Unconditional Love or Unconditional Affirmation?

Introduction- Unconditional Love or Unconditional Affirmation?

It is increasingly becoming popular in culture to think that unconditional affirmation of one's thoughts about themselves (identity), whether objectively true or not, is a necessary feature of unconditional love. The idea is that if you claim to unconditionally love someone, you will always affirm their identity and celebrate every action and behavior that reinforces their identity. If you do not affirm and celebrate, then it is impossible for you to unconditionally love that person.

This cultural idea, though, is increasingly showing its intolerance of even the slightest disagreement, even among those who generally agree on a modern view of tolerance. Those who have championed this view for years are now finding themselves splitting from each other along the lines of sexual identity- not just what they prefer but what they are. 

I believe that this newer cultural split and even the foundations of the modern tolerance movement are enabled due to a conflation between the meanings of "love" and "affirmation." Unless and until our culture distinguishes between them again, the modern tolerance movement will continue to splinter along ideological lines until every individual stands alone with neither the love nor affirmation of another. 

Book Review: The Beauty of Intolerance

Introduction

A few years ago, Sean McDowell gave a talk at the AMP Conference called "The Beauty of Intolerance." In the talk, he spoke of two different views on tolerance that seem to be clashing in today's society. He explained how the differences explain much of the political rhetoric of "hate" and "phobias" and "intolerance." He focused specifically on the Church's speaking truth in love and how this view is actually the most tolerant. This talk has been one of my favorites for a while. I discovered shortly after I first saw the talk that Sean and his father, Josh McDowell, coauthored a book, "The Beauty of Intolerance," that went into the topic much deeper and focused on how Christian parents can effectively communicate moral truth to a morally relativistic generation. As a parent and one who defends the objectivity of morality (and, thus, the existence of God), this book was one I dare not pass on reading, which turns out was an excellent decision. Now, before I get to my usual chapter-by-chapter summary review and the remainder of my thoughts, here is the talk by Dr. Sean McDowell that originally caught my attention.