A godless society is a cruel and intolerant one
by Rob Slane, The Conservative Woman:
In the second half of the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul gives a grim picture of what happens when a society that once had some knowledge of God rejects him. One of his major themes is that their view of sex and sexuality becomes horrendously skewed (sound familiar?), but he also gives a list of the sorts of attitudes and behaviours society will experience in their wilful rejection of God. Among other things, he describes a people who are implacable and unmerciful.
[…] So here we are, in the middle of the self-proclaimed most tolerant society in history, and yet daily we see more and more examples of how those who hoist their tolerance credentials upon the flagpoles of their own egos actually turn out to be the least tolerant of all. They cannot accept that someone said something stupid and now regrets it. They cannot accept an apology. They’re much too “tolerant” for all that.
This is no accident. Back to the Apostle Paul. He says that this kind of implacableness and unmercifulness is what you should expect increasing amounts of when a culture thumbs its nose at the God it used to give glory to. Why? Because the essence of that God is that he is “merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). He is forgiving, and prepared to pardon each and every one of us our each and every sin should we acknowledge it to him and put our trust in the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ at Calvary.
A society that turns its back on Him, having once known his grace and his mercy, will become increasingly unable to show mercy and forgiveness. And it will increasingly demand the sacrifice. It may like to kid itself that it is now the very embodiment of tolerance and mercy. Yet as we are in the midst of discovering, the truth is very different.
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