Some soul-searching

I’ve come to the conclusion that this essential core I have been defending is not, in fact, Christianity. It’s not the chewy nougat center of orthodox doctrine: it’s basic human decency, a bedrock of moral and ethical care for others that I believe any decent human being needs to hold onto. One of the fundamental difficulties faced by Christians is that Scripture, when read on its own terms, contradicts many of these basic, fundamental principles.

Very well said. That’s exactly the realisation I had when I lost my faith. It’s the linchpin, and once that comes loose, nothing else holds together.

It’s a heavy realisation, for sure. But hey, now you don’t need to figure out a way to defend genocide or sexism or slavery or damnation. You can pursue goodness without all that baggage. Christians never seem to get that—they always assume that I left the faith so I could sin more, but I left it so I could sin LESS.

Thanks for sharing your heart. I think your wrestle with such passages is a sign of genuine faith. It seems to me that your intuition and sensitivity demand a more Christlike God: God is love. God is merciful. God is just. And God has always been and will always be perfectly good, revealed by Christ as nonviolent and forgiving.

And then we read Numbers. (Deut. 21-22 is pretty horrible too. So is 1 Sam. 15. And so on.) What we see there is so horrible … genocide, rape, even punitive amputations. The God who is supposedly slow to anger and rich in love (Psalm 103) is seen to have a quick and violent temper. He does not love his enemies or even submit to his own laws of eye for an eye… much less grace.

What do we do with such texts? The evangelical answer has proven unsatisfactory. Part of the problem is a simplistic doctrine of Scripture, insisting on inerrancy (“every word is the inspired Word of God”) and a “flat hermeneutic” (Lev. 19 is as much the Word of God as Matt. 5-7, even when they are in direct conflict). By then we have painted ourselves into a double-bind, but instead of wrestling through it like you (bless you!), evangelical teachers and apologists have often given denials or justifications that will never and should never satisfy us.

Perhaps we take offense to such a God. But I don’t think it’s a God problem. Nor do I think it’s a Bible problem. I’m sure it’s an interpretive approach issue.

Thankfully, the evangelical non-solutions are not the only options.

Just one possibility (for example) that some Orthodox teachers offer: the OT is NOT a revelation of what God is like. Rather, it represents our very real faith story of a God trying to reveal himself to a slave nation in a barbaric era through all of their cultural filters and distortions and violent projections … This resulted in an utter failure of relationship that demonstrates the desperate need for God to come in person to reveal what he is really like. When he does so, we find Jesus revealing quite a different God. And we begin to see that the law of Moses (for example) was NOT a picture of God’s heart and will but rather, an expression of OUR hardness of heart. Jesus says as much when explaining Moses’ laws re: divorce.

This approach isolates the problem as 1. certainly NOT with your heart; 2. certainly not with God, who is even better and kinder and more loving than we suspect; 3. not even with Scripture, which represents an honest and messy journey of a people struggling to understand God—and that journey culminates in Jesus. The problem is simply the inadequacy of our approach to the Bible. Seen that way, you are onto something.

Where I’d perhaps push harder than you is this: I would say, “This part of the Bible claims that God said this. Jesus gives me reason to question whether his Father could have EVER said that. The Bible is not ‘wrong’ here. It is just accurately reporting a claim. But the one who made the claim, ‘God said this to me,’ should be second-guessed because his message does not line up with the testimony of God when he came in person.”

To restate this, could we not simply assert, “Based on the revelation of God that Jesus gave us, God could not have issued this command.” If we started with that as our premise, then we could proceed to sorting out how would we approach this passage. I’ve been working on for the last two years. Just when I thought, “What’s the point? Maybe I’ll just drop it,” then I read your blog.

I have a feeling NT Wright might hold some answers. Or perhaps Bruegemann. And Archbishop Lazar Puhalo. I’m still working at it. Thanks for pushing it.

bj

Thank you Eaton and everyone else for attempting to sort through these things. I’ve had similar vague ideas in my head that I haven’t been able to get into a concrete form. Part of me has been afraid to explore these ideas, unsure of where it will take me.

Sin sucks. And that is all I am really going to try to say. So I can sympathize where you are coming from. Genocide? Something must be pretty seriously wrong if God commands it.

The scary thing for me is that God’s wrath isn’t just revealed in the Old Testament against a people who aren’t in God’s covenant, but that hell is preached also. And that Jesus suffered hell in his flesh, the full wrath of God plastered on a cross. . I don’t see how it can get any uglier than that. His own Son, none the less.

However, I don’t see God as being inconsistent in Numbers 31. It doesn’t exhort them to “rape” (your word, not scripture’s). In Numbers 25, God is ticked at the sensual indulgence of these idolaters of Moab and Israel. It was enough for all the men to die, and all the women as well (who likely would have defiled themselves in sexual licentious practices), so that the nation couldn’t be re-established. The virgins however were spared, but not for the purpose of rape. I’m sure it was for marriage or slavery. But they were spared. Though it is likely some sinful Israelite men did in fact rape. Yet that wasn’t what Moses commanded.

I know you’re not impressed with the God the Old Testament. I’ll let your point of genocide stand. But I think God reveals himself when he needs to. It is a scary thing. But I think in a sense, it is a good thing he remains hidden from us. And on the other hand, it is good news that he does hide himself (enter paradox) because it is to reveal himself.

But this does leave us to speculation.

I think there are two theologies of this outcome. One is a theology of glory, the other is the theology of the cross.

“A thoelogian of glory believes that 1. God’s ways can be generally understood by human reason; 2. God’s favor is manifested in the circumstances of life, in particular, life’s successes and victories; 3. God is pleased by sincere human effort. ”

“In complete contrast to the theologian of Glory, the theologian of the Cross believes that: 1. God’s ways are paradoxical and hidden to human reason; 2. God’s favor is manifested in Jesus, in particular, His suffering, death and resurrection; 3. God is pleased only by Jesus.” Todd Wilkens

Christ himself said all scripture is pointing to him. That is how we are to read it. I know some parts don’t resonate with you, but I think some of the problem is when we venture into becoming theologians of glory.

May this Lord be with your spirit. I’m praying for you man.
Eric -Decapoland

For some reason 2 paragraphs didn’t get quoted properly on this format :S

Hmm, something that Brad J shared made some sense to me…and I guess it’s kind of how I’ve looked at some things in the old testament before, but I didn’t know how to articulate it. (Like Abraham sacrificing Isaac…maybe that’s the only way Abraham could have related to what God was testing him in because of Abraham being steeped in that culture, and maybe it’s how Abraham interpreted what God was saying, getting at)…that it wasn’t God’s heart for him to kill him. Anyway, I’ve kind of seen many things in the old testament as God working with people where they were at, the world they lived in at the time. I figured they were so steeped in their culture that what God really had in mind was so totally off their radar…and he worked through it, even where they were at. Do I think they might have heard wrong at times? Well, that wouldn’t be surprising. I mean, even the disciples thought Jesus was coming to kick some major earthly political butt, so to speak, and they had their own picture of how that would look (Peter cut off that one guy’s ear) It was off their radar what God really had in mind. And something that Brad said, makes sense to me. Though he isn’t saying…this IS how it is…but he’s pondering these things too…and here’s what he said.

“Here’s one possibility (just for example) that some orthodox teachers offer: the OT is NOT a revelation of what God is like. Rather, it represents our very real faith story of God trying to reveal himself to a slave nation in a barbaric era through all of their cultural filters and distortions and projections…this resulted in an utter failure of relationship that demonstrates the desperate need for God to come in person to reveal what he is really like. When he does so, we find Jesus revealing God perfectly. And we begin to see that the law of Moses (for example) was NOT a picture of God’s heart and will but rather, of OUR hardness of heart. Jesus says as much when explaining Moses’ laws re: divorce.”

I think it’s something to ponder. For me, this makes more sense than the scenarios you’re trying to choose from. I mean, it shows mankind, like Brad said…”with all our cultural filters & distortions and projections”. I think alot of people in the OT got things wrong. I mean, we see it with the disciples, and others in the NT, too. But that doesn’t say the scripture isn’t true….it can still be an accurate story of what people said and did…and when they said, “God said do this…”. If someone says God told me to do such and such…and then someone writes an article about it, quoting the person, it can still be an acurate article even if the person they are quoting didn’t hear God correctly. Just some things to ponder.

Okay, another thought. What if we are to look at what people in the bible said and did, and test it up against the Word…Jesus. And what he said and did. Testing the words, actions and conclusions of the people it’s written about…to see if they were “missing it” or not.

Men in that time were the main workforce outside of the home. The women’s role in society was mainly inside the home. I see the execution of boys as the elimination of the country altogether. Like I said, it therefore couldn’t be re-established. I find the elimination of small boys grievous as well as the men. However, that is the consequence of sin. The judgement of God is terrible.

How can I have any comfort God isn’t going to smite me? The only answer I can give is the cross and his word.

That is why I’m going to say my conclusion isn’t that unpleasant. But if I were to pick one of your own conclusions, I’d mix answers 1 and 3. Though in premise 1 I don’t think God commanded evil things, but then again I believe in sola scripture, so I must be wrong. (BTW I didn’t mean concede that it is sinful for God to command genocide against this people. I just don’t deny God commanded genocide, He explicitly did. However,does it say God commanded rape? No.)

I’m not saying there is no problem. I’m saying sin is a problem. However, the sin doesn’t lie with God. When I see people rejecting scripture I see its premise opposing the theology of the cross. If you reject the theology of the Bible as a whole, it’ll be no doubt that you will reject it in parts…

I find the elimination of small boys grievous as well as the men. However, that is the consequence of sin. The judgement of God is terrible.

Or perhaps the judgement of god is just “bad”?

Thanks for having the courage to post this. I say courage because I know how it can feel to raise these questions aloud, especially in Christian circles. You’re more than raising questions, you’re making tentative pronouncement about your identity - at least for the foreseeable future. You reach a breaking point and you simply have to voice these things in order to maintain authenticity.

I relate to all that you’ve said here. My response takes two forks, one a recent anecdote and another an observation on my childhood imprintation of Christianity (which I need to work up into a standalone post). Here’s the “recent anecdote” fork.

I like my church. I love the work that it does throughout the suburb, and the solace and community that it can provide. I like many of the specific individuals I’ve met there. I love the values of the church, but I often find myself at its periphery because of its doctrines, many of which I see as unverifiable and thus abstract. I “silently discard” many aspects of the Old Testament, as you say, because it’s not really what the church is about - even if everyone there thinks that it is.

Last Tuesday, during a church small group study of the book of Amos, I permitted myself a small rant about how the God of the Old Testament really doesn’t come off very well. I’ve held back in that group before; it’s made up primarily of people who tend toward the evangelical mainstream, or haven’t encountered as many Biblical problems as I have. But I was angry enough at the atrocity-reading-of-the-day (a smug-sounding Amos telling the priest Amaziah that his wife would soon become a prostitute in the city and his kids would be killed because Amaziah had spoken out against Amos’s prophecy) that I had to allow myself a diatribe about the problems I found in the Old Testament, how it depicts a warlike deity who supposedly sanctioned/commanded his people’s warlike, slave-taking, genocidal habits, how a taken-literally portrayal of that God yields visions of a capricious, monstrous god, not worthy of worship. Etc.

I got some blank stares and some intrigued nods of recognition and agreement. But we were out of time and not much more was said. I hesitate to risk alienating myself from that community because I think church people are easily threatened when you question the certainty of their doctrines or even suggest that some aspects of doctrine shouldn’t be primary. But, for the sake of my vitality and authenticity, I can’t remain forever silent, either, letting people think I hold beliefs that I actually don’t.

Anyway, your honesty is refreshing and commendable. This is a good conversation to be having. Thank you for posting.

One of the difficulties in wrestling with Biblical passages we find morally repugnant is determining if what we believe is actually true and right. Just because we believe something is morally wrong does not make it so. We shudder at the idea that God could call for genocide, but what if allowing that culture to thrive and live would have resulted in allowing a larger and more ghastly evil to do far more harm? Would we then find ourselves asking “How could God have let that happen?” (as people ask of situations like the Holocaust and 9/11).
It’s hard to get out of our own culture’s perception of what is right. I don’t think our only choices are to blindly accept everything we read or throw it all away. We can also ask God to reveal to us what is going on. When my wife was a teenager she struggled with the seeming sexist content of much of scripture, instead of just concluding that the Bible is wrong, or God is evil, she asked HIM to show her what was going on, and he did.
As an English major I always hated it when someone analyzing a text would disregard what the author said about his or her own work. Who would know better than God what he meant? Why not ask him?

Let’s look at it in modern terms. Is abortion wrong? (for the sake of this argument we will say yes) What if the mother will die if she does not abort? Do we hold to the objective moral standard or do we have to consider the situation? The need to consider the situation is a part of what I was trying to get across.

Barring the fact that many pro-life Christians believe that abortion IS wrong even in that situation, I’m not sure how the situation you describe relates to than the ones we encounter when reading Scripture.

The idea that some far greater evil would have happened if Canaan’s native population were allowed to live — and that an omnipotent God had to choose the lesser of two evils — is an extra-Biblical assertion Christians make precisely because God’s actions in the Old Testament violate their moral standards. Scripture offers no such ticking timebomb scenario, and makes no attempt to pretty-up acts of genocide or mass sexual slavery. Those things happened because Yahweh didn’t like people worshiping other gods, and those people worshiped other gods. Period. Full stop.

Of course an omnipotent, omniscient God has the right to destroy, maim, kill, and torture as He pleases. That’s the advantage of being omniscient. However, justifying those actions by saying that He must have had a really good reason makes the very idea of objective morality useless.

The position you advocate is not, as best as I can tell, different than a mother who refuses to admit that her wayward son can do wrong. “Oh, not my boy… He’s a good boy, with a good heart,” she says, as the police question her about a double-homicide. “He must have had a good reason to do those things.” He might well — but the burden of proof is high in such matters, and if no reason is offered other than “they did stuff I didn’t like,” the mother’s claims are just tragic and pitiable.

And my point is that you seem to want to hold what one culture considered morally acceptable to the standards of what you think is morally acceptable. To me it seems a bit egocentric of us to say that our 21st century western culture is the standard by which all morality must be judged.

I think you misunderstand my point. I’m looking at the fundamental difficulty that arises when one claims that a book written by said ancient culture is the absolute authority on what is morally acceptable, and that the standard does not change over time.

Just to clarify: do you believe that sexual slavery and genocide are objectively bad? Or do we only think they are bad because we’re squeamish 21st century folks?

“Perhaps you can point me to some interviews with God in which He explains his thoughts on the Bible in more detail? The version I have doesn’t seem to include His introduction.”

Ha! Quite witty, but I did not say read an interview, I said ask him. You know, pray.

I did. For the better part of twenty years. That’s why I’m no longer a Christian. I understand that there is an easy response to my position: that I didn’t really ask God, or that I wasn’t really listening, or that I was never a Christian in the first place.

Please don’t think that I have arrived at my current beliefs by lack of consideration.

I just want to ask a couple more questions about the passage in question. The people that were slaughtered were the Midianites earlier God brought a plague on Israel for among other things having sex with Midianite women (Numbers 25 see especially verse 6). This slaughter is retaliation for what the Midianites did in Numbers 25 and earlier. My point is not that because it was revenge it was justifiable, but to point out that Israel was punished for having sex with Midianite women and that this was on their minds during the battle, so do you really think that they would be anxious to repeat the actions they had been punished for? And do you think that God would tell them to repeat the actions that he had previously punished them for?
Perhaps the reason the virgins were saved is because they did not participate in the seduction mentioned earlier. Perhaps they were being saved to become household servants (or if you prefer, slaves).
Now, I readily admit that I could be wrong and you could be right, but it’s at least worth some consideration.

Was it really genocide? If all the Midianites were killed how do they show up again in the story of Gideon?
I’m trying to remember where I’ve read more on this idea of “kill all” not being literal, but I can’t remember. It might have been in Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to me ramble and consider my thoughts.