The full article appears in the Calgary Sun:

Maybe if Artur Pawlowski had been holding a flag of the outlawed terrorist organization Hezbollah, Calgary Police would have left him alone … Pawlowski, 33, who has been helping the homeless for years, gave up his lucrative home-building business last year to start up The Street Church full-time … Because Pawlowski has been threatened so often by drug dealers angry their clients often turn away from drugs as a result of his message of hope and help, he started videotaping every outing. Wednesday's was no different … On Monday, Pawlowski and his brother went to the park, talked with tarot card readers and other practisers of "sorcery" to tell them the Bible condemns such practices. Video shows they remained calm but the vendors became agitated. Event organizers called police and Pawlowski and his brother David were asked not to talk to the vendors again. They agreed and left. On Wednesday, when they returned to pray, they stayed far away from the vendors. Organizers called police anyway. The video shows Pawlowski standing on the public sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He asks a burly police officer in a calm voice, "Why are you harassing me? What did I do wrong?" The police officer responds with: "I'm going to arrest you for obstruction." At that, Pawlowski is handcuffed and made to walk backwards to the police cruiser where he was frisked … He was also charged with trespassing and disturbing the peace. He spent one night in jail and is to appear in court on Sept. 7 … The video clearly shows six police officers attending to the calm Pawlowski. (Licia Corbella, Calgary Sun)

Seems excessive, don't you think? Had they not been videotaping that day, things might've gone even worse for him.

Notice that one can't tolerate someone unless he disagrees with him. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.

This essential element of tolerance–disagreement–has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.

This presents us with a very curious problem. Judging someone wrong makes one intolerant, yet one must first think another is wrong in order to be tolerant. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible. (Greg Koukl, Tolerance Requires Judgment, Stand to Reason)

Greg Koukl is one of my favorite authors. He has a way of talking about issues in a way that gets right to the heart of the matter.

I thought of this little article (reprinted in its entirety above) when I read these comments (on another blog that I will not link to due to the blog's disrespectful nature, although these comments themselves are a bit more amicable):

I firmly believe that a person of one religion should never attempt to dissuade a person of another religion from practicing thier faith. I don’t see a problem with encouraging someone to do research or open thier [sic] mind, but when it’s a “You’re wrong and I’m right” message, it sickens me. (Some guy)

For the record, I do encourage people to do research and approach faith with an open mind. However, I think that the above is an example of tolerance gone too far. Don't get me wrong, I am entirely for tolerance. No one should try to force their beliefs on anyone else. Of course, I would say that the person quoted above is violating his own principle, when he talks about what people "should" do. If I go along with his reasoning, he should not be trying to dissuade me from practicing my faith if my faith involves spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ.

But there's the rub! Why wouldn't a person be able to claim "I'm right, you're wrong" if that's what they believe and if they can present reasons to back themselves up? Sometimes people are wrong, even on matters regarding faith and religion. Why wouldn't someone be able to challenge others regarding their beliefs?

Noticed an article today on Skeptical Christian titled "Arguments Christians Should Not Use". It's a good article, so take a look. I'll comment briefly on each 'bad argument' raised in that article here:

Pascal's Wager: Certain forms of Pascal's argument may be worthwhile, but I've found that generally speaking they are not considered very persuasive.

{Bad person} was an Atheist, or {Good person} was a Christian: The obvious comeback is "{Bad person} was a Christian" or "{Good person} was an atheist".

Everyone Believes that God Exists: If taken literally, this seems to be refuted easily by considering that there are approximately 1 billion "nonreligious" people in the world, if you go with Adherents.com's numbers. The less literal version, that "most" people believe God exists, proves nothing about the truthfulness of the proposition, and as Skeptical Christian points out it is an argument ad populum.

You Can’t Know that God Doesn’t Exist Unless You’re Omniscient: This argument is actually true; however, most atheists realize this and argue only that there is sufficient evidence that God doesn't exist. Or the reverse, that while there is some positive evidence that God exists, the evidence is not significant enough for them. In this way, the argument as formulated above is attacking a straw man. I disagree with the atheist assessment of the evidence, of course.

You Just Have to Have Faith: Oh no. Not only is this not an argument, it smacks of "blind faith" which is a big turn off for most non-Christians. The problem is that Muslims, Mormons, Raelians and all other religious groups could say the same thing.

Atheists Have no Morals: Obviously this is untrue, most/many atheists behave morally. The distinction needs to be made, as I alluded to in my previous post "Hope vs Unyielding Despair", and as Skeptical Christian also notes, that there is no objective foundation for atheist morals.

Turn or BURN!: aka "You're going to hell!" This is an ineffective argument because it is so emotionally offensive to people that upon hearing it most people will just shut you right off. Also, Christians should be at least wary of judging others, as per for example Matthew 7:1!

Of course, there is no reason to use such 'bad arguments' when there are so many good arguments available for the Christian faith. (See any of the sites listed in the "Links" in the sidebar.)

Saw this today on Engadget and just had to post it here:

Jews for Jesus tract featuring Steve Jobs

(click to enlarge & read the whole thing)

Pure awesome. Though a bit skimpy on the actual gospel message, this is definitely an innovative and witty way to reach people who are, I assume, often forgotten by evangelistic efforts.

(Update: The official page for this tract is here on the Jews for Jesus website.)