In some ways the motives of all these Christian autocrats are understandable. Sometimes they were even well meaning. Believing themselves to be in possession of the sole truth, they were driven by their concern for others to go to extreme lengths, even to the extent of using imprisonment and coercion to win the unpersuaded over to their side. In doing this, however, they confused Christianity and Christendom. They were trying to establish the heavenly city here on earth, which is precisely what Augustine warned against, as did Christ before him. Moreover, they were violating the principle established by God in the Garden of Eden. God could have easily compelled Adam and Eve to conform to His command, but He didn’t. Even though He knew they were making a bad decision, He respected their freedom enough to allow them to make it. The freedom to do good implies the freedom to reject the good.
Early modern thinkers like John Locke were sincere and practical Christians. They invented the concept of religious tolerance not because they wanted to dilute or eliminate the influence of Christianity but because they saw that the wrong kind of Christianity had come to dominate Western society. Men like Locke were rightly disgusted with some of the abuses that had occurred in the name of Christianity. So for this Christian problem—division and conflict—they developed a Christian solution: religious freedom. This idea developed in stages, the first one of which was religious tolerance. The word tolerance is derived from the Latin word meaning “to bear.” and to tolerate means “to put up with.” Tolerance contains the seeds of disagreement and even contempt: I tolerate you because although I believe you are wrong, I will endure you and let you persist in your erroneous ways. Locke’s tolerance extended to most Protestant denominations but not to Catholics.
