There are texts of terror that not only make those outside shudder but those inside the church squirm as well. What do we do with all the violent portrayals of God or God's people saying God told us to wipe out whole groups of people and to spare no one? Where is the mercy and love in that? What ever happened to justice and morality?
Even more problematic is either "people of the book" (the Bible) who either condone violence against others (of course, never to myself, family or people I personally care about) or give biblical "rationales" why God can morally wipe out humanity (like the flood story) much less anyone God simply wants to destroy at any given moment. Doesn't the Bible call Satan or the Devil the thief who comes to rob, steal, kill and destroy. What happens when religious devoted followers of God worship a deity who looks and acts very similar to the Devil? What is a Christian or follower of Jesus to do?
Here are a few examples to consider especially in the onslaught of so many people today either abandoning the Christian faith or making Christianity the current whipping poster boy of today's warfare rhetoric culture.
1. Greg Boyd's books The Crucifixion of the Warrior God or his more popular reader friendly book Cross Vision deals with an early church model of Christ centered reading of the whole Bible in light of these difficult passages. Does God accommodate himself to human language and descriptions and people's cultural conditioned perspectives seems evident to many when one reads the Scriptures carefully and reflectively.
2. There are many "massacres" in the Bible that are simply described, not prescriptively condoned by God. Even when the Israelites think they are justified in taking severe action against there enemies, and even say they are doing God's bidding, does not necessarily mean they are always carrying out God's will.
3. The language of total destruction is a an ancient warfare rhetoric. We killed them all is often used as an exaggerated "hyperbole." How can it be that the Amalakites were "utterly destroyed" or the people of Canaan when they keep showing up in large groups later in the Scriptures?
4. The Scriptures focus is on driving people out of the land rather than killing them off. People have read scriptures in such wooden and literal ways that we often miss the bigger issues the texts are trying to convey to the modern reader.
5. Lastly, Like G. K. Chesterton used to suggest, there are many people who ways of reasoning and viewing Scripture is simply to undermine and do away with it. Atheists and secularists will often say on the one hand, how can God use violence against people in so many unjust ways. I can't believe in a God who uses violence. Then they will turn around and say, why doesn't God stop evil? I can't believe in a God who doesn't stop evil. No matter what happens, God loses in every scenario. Then we apply our own inconsistent views on violence by saying the Nazi's using violence was wrong but the Allies against the Nazi's using violence was right.
Our own moral veracity comes from God or one's Judaeo-Christian ethics but we have killed God and now each of us have our own arbitrary ways of deciding who should live and who should die. We have killed God and now there is no one to save us or deliver us from ourselves!
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