The movie 15 Years and some thoughts on Yom Kippur

 15 Years: (15 Jahre) The movie with more on Yom Kippur

This is for some a review but maybe for others rather, some inspired thoughts after watching “15 years.”  What a tumultuous story of stories with Omar of Syria,  Harry and Dorothea Mangold, Fleischer or Gimmiemore, and of course the protagonist Jenny. Every character has some intersection with others and their backstories are often as complex as the mystery we are trying to solve.

 

Jenny was sentenced to prison for a murder she did not commit. In the framework of a love connection and a reality television show for people with disabilities, named Unicorn, Jenny deals with her pain and her desire for revenge, all in the matrix of the repeated message of Christianity: Jesus died to forgive us our many sins.

 

Mixed in is the troubled household of the religious ladies who deal in group therapy, and gain employment in odd jobs, cleaning at the airport or the conservatorium. They even sing an old favourite of mine and anyone who was born again in the 1970s, “Pass it on.” 

 

The head of the pseudo convent, Frau Markowski, has her own troubles and a visit by a celebrity to the home rekindles her past. It is at the conservatorium that all these worlds collide, and the iron pipe and a knife rear their ugly heads again and again.

 

For me it was a very real story of redemption and forgiveness, of revenge,  pain and suffering. Sometimes I go to the cinema and simply watch, sing along, or fog out. But this one, here on the airplane didn’t allow me to do that. What is my response to these challenging postulates and thoughts? What will be my response if I am falsely accused? 

 

At the outset, the screen shows a quote by Jack Kornfield which reads, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.”  (Even though Jack attribes this quote to “someone”)^[1] I wonder if the message of the cross, the simple death of the Jewish man Jesus, causes us to ponder this message of Kornfield.

 

Earlier this week I met with a Jewish man who well described the passion of Jesus as a horrible death, and his question to me, amid several questions, had to do with comparing the crucifixion to the deaths of others. Why the blood? Why so much talk about death? And if his death did something good, surely others who die more violently should produce other things?  

 

All good questions, and reasonable. 

 

The substitution of a ram in Genesis 22 when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son shouts ‘mercy.’ On Yom Kippur, we are told to sprinkle blood at the altar of the Tabernacle so that atonement could be made. You see, forgiveness is the oxygen we all need to make the past and the future merge today with real hope. Like the Yom Kippur sacrifice of the two goats (found in the Bible in Leviticus 16), one for the slaughter and the other, the scapegoat sent into the wilderness, we can have a substitute that lasts more than this German-made movie or an annually renewable contract. 

 

More review: Some lines of significance are: “Do you listen to the lawyers when they tell you to lie?” That prompted many thoughts in my head. 

“Talent knows no bounds”—that one made me ponder boundaries and that’s always a good thing. What else has no bounds?

“Killing two flies with one swat” is too brutal for Omar, so he tells Jenny the Syrian citation which is similar but “more peaceful”, “Lure two white doves with one kernel.” 

 

Mixed in are great pieces by Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt which always is enjoyable.

 

Whether this was a good movie or not, this was a good-to-talk-about movie. As we enter the Jewish High Holidays season, forgiveness, the main component promised but rarely totally embraced, is God’s overarching desire to extend to Jewish people, and really, to all people. Jesus, accused of wrong-doing, innocent on all charges, dies in our place, as a substitute, and his blood was spilled about 2,000 years ago. Why? To be the kipporah, the sacrifice for atonement, for each of us, and to bring God’s love to the planet. 

 

How will that happen? When will the far-flung peoples of the earth hear the Good News message of the cross of Jesus and the forgiveness that God wants to extend to each one?

 

Kurt Kaiser’s song “Pass it on” sung at the beginning, reminded me

 

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going. 

And soon all those around can warm up to its glowing. 

That’s how it is with God’s love,

Once you’ve experienced it. 

You spread his love to everyone

You want to pass it on.” 

 

You hear the message; you believe, you pass it on. Let’s share God’s love today with others. What do you say? Talent and forgiveness know no bounds.

———————————————

^[1] We have all betrayed and hurt others, just as we have knowingly or unknowingly been harmed by them.  It is inevitable in this human realm. Sometimes our betrayals are small, sometimes terrible.  Extending and receiving forgiveness is essential for redemption from our past.  To forgive does not mean we condone the misdeeds of another. We can dedicate ourselves to making sure they never happen again. But without forgiveness, the world can never be released from the sorrows of the past.  Someone quipped, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” Forgiveness is a way to move on.

Who can mourn? Orlando shooting

Miranda Devine of the Daily Telegraph wrote this piece which is worthy of republishing. Her sensibility is clear. We are all humans, and what aches our hearts is that anyone can do such evil in our world today. It's not because I'm pro-this or anti-that which makes me compassionate. I'm human. That's it. And our morality shaped by thousands of years of a biblical narrative helps me care about others. Her conclusion is "Empathising with people who are different from you is morally sound."

Here is her article from 15 June :
ANYONE with normal human feelings who has watched one of the Islamic State propaganda videos of homosexual men being thrown off buildings could not fail to be horrified and saddened.

You can’t help imagine how the poor man felt as he was dragged to that rooftop, bound and gagged, knowing his fate. And as he fell, not struggling, feet in black socks pointed skyward, in his last seconds of life, you would experience a wave of sympathy and love for him.

This is empathy and is what keeps us human, the shared fraternity with other people. It is when we start dividing ourselves up on identity grounds, and lose our sense of common humanity, that poison starts, and hatred flourishes.

That’s where war comes from. It’s what led to ISIS and Hitler’s concentration camps, where you dehumanise people in order to commit atrocities on them.

And it’s what Orlando killer Omar Mateen did. Before he murdered 50 innocents with an assault rifle in a gay club in Orlando Florida on the weekend, he dehumanised them.

An American-born Muslim, he pledged allegiance to ISIS during a call to police from ­inside the club mid-massacre, and referred to the Islamist Boston bombers as his “homeboys”. He had previously been under FBI attention for associating with jihadists. When a teenager he celebrated the 9/11 attacks on New York. He has claimed to be a relative of Osama bin Laden and a member of Hezbollah. His Afghan-born father has made bizarre videos supporting the Taliban.

So it’s not hard to figure out how Mateen dehumanised his victims when he entered that gay nightclub.

The Koran decrees that homosexuality be punished by death. We see that edict played out in the pure, Koran-abiding, Islamic State in Syria, where homosexuals are thrown off buildings. We see it in Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the 10 countries in the world where homosexuals are executed. All are Muslim.

That is what you call homophobia, as taught in the Koran, as espoused by imams such as Farrokh Sekaleshfa, now a guest in Sydney, who gave a sermon in Mateen’s hometown Orlando just two months ago, saying gays must die, “it’s the compassionate thing to do”.

No, it’s not hard to figure out where Mateen’s violent homophobia sprang from.

Yet, the politically correct Left seem disappointed he turned out to be a Muslim and are ready to believe his father’s claim that the attack had nothing to do with religion, but that his son was just ­angered after seeing two men kissing.

They try to claim the massacre solely as a homophobic hate crime that “we all” have to combat.

This was another Islamist attack from the Stone Age on western civilisation, on our plurality and freedom to say what we want and live how we please. Gay clubs are a manifestation of that plurality.

Yet, unless you are gay, ­according to the ABC, the Mardi Gras collective and Fairfax and Guardian columnists, you’re not allowed to mourn and be horrified by the tragedy, and if you are a social conservative who opposes same-sex marriage you are as much an enemy of LGBTIQ people as the Islamist who pulled the trigger.

It would be as if after the Islamist attack on the Bataclan in Paris, only rock fans could mourn.

The reason we mourn for the victims is because they were people, just like us. But the insinuation is that you can only care if you identify as ­belonging to the group to which the victims belong.

Nothing better proves the divisiveness of “progressive” agendas than politically correct Leftists claiming a monopoly on mourning. They were busy trying to erase Islam from the equation, yesterday, yet, Chris Neff, a lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney, told the SMH that politicians had “erased the queerness”.

“This was not an ­assault on all freedoms, this was an assault on queer freedoms and on queer identity and this was targeting to kill 50 people who were queer.”

Of course it was. That’s self-evident. It was an attack on a gay nightclub by an adherent of a religious ideology that throws gays off buildings.

But, that doesn’t gel with the Left’s hierarchy of victimhood so they try to deflect blame on their bogeymen, Christian conservatives.

Cynical opportunists of the Left were no better than ­Donald Trump when they used the massacre in Orlando to push their agenda.

The ABC’s PM program ­directly linked the massacre to the same-sex marriage plebiscite, quoting Fran Bowren, co-convener of the Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras, saying Orlando was a “warning note that we should all be heeding” before the plebiscite.

“The No arguments are very personal, they’re very personally attacking, and they are targeting individual people … opening the door for the hate speech of the No side is, I think, very dangerous.”

Upholders of traditional marriage stay silent. You’re not just wrong, you’re evil.

John Birmingham in the SMH blamed conservatives opposed to Safe Schools program and same sex marriage, linking them, but not Islamist imams preaching death to gays, to “the consequences of hatred (which) always ends in blood”.

New Matilda ranted: “Malcolm Turnbull Is Trying to Turn Queerphobia Into Islamophobia” after the PM referred to “evidence that the killer was linked to Islamist extremism”.

Jenna Price in the SMH wrote: “What I’m looking for is leadership that says we are all sorry … I don’t want you to pretend that this is any other kind of terrorism than the one that has existed for ever, gay hate and gay murder.”

Guardian columnist Owen Jones walked off the set of Sky UK because he was offended by a journalist saying Orlando was an attack on us all. “You don’t understand this because you aren’t gay,” he snapped.

What happened to empathy and human solidarity? What a world where we only care about people like us. Empathising with people who are different from you is morally sound. Otherwise there are no safeguards when political inclinations change. If you don’t have safeguards of reason and universal conscience you can easily be persuaded by some demagogue or ideology to do evil things. You can see some people as not fully human.

The bloody consequences are evident in Orlando.

Is it safe?

The news reminds us that the world is a time bomb. See the headlines: "Explosion at Shanghai Pudong Airport caused by “self-made explosives,” at least 3 injured." From the Philippines, "Malacañang yesterday admitted that journalists in the country are exposed to danger everyday, noting several of them have been murdered since the 2009 Maguindanao massacre." From Orlando Florida. "50 killed in Florida nightclub, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance" The list doesn't end. Last week: "Tel Aviv shooting: Market attack kills four Israelis" and Istanbul: "Kurdish group claims deadly car-bombing" where 11 people died last week including 7 police officers.

Bad news travels quickly. Terrorism is successful when this news finds its home in the heart of people who learn of these tragedies without a safety net.

Remember this video clip from Marathon Man starring Dustin Hoffman?

The dentist asks, "Is it safe?" And after being assured that it ISN'T safe, the procedure ensues. By the way that's Sir Lawrence Olivier as the dentist.

But this question, "Is it safe?" is the number one question I get asked about travel to Israel just now. Or visiting Bankstown in Sydney's southwest (where this headline arose last month "Bankstown shooting: Man killed, two injured at Sydney shopping centre." Or New York City. And I must tell you what I tell everyone...honestly, there is no place where anyone can guarantee everyone complete safety from harm. A person can be standing on the sidewalk in North Hollywood as a 63-year-old woman was in April this year, and a car struck and killed her. Would you say the Valley Glen area is safe? Yes, 99.9% of you would say so. But this woman testifies otherwise.

So does this information scare you? Are you feeling like staying in just now? Consider this elderly couple out in Western Australia. WA crash in home . It just keeps happening.

Look, our advise is not to stay home or to go out. Our advise is to make sure that your life is settled with the living God. Make sure you know He knows you. Make sure He loves you and you have made a commitment to Him in the person of the Saviour Yeshua the Messiah. Safety? Yes, we can increase it by observing certain sensible rules of conduct, certainly in public. But there will be a day when it ends, when all our carefully planned options run out and when we will be meet our maker.

Those young people dancing at the concert in Paris or all over on Friday the 13th of November last year could never have imagined such a scene. (The attacks in Paris on the night of Friday 13 November by gunmen and suicide bombers hit a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars, almost simultaneously - and left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded.) The reality is that "is it safe?" is answered with a loud 'no.' There is no airport, no nightclub, no deli or cafe which is immune to a terrorist who might want to perform evil acts.

And yet, I'm not nervous. I'm not scared. Why? Because it is safe? No, but because eternity and I are settled. We have sorted out the issues of life. This world is temporary and the future world is eternal. Nothing here can ruin our eternity.

Yeshua, the Messiah of the Jewish people and Saviour of the world said this, "Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered so do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows." (Matthew 10.26-31)

The assurance of our relationship with God, the Father, through Jesus His Son, gives us perspective. No matter how horrible the Orlando death rate climbs, or the results of the next bomb or shooting by an ISIS madman, we who know the living God are not rattled. Yeshua is our mainstay. He is our Rock. He is our Hope. And He is our Life.

Know Him and everything else diminishes. In Him is true safety. King David said this in the Psalms. "In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety. (Psalm 4.8-9) Rest in the Lord, and she'll be right, mate.

The Last Days...according to Jesus (Luke 17.20-37)

--> A sermon by Bob Mendelsohn Given at Cronulla (Sydney) Anglican Church

15 March 2015

BIBLE TEXT:

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back.

Remember Lot’s wife.

Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”

And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.” 

Thank you to Pastor Rich, for inviting me today and for assigning me this text from Luke 17. Seems you have been going through this book of the Bible in a series, and I'm glad to fit in today with a message I call "The Last Days according to Jesus." 

Who will win the election Saturday week? Who will win the Cricket World Cup? Will the Sharks have a go at the top of the table in League this year? No matter how many tealeaves you use, no matter how many mediums you consult, the content of today’s lesson and today’s text appears to highlight Jesus’ general antipathy toward attempts to engage in apocalyptic timetabling. Even so, today’s text will also clearly show both drama and destruction at the real apocalypse.

This week into our bookshop in Bondi Junction a man came who is a real believer. But he spent a significant time trying to convince me that since the Third Temple was yet to be rebuilt, that all Jews were not believing in Jesus, that a particular seal in Revelation or a symbolic event in the prophet Daniel had not happened…since all these cataclysmic events were yet future, that obviously Jesus was not set to return today. He had time; others still had time; there was plenty of time to get ready for the return of the Messiah.

It’s exactly that evaluation that prompted Yeshua to speak all these red-letter words in today’s text. No, He alleged, you don’t have time. No, when you think that everything is as it was and is as it will be, that’s when you need to look up. The end is in view. Your end is in view. The Kingdom is coming. The Bible says the end will come suddenly, like lightning, and unmistakably, like lightning.

Then there is another group of people who look at the future. These are they who watch the newspaper in one hand and read the Bible in the other hand and will tell you that ISIS is prophesied in that Bible passage, and the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 was predicted in another passage. They aver that the world is ending today or maybe tonight, and they have signs to prove it. Earthquakes and wars and rumors of wars. Tsunamis and volcanic blasts, the cyclone in Port Vila, Vanuatu, even sycamore trees in New York City. Jesus is coming back today at 2:30 pm.  They can prove it. But Jesus also has something to say to those people.

Look at verse 20: The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.

The words here point to the process of trying to work out, by means of almost scientific observations, what is happening in connection with the coming of the kingdom of God, whether these observations take the form of looking for supernatural signs like blood moons or falling Temples, people who project truths from the present political situation, looking at the entrails of animals, examining the configuration of the stars, or some other form. One cannot discern when the kingdom of God will come by prognostication on the basis of the observation of raw data.

So Jesus negates both groups of sign observers, those who think it’s observable and those who think it will happen but not yet. Both evaluate end-times on the basis of signs. But there are two other groups we should mention. Give me a moment.

I remember the fabled story of the Italian peasant who looked up one day and saw Jesus returning in the clouds. He ran to the neighborhood parish and told the priest, “Look up, Father, Jesus is a-coming.” Sure enough the parish priest looked up and saw what the peasant told him, and they ran to the priest’s car, drove to the big city and told the bishop. “Look up, your excellency; Jesus is a-coming!” The bishop saw what they other saw, and they together went to the bishop’s car and drove straight to Rome. There they bypassed formalities and demanded an audience with the pope. The three men made it into the Vatican and into the pope’s chambers. “Holy Father, look up, Jesus is a-coming!” The men stood still as the pope ran to the window overlooking St Peter’s square, checked overhead and ran back into his office. They watched as he feverishly began writing note after letter after note. Finally, the bishop gathered the courage and said, “Holy Father, excuse me, what are you doing?” The pope looked up hurriedly and said, “Jesus is a-coming, look-a-busy!”

There are two other groups of people, with equally wrong responses to knowing the reality of the return of the Messiah: 1) you either become religious or 2) you dismiss the idea altogether. Those are both in view as well in our passage and in our 21^st century world in Cronulla, in the Shire, in Sydney, and beyond. If Jesus is coming back, and you want to ‘be ready’ then religion seems to fill the bill for some, as is evidenced in the pope story of being busy. On the other hand, if Jesus is coming back and you don’t really care about Him, His Kingdom, or all that means, then you will carry on life as you know it, with its commensurate political considerations, footy contests, pub crawling, and work-a-day worldviews. Neither of those are what Jesus recommends.

Whatever your response to the reality of the parousia, the appearing again of the Lord Jesus, several things are clear.

1)            You will not know the day or the time, until it happens.

2)            You will not be able to withstand its consequences.

3)            You cannot affect its timing. It will be sudden.

4)            Your fate is already determined by your professions of faith

Today is the Ides of March, the day when Julius Caesar was killed in Rome around 40 BC. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned Caesar about the day and Julius dismissed the warning. When Caesar saw the seer approaching, Caesar shouted after him, “The Ides of March have come” implying that the seer’s words did not come to pass. The seer replied, “But they are not gone,” implying that the day was not over. Sure enough, moments later Caesar was stabbed to death. Dismissing the reality of warnings is not a good thing to do, whether it’s a red light on your car’s dashboard or a leaky faucet in the basement of the parish hall. The writer of Hebrews said, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.” (12.25)

Warnings have their place, not for us to be academic about the timing of the warnings, but to listen and learn and change according to the measure of the warning. When a label on a box of cereal indicates that some peanuts are included, an anaphylaxic person, one with a peanut allergy, must take notice. If he doesn’t, it might spell death to him.

So Yeshua tells us in this passage that the end / beginning will be like two other eras in biblical and world history-- the time of Noah and the time of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. In each narrative, a person warns the planet about impending doom, people dismiss it as nonsense, go about their ordinary life as if nothing will ever change, and God sends judgment to the place, causing havoc, flood, fire, and destruction. Yeshua is teaching that if we also similarly dismiss the warnings He is giving us from heaven, then we have no confidence in being part of the Kingdom or community of God.

And God’s judgment comes with precision, so that one is taken and another left even though they handle similar trades or situations. The judgment of God is not about trades or economics; it’s about our relationship with the Almighty.

One more thing about the Kingdom, Jesus says, “it’s in the midst of you.” (17.21) It’s right there, and some of you will see it, and some will miss it. But whether you think it’s coming in 2018 or when the Sharks win the Premiership or if you think cataclysmic events have to take place, a Temple has to fall and rise, or Rome or ISIS has to be dismantled, the reality is that while we argue about futures, the King of the Kingdom is right there, and if we are in relationship to Him, the Kingdom has come. OF course, there will be a future and comprehensive, instantaneous and cataclysmic new world, but for now, while you wait for it, the King is already here. Submit to Him and be brought near to the Government of God. God’s realm is here. God’s son is here. God is here!

Theologically, we learn the phrase, “Now and not yet.” That means that the Kingdom is now, present in Yeshua, and not yet, but is coming soon, with clarity and precision, with power and drama, and when God fully establishes His authority and rule on the earth, no one will withstand it. That day is certainly coming. This day however, you can join the community of faith. There is a ‘now’ for you who are listening; there will be a ‘then’ as well. Don’t wait until ‘then’ to make the choices you should make ‘now’ in following Messiah.

Don’t look-a-busy.

Don’t dismiss this.

Jesus really is returning, and as dramatic as the flood of Noah and its commensurate destruction, as dramatic as the fire-and-brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah and its commensurate destruction, even to Lot’s longing-to-return wife, so will the drama and destruction be at the return of Jesus. Be ready, choose well. Religion won’t cut it; dismissal won’t make it go away.

The question to you today is “What will you do with Jesus?”

Mosques, Christian warriors and tolerance: What is OWRT?

My friend Owen sent me this link:  "Interstate Christian activists on board of Canberra group fighting mosque in Gungahlin"

And Owen asked me a question which is a good one. Could I "please elaborate on the concept of #OneWayReligiousTolerance as you use it."

 In other words, knowing that I'm very keen to notice the misuse of religion in the gamery of public action, isn't this just another one of those actions and thus intolerance in a multi-cultural society?

You see, in the article, some Christians are trying to prevent some Muslims from opening a mosque in Canberra.  And in fact, some of those listed as preventers are running for parliament in the next election.

One of the opponents is Mr Adrian Van Der Byl - who said he opposed "the advancing Islamisation of Australia" - and he also confirmed he planned to run as the CDP candidate in the seat of Goulburn, which borders the north of the ACT, at the coming NSW state election.

Realistically I have no problem with people using their inalienable and incontrovertible rights to access public opinion or try to persuade government to accomplish their moral convictions.  In a democracy, we have political means to our own ends and those are right to use. They may be wrong; they may be bigoted; they may be misinformed, but this is not the same as other examples of #OneWayReligiousTolerance. 

Maybe I should define that hashtag.

#OneWayReligiousTolerance describes the attempt by those who follow Islam to demand non-Muslims to allow (aspects of) sharia law in a free society, but not to allow other religions and cultures to influence them. It is related to the idea of intolerance, but is more specific. If you will, the door only opens in one direction. This is both my definition and my hashtag creation.

Read more here Canberra

In another story out of the UK, tolerance, the new religion of the 21st Century, has reared its uncompromising and ignorant head in a case involving both Jewish and Christian private schools. Seems that A successful Christian school has been warned it is to be downgraded by inspectors and could even face closure after failing to invite a leader from another religion, such as an imam, to lead assemblies. Even attending a mosque is not enough to warrant such downgrading.

A Jewish school was warned it had to have conversation about sexuality, especially lesbianism, and learning about babies and biology to maintain its ranking.

UK schools demotion

So Owen's question remains. Is all intolerance #OWRT?  Not at all. Whatever tolerance really is, it's currently leaning toward madness, especially in the UK. Another recent article from there highlights this madness. Anyone who criticizes gay marriage is legally equated with hate-mongers and true terrorists like ISIS. Does that smack of idiocy? Or something as 'tolerant' as 'via media' being the only way.

Extremists and hate speech

So when a Christian few try to stop a mosque in Canberra from finishing construction or a legal expert tries to shut down gay marriage critics, it's not #OneWayReligiousTolerance; it's simply tolerance or intolerance gone awry. The Christians in Canberra are not saying Muslims should not exist. They are not threatening deportation. They are not burning other previously built mosques. On the other hand, if a country like Saudi Arabia will allow people to own Christian Bibles, or Iraq will stop destroying churches, then I will stop citing them with #OneWayReligiousTolerance. Until then, they are the classic examples of such.