Danang Kristiawan’s framing of “cheap tolerance,” “negative tolerance” and “cost­ly tolerance” and how these operate in Indonesia is helpful to me (“Costly Tolerance Pays Well,” November). My faith journey has led me to listen more carefully to the approach to peaceful resistance taught by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Both identified one’s own suffering as indispensable to a pacifist’s power to transform. Power-focused approaches to exposing oppression appeal to my logical nature. Engaging my own suffering — with nothing but faith that it will mysteriously engage a spiritual power to transform others — does not. While I don’t fully un­derstand why my suffering is essential, one can’t dispute that King and Gandhi had exceptional success and that healing through one’s own suffering is a central characteristic of God’s nature as revealed in Jesus.

Allan McGarvey, Kalispell, Mont.