Any public performance taking place in a pluralistic milieu presents one with the challenge of coping with differences of opinion concerning what is to be affirmed or opposed. Intolerance cannot stand opposition; the consequence is inevitably social conflict, that is, unwholesome relationship. Tolerance acknowledges opposition without causing social conflict, giving one the opportunity to remain in wholesome relationship with another who may not affirm that which one affirms oneself.
“If possible, on your part, live at peace with all.” This scriptural injunction (Romans 12:18, New American Bible) emphasizes how one, professing to be Christian, is to live with others. One continually considers how one is to be with another now. Such consideration demands that one decide whether or not one will remain with another or not; love answers, “yes, I will remain with you in peace.” Toleration is a loving way for one to remain with another when the other holds to different affirmations and oppositions. Others are to be “… accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives … .” This particular excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which happens to be taken from section 2358 giving the Roman Catholic teaching on the nature of homosexuality) may be considered an apt definition of tolerance that any Christian is called to follow.
Such relationship has risks involved, as any relationship will; one may influence the other over time so that one’s affirmations or oppositions are less firm than at first. This riskiness then requires that one remain in careful communication with the other so that both can come to a fuller understanding of what is being affirmed or opposed. In my own experience presently in the theatre community, I have had ample opportunity to practice tolerance in that I find myself at odds with dear friends whose lifestyle choices do not square with my Christian conscience; by being open in communication with them, I believe I have proven myself tolerant without being a hypocrite. I understand tolerance to be the ethical alternative to hypocrisy. To publicly affirm some virtue and oppose some vice without privately practicing that virtue or abstaining from that vice is hypocrisy.
The way of love (the way taught in Christian Ethics) involves toleration in that love hopes for what can be better in a relationship and works to bring what is better to pass. Intolerance terminates wholesome relationship, presuming that one’s own judgment is final, pronouncing a verdict one has no authority to make. Toleration opens the opportunity for something better to come to pass. One’s faith defines what one believes, one’s hope looks forward to that belief becoming reality, and one’s love enables one to tolerate life in the meantime.
