Does God Behave Badly?

AMERICAN VIOLENCE IS THE NECESSARY AND INEVITABLE EXPRESSION OF OUR CONFLICT BETWEEN OUR DECLARED PRINCIPLES AND OUR UTTER FAILURE TO LIVE BY THEM  -  Thomas Merton

David Lamb explores issues that many people have wondered about, even Christians.  Does God behave badly, especially in the Old Testament?  Is God angry, sexist, or racist?  And what was the deal about the Canaanites?  Yes we know about God giving Israel the promise land but did it have to at such of great cost of so many people dying?  Some people like to throw out words like genocide, mass murder, ethnic cleansing when it comes to some of the violence in the Bible.

When it comes to problems like polygamy, slavery, and war in the Bible, much of it comes under what Jesus said about divorce when he said, "It's because of the hardness of your hearts."  But several things we need to keep in mind when it came to warfare and the Cannanites, God showed great mercy and patience for a long time before judgment came upon these people.  The Canaanites were a wicked and brutal people and much of warfare in biblical days was quite brutal.  And even though it appears in the Bible that the whole Canaanite race was wiped out, this is simply not what happened.  The Canaanites keep showing up later in Israel's history and the Canaanite campaign was not so much of slaughter as it was of driving them out of the land.  Because Israel did not drive them all out, this lead Israel into their own apostasy and idolatry later which had terrible consequences for Israel.

Another biblical story that sounds terrible to modern ears is where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son.  What loving parent would do such a monstrous act?  But we miss how important it is in hearing God's voice and following God in obedience.  Abraham thought that perhaps God might resurrect his son but he did not know.  He simply followed God in faith knowing that somehow God would provide and God did.  God provided a ram that was sacrificed instead of his son.

The Jewish reading of the story is God is not so bad because God is only testing Abraham.  But from a Christian perspective, the story goes further showing that God is willing to sacrifice himself for us all.  Some people after reading this story may question, "What kind of God could ask a father to sacrifice his own son?"  But Christians can respond with their own question, "What kind of God would sacrifice his own son to redeem sinful people?"