that God wrote the Bible and that it is infallible, maybe I don't get to rely on "the Bible says so." {Probably not, I think I still get to use it as an indication of where the tradition started.}

So, what do we use? I think examples are the best. So, I'm gonna give some examples to help my cause:

Both Abolition and the Civil Rights movement were driven by Christians seeing the movement as an extension of their Christianity. The Civil Rights movement is a slam dunk for me, in that the change came from Christians, and the movement was tinged with Christian ideals. (True, many status quo folks were Christian, but the social change motivated by Christianity was for civil rights.) Abolition may be more tricky. But here's one essay that seems to post some evidence. http://www.jubilee-centre.org/online_documents/TheabolitionoftheslavetradeChristianconscienceandpoliticalaction.htm

Should we pick an example and counter example and delve more deeply into it?