This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

frontline theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moller, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in

Louisville, Kentucky.

One of the best titles I've seen in a long time is this, the intolerance of tolerance. The title itself

makes you want to read the book and of course to have a conversation with the

author which is what we're just now about to do. D. A. Carson is a research

professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the area of Chicago.

He is also one of the most important public intellectuals among American evangelicals.

DA Carson, welcome to thinking in public.

It's nice to be with you.

Donald will talk to you about your new book, The Intolerance of Tolerance.

Now, the title itself tells a story, but every idea has a genealogy.

Why don't you kind of walk us through why you wrote this book and then we're going to talk about what tolerance means and what it has meant. Why did you write it?

It came about partly out of my university missions, that sort of thing.

And then what has sometimes happened is that universities often offer public lectures that any student group on the campus can

apply for funds for.

And so several times in the last few years some Christian group or other on a secular

campus has applied for these funds and then asked me to go and talk and the conditions

of course are pretty obvious that you can talk on anything you like but it's not

straight evangelism or anything like that you're supposed to be making some

public statement and it can be anything from a nuclear physics expert talking about quarks or the like to almost any public topic.

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