Polly Toynbee adds her voice to those seeking to whip up hatred and a witch hunt against Christians through use of unnecessary polemical language. She speaks for instance of a 'nest of bigots' over the question of acceptance of gay marriage Toynbee - gay marriage debate uncovered nest of bigots. And typical of many humanists she also deliberately misrepresents Christian teaching as if wilful ignorance in theology is a good thing. She should seek to understand Paul's interpretation of Moses for instance before commenting on this matter, and seek to understand the Christian teaching of the dignity and status of human beings created in the image of God. But to deliberately misrepresent another person's position does not show tolerance, respect or understanding - for an educated person wilful ignorance is simply not good enough. Despite this attack Christians are in fact major givers to charitable causes in terms of both time and money in a non-judgemental manner. Toynbee's comments are deeply offensive.
While growing up and trying to understand political philosophy I came to the conclusion that the position of the liberal left is ultimately incoherent. For the liberal mind politics is driven by sentiment and subjectivity and therefore is intellectually weak. The mindset of the liberal left calls for tolerance for all, except of course for those Christians who hold to intellectual coherence and objectivity in matters of politics and ethics. The liberal mind calls for tolerance, then must speak and act with intolerance towards those who disagree with them. Critics of the liberal left must be silenced at all costs, and if that means persecuting Christians and dragging them before the courts on issues of conscience then so be it. For the liberal mind sentiment only goes so far (which is why they also care so little for the killing of aborted babies - but that is another story).
