{"id":5095,"date":"2025-10-14T20:33:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/?p=5095"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:57:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:57:04","slug":"how-to-speak-the-truth-in-love-finding-the-christian-balance-between-conviction-and-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/2025\/10\/14\/how-to-speak-the-truth-in-love-finding-the-christian-balance-between-conviction-and-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Speak the Truth in Love: Finding the Christian Balance Between Conviction and Kindness."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Michael Horner<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Michael Horner has been passionately sharing the gospel and presenting a reasonable case for the Christian faith on university campuses around the world for 50 years, thanks to Power to Change. He has participated in over 80 public debates & dialogues, delivered hundreds of lectures, and hosted Q&A with thousands of students. He holds a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and, for twenty years, helped shape the worldview of Christian students as an instructor in philosophy and ethics at Trinity Western University and Summit Pacific College.<\/p>\n

The Truth Behind Tolerance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is it intolerant for Christians to claim that Jesus is the only way to God?<\/p>\n

Something inside me twitched . . . the young man, just back from the Far East, was trying to convince my friends and me that all religions lead to God. To prove his point, he told us a story about four blind men and an elephant.<\/p>\n

One blind man touched the elephant’s side and announced it was like a wall. Another man found the elephant’s leg and described the large animal like a tree. The third man held its tail and declared the elephant was like a rope. And the fourth man grasped the trunk and concluded that it was like a snake.<\/p>\n

“Are any of them wrong?”<\/strong><\/span> he asked us rhetorically. “No. Of course not,”<\/strong> <\/span>he continued. “Each of them just has a different perspective on the same animal. It’s similar with religions. They just have a different perspective on God.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

His argument seemed quite persuasive and yet I knew deep down there was something wrong with it. As I sat tongue-tied, not knowing how to respond, I felt disturbed and helpless as my friends listened intently.<\/p>\n

We were a group of typical university students. Asking. Doubting. Challenging. Searching for truth. Some of us were Christians; others were spiritually interested but had not yet made a personal commitment to Christ. And here we were at a weekend retreat, listening to this stranger among us.<\/p>\n

I knew Jesus is the way and the truth, but beyond quoting some Bible verses and sharing my testimony, I didn’t know how to identify the error in this man’s thinking or what to say that would challenge his analogy.<\/p>\n

My friends, in their quest for truth, gave it serious consideration. They even nodded in agreement. “That makes sense,”<\/strong> <\/span>they replied. “Maybe all religions do lead to God.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Would you believe it took me 12 years before I learned how to adequately respond to that illustration?<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, the blind men and elephant story is still one of the most common arguments used by people who claim all religions lead to God. They think we can all have a share in the truth as we approach God from different angles.<\/p>\n

Today, as I travel and debate across North America and even internationally, university students frequently ask me: “How can you claim Jesus is the only way to God?”<\/strong> <\/span>Some challenge me: “You’re intolerant. How can you say that what’s true for you is true for everyone?”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is it intolerant for us as Christians to claim that Jesus is the only way to God?<\/p>\n

Don’t worry. We don’t need to fear being intolerant or even being labelled intolerant once we properly understand the relationship between truth, tolerance and pluralism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Unshakeable Truth in a Shifting World<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a question that often gets whispered in small group discussions or argued late into the night in university common rooms: \u201cIs your religion *true*?\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

We live in an age where the most common answer is a shrug and a well-meaning, \u201cWell, it\u2019s true for you.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span> I get it. It feels polite. It feels peaceful. But as I\u2019ve wrestled with this over years of study and faith, I\u2019ve come to see that this approach, while intending to build bridges, actually builds on sand. It redefines a foundational word: truth.<\/p>\n

When we talk about truth, we\u2019re talking about what corresponds to reality, whether anyone agrees with it or not. The law of gravity isn\u2019t \u201ctrue for you but not for me.\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>It\u2019s just\u2026 true. In the same way, the core claims of Christianity aren\u2019t presented as helpful suggestions for a better life. They are claims about reality. Either Jesus rose from the dead, or He didn\u2019t. Either He is the unique Son of God, or He isn\u2019t. These aren\u2019t personal preferences; they are historical, metaphysical assertions. To believe is to believe that something is *objectively so*.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean we know everything. We can know truly without knowing exhaustively. I don\u2019t need to comprehend the vastness of the ocean to know that it\u2019s wet. Similarly, I don\u2019t need to exhaust the infinite nature of God to know with confidence what He has revealed about Himself in Christ. As the late, great theologian J.I. Packer once wrote, \u201cOnce you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life\u2019s problems fall into place of their own accord.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span> This \u201cknowing\u201d<\/strong><\/span> is a real, though not exhaustive, knowledge of objective truth.<\/p>\n

This brings us to the modern idol of tolerance. We\u2019ve been sold a lie that tolerance means never saying someone is wrong. But think about it: you only *tolerate*<\/strong><\/span> what you disagree with. True tolerance is the civil, kind, and patient coexistence with those whose beliefs you are convinced are mistaken. It\u2019s about how we treat *people*,<\/strong><\/span> not how we treat *ideas*.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We must remember that truth must always take priority over tolerance. There\u2019s nothing intolerant about stating a fact. Was it intolerant for Copernicus to claim the Earth revolved around the sun, against the common belief? Of course not. He was simply stating what he believed was true. We must communicate with gentleness and respect, but we must not suppress truth for the sake of a false peace. Pastor Tim Keller hit the nail on the head when he said, \u201cTolerance isn\u2019t about not having beliefs. It\u2019s about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This is where the popular story of the blind men and the elephant often gets trotted out. As Horner described his experience above: each blind man touches a different part of the elephant (the trunk, the side, the tail) and comes to a different conclusion about what an elephant is. The moral is supposed to be that all religions are just touching different parts of the same divine reality.<\/p>\n

But the story has a fatal flaw.<\/strong><\/span> It *assumes*<\/strong><\/span> they are all touching an elephant! What if they aren\u2019t? What if one is touching a stone wall, another a fire hose, and another a rope? They\u2019d all be wrong. The story quietly smuggles in the very conclusion it\u2019s trying to prove\u2014that all religions are validly experiencing God. The real question isn\u2019t about perspectives; it\u2019s about contact with reality. Are we in touch with the true God as He truly is?<\/p>\n

This \u201call paths lead to the same God\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>idea is a philosophy called relativism. It sounds humble, but it wears a disguise. To say, \u201cNo religion can claim exclusive truth,\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span> is itself an exclusive truth claim! It\u2019s a claim that is, frankly, intolerant of any religion that makes definitive claims about God. It\u2019s a logical contradiction, and as C.S. Lewis so brilliantly argued, a contradiction can\u2019t be true.<\/p>\n

So, where does this leave us?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

It leaves us committed to two things that our world often sees as opposites: truth and love. The Apostle Paul didn\u2019t give us an option. He said, \u201cSpeak the truth in love\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>(Ephesians 4:15). We are to be inclusive of *people*,<\/strong><\/span> listening and learning from everyone, but we are not required to be inclusive of all *beliefs*<\/strong><\/span>. We can disagree profoundly and still love deeply.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We are called to be people of the Truth, not just people of tolerance. We serve a God who calls us to love our neighbor enough to share with them the greatest news they could ever hear\u2014not as one option among many, but as the stunning, beautiful, and objective reality of a Creator who entered His creation to redeem it. That\u2019s a truth worth holding onto, and a truth worth sharing with grace and courage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Horner Michael Horner has been passionately sharing the gospel and presenting a reasonable case for the Christian faith on university campuses around the world for 50 years, thanks to Power to Change. He has participated in over 80 public debates & dialogues, delivered hundreds of lectures, and hosted Q&A with thousands of students. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}