Convictions are those fixed and firm beliefs we hold true.

These days, they are hard to talk about without being accused of being intolerant. Holding firm to a belief now means you are judgmental, narrow minded, maybe even hateful or bigoted. For example, when someone stands by a conviction on social media, the claws come out, the name-calling and bullying ramp up. What results is friends who defriend, and family members who won’t get together anymore because they are too offended.

How did we get to the point where a woman won’t sit next to a man on an airplane because he doesn’t share her convictions on climate control? The roots can be found in political correctness- the government’s solution to controlling our hearts and minds.  Political correctness silences talk of convictions–unless they are the convictions that the politically correct deem right.

Many of the professors on our college campuses teach young minds to hold only liberal convictions and to vilify those who disagree with words of slander and offense. This is all done in the name of “new” tolerance –a conviction that all beliefs, lifestyles and truths are equal. Thus, I can no longer claim genuine conviction regarding my own beliefs without a fight!

C.S. Lewis saw this as dangerous. A tolerant man, under the old definition, meant someone who’d respect us and treat us kindly even when he disagreed. But if tolerance today means all beliefs are equal and no one has truth, then religious people are labelled intolerant. This “new” tolerance leads to a lack of conviction.

You can love someone and still disagree with that person. You can love the sinner and not love the sin. This is a conviction many people hold and is ridiculed. Yet, it is a conviction that leads to treating people who disagree with you with respect.

Just because you feel something to be true, doesn’t make it true. And believing in biblical truth does not make you intolerant of others. Don’t believe this nonsense. All of this is an attempt to silence the voices of those with Christian beliefs.

Call sin, sin. Hold on to biblical truth. Stop bowing to those elites who hold the microphone or have a platform. Speak the truth in love. Hold fast to what you know to be true. We need more people with convictions to stand for truth.