R.E. Slater - Interpreting the Violence of the OT

 

 

 

There is the temptation is to redact the bible and separate the "Actual God of the universe" from the "Textual God of the Israelites" - what one would call a "high view of the bible" as versus a "low view" of the bible. However, as someone who holds to the authority and inspiration of the bible (but not to its inerrancy), that would be to start down the path of textual redactionism which I do not wish to entertain for it is too easy to displace the bible with our own thoughts when thinking about this very difficult subject. In contrast, I would much prefer to study the bible eclectically from both viewpoints beginning with its Ancient Near-Eastern (ANE) setting using historical, anthropological, and literary research, in an attempt to discover just why its ancient texts and scrolls held such fearful and terrible commandments, acts, and attitudes by God and His ancient people. This approach would then utilize some of textual redactionism's tools and methodologies without removing the origin and preservation of divine authorship that subscribes to the high view of Scripture.

 

Consequently, when considering the violent acts of God within the bible upon the ungodly, one might say that we could be reading of Isarel's ancient Semitic beliefs correspondent to their cultural and political dispositions of the time. Not only did Israel have the temptation to replace their God (known as YHWH in the Jewish tongue) with the gods from their surrounding neighbours, but to also follow suit in their laws legally, their government politically, and their warfare militarily, in lockstep with the pagan, polytheistic nations around them. Thus, Israel did as the other nations did, crying out upon their enemies threats filled with violent speech, imprecations, and worse. Forcing the biblical reader today to discern whether the violence found in the OT is actually from God Himself, or from Israel's mis-representation of the God they embraced and believed they were following. So that we must ask, did God actually tell Israel to commit such horrible acts of obscene rape and pillage, butchery and genocide, or was it Israel's imposed understanding of God's commandments as astute observers of the surrounding nation's god's and their commandments? As example, if Assyria's gods took no pity upon Assyria's enemies, why should Israel's God take any pity upon Israel's enemies? At least this may have been the common thinking of the day back then, no less than it is now with ourselves, when facing situational ethics, world politics, and the vagaries of patriotic nationalism.

 

Thus, one approach might be to say that Israel acted like her enemies. An attitude that required God's patient teaching and admonition to His people to not subscribe to in their conduct with each other and the nations before them. However, though this approach is not altogether satisfying, it is not altogether naive as well - by its tacit admission that within Scripture we can, and will find, the cultural, religious, and politicized beliefs of Israel inserted deep within her own texts about the God they embraced and claimed to follow. Which is what is meant by utilizing an historical redactive approach to the Bible. Combining both the high view of Scripture with the low view of Scripture in a hybrid mix of some sort. One that believes Scripture is God's divine revelation, but not necessarily devoid of man's interjections and reassessments. Meaning that, though the people of God would declare God's divine authorship in the composition and preservation of the bible, we also have within this process the attenuation of the Spirit of God cleansing His people from the world's paganisms held in mind, body and spirit. Thus assisting Israel's dedication to YHWH's charters and covenants not by declaration alone, but to YHWH's integrity of purpose and behavior, by helps of His Spirit within and without the Jewish nation.

 

Against the ancient records of Israel's continued failures to hear and obey YHWH, came the requisite tasks of remembering her faith walk with YHWH from the waking dawn to the setting sun. Hence, from generation to generation God tells Israel's leaders and priests, people and peasants, to remember Him. To declare Him to their children. And to their children's children. Through oral legends, stories, and historical accounts. Including not only the stories of spiritual faith and success, but also by stories of failure and unbelief. And from this very fluid, dynamic milieu of charged cultural beliefs and traditions, came the Jewish Scriptures over Israel's many long generations. First by word, song, poem, re-enacted traditions, customs, icons, symbols and religious rites. Then by iron stylus applied to soft clay tablets, parchment pens onto failing scrolls, and a developing body of scribal authorities charged with remembering Israel's walk with God (we call this running narrative by the theological name of "salvation history"). Her tribal holy men we know as priests. And her temple scribes, teachers, and prophets, were spiritually charged with the holy task of preserving God's holy word and acts to Israel's moiling mix of believers and unbelievers. So that when we read the OT we are reading a very long, very old, narrative of God's continuing intercession with His people composed to both the godly and ungodly, the circumcised and uncircumcised, the redeemed and unrepentant, in their faith walk with the God of Israel.

 

Several times over these past many years I have indicated that those generation's beliefs and legends have been modified, or perhaps lost altogether, creating a broken record at best of Israel's account of their walk with God. For didn't Josiah weep when discovering a lost copy of the Jewish bible before setting about to reform Israel of her ungodly paganisms? The miracle is that the Jewish scriptures have been preserved at all (in comparison, think of the many American Indian legends lost in the annuals of time over their many long generations never to be known again). But who can say how many times the oral legends have been added to, or subtracted from, against Israel's lost traditions and moiling mix of contemporary beliefs held within its many past antecedent generations? To me, this is a realistic approach to discerning the theology and teaching of the Bible - that there occurred within the original autographs of the bible later collations and emendations to its text. This is not to say that YHWH was not the Bible's author (the high view). Nor to treat the Bible as simply an ancient human record (the low view). But that in the process of revelation the story of redemption was preserved against cultural adjustments to its teachings (a hybrid view). So that it brings us back to the problem of how to objectively discern Scripture against our own reasonings and thoughts when confronted with commandments and actions within the bible that exhibit very ungodlike actions by YHWH Himself.

 

However, the problem created here is that by following this line of reasoning it becomes admittedly subjective. One that is - and isn't - helpful. And thus requiring our further attention to contemporary archaeological discoveries, as well as to contemporary theological discussions, often composed against our own ideological preferences. Hence, when reading of the violence in the OT, we must ask ourselves if whether God really did say these things, or whether they proceeded from Israel's cultural attitudes, and religious misunderstanding at the time? Certainly it is possible as we see time-and-again in Israel's own history YHWH's prophets preaching against her people's corrupted religion, abominable faith, and wickedness. Or even later in the NT when Jesus comes like an OT prophet of old upon the Jewish establishment of His day to declare the same. However, if God really did say such horrific things, then we must admit the hoary truth that this Christian God must be part monster. Making of Him a dipolar entity ethically and morally split from the God of the NT at the very least. And yet, it is highly doubtful that what was spoken in YHWH's name actually were by the commands of YHWH, but rather by Israel's own deficient understanding of God Himself. At least that is one of the arguments I think we could reasonably entertain without doing injustice to the spirit of divine revelation submitted into the hands of corruptible men.

 

Another approach to understanding the violence in the OT is to use a literary redactive approach. That is, one that concentrates on comparing the stories of the Bible against other, more popular stories of Israel's polytheistic neighbors. Who are themselves committed to various pagan forms of mythology (just as we Americans are today by our movies, games, and novels) such that where Baal is described as terrible, YHWH is described as even more terrible. Where a pagan covenantal treaty is broken and judgment is found to proceed immediately, YHWH's treaty when broken comes with judgments as well, but also with a degree of righteousness, grace, mercy and forgiveness. Where a flood story is remember as despairing and hopeless, another flood story is composed telling of YHWH's divine protection and shelter in times of destruction and woe. Where a creation story attributes birth to the sun and moon, another creation story is written telling of YHWH as creation's origin and purpose. For each legal composition written, each narrative rehearsed, each national act recounted by Israel's neighbours, God gave to Israel their own divine compositions, holy narrative writs, and compelling stories of grace and redemption.

 

Thus, by utilizing comparative literary redactionism, the Bible now becomes more alive within the cultural and political milieus of its day. And similar to scribal/historical/cultural redactionism and accommodation, inserts a reality about the Scriptural passages previous unimposed if simply read naively, or non-historically, without regard to its ANE setting and folklores. To come to the Bible and interject our own flavor of cultural transcriptions is to do the texts of the Bible an injustice. One might call this popular approach a form of epistemological redactionism. Where we, as the current readers of the Bible, force our own presuppositions and attitudes upon the Bible without regard to its setting and text. Many popular theologies have found themselves at the forefront of the church's pulpiteers over the past 2000 years for this very same reason. For how could the barbarity of slavery have been encouraged in the Netherlands, Spain and England, without its teaching of the superiority of a Christian, European, race? Or how could the genocides of the Crusades have been committed without the superimposed belief of justifiable war against the innocent Muslim races of the Middle East? Or how could the cruel and terrible Inquistions have occurred without belief in the majesty of the Catholic Church? Nor the gender inequality endured by women; the bigotry of color, race, ethnicity; or the homophobia found amongst the church today? Don't be so naive as to believe we are above the act of turning the words and phrases of Scripture to our own prejudicial beliefs and purposes. Hence, such derivatives are not of God but from our own sinful hearts, making God guiltless as charged.

 

Another argument laid down besides that of historical and literary redactionism is that of utilizing a Christological approach to the violence found in the OT, albeit one that may be circular in reasoning, admittedly. In this approach we find Jesus acknowledging the God of the OT as His God. One whom He trusted, believed, obeyed, and followed, with his whole heart and life's committal. But Jesus went on to say more than this - that the YHWH of the OT was the same YHWH present within Himself by His incarnate birth. That the God of the OT was Himself, born in the flesh to lead men to salvation and unto the Kingdom of God. Jesus did not say that He was simply infilled, or clothed upon, by the spirit of YHWH, like the prophets and kings of old. But as One who was in the very nature and being as YHWH of the OT (John 1, 1 John 1). Who, in Himself, was YHWH come to man in the flesh. He, who was love, mercy and forgiveness, was one-and-the-same with the God of the OT that was full of fire and judgement, mercy and grace. To these teachings Jesus declared by the Jewish Scriptures YHWH's righteousness,love, mercy and forgiveness to the Jews of His day (which Jewish Scriptures were the only ones extant in Jesus' day. Not until after His death did Jesus' Jewish disciples write down the NT Scriptures many years later as a Jewish follow up to the OT). And further, Jesus illuminated those same Jewish Scriptures with His own original teachings about YHWH through His deeds, ministries, miracles, prayer and teachings, as endowed by the Holy Spirit.

 

And so, it is not enough to simply declare that the God of the OT is a dipolar God quite unlike the God of the NT. For Christianity does not worship two Gods, but one God. Who is one-and-the-same with the God of the OT and the NT by whatever name we know Him. Additionally, we have as our foremost-and-final arbiter Jesus Himself who declared the same. So that, like Jesus, we too recognize that the God of the OT (YHWH) is the same as the God of the NT (Jesus), creating for us a very real problem with the visceral violence we read of in the OT attributed to God's name. In comparison, Jesus and His disciples showed God's love, mercy, grace and forgiveness (even as the OT did in abundance to YHWH's name as well, though I have neglected to mention this as yet!). So that we must ask ourselves then, to what do we attribute these differences things too? Have we over-read the Scriptures with too literal a comprehension? Have we ignored its passages of literary genre to the exclusion of missing the God of those genres? Have we failed to understand what God's Covenant implied to Israel (protection and blessing) when surrounded by godless enemies committed to threats and deprecations, war and bloodshed? That if Israel did not follow God's commands she would suffer at the hands of her own enemies? As you can see, there can be many explanations for the violence spoken of in the OT.

 

So then, to what degree did God in the OT actually eviscerate Israel's brutal enemies everywhere abounding? Was it by their own sinfulness and wickedness? By their faithless disbelief committing them to destruction before the vagaries of this sinful world? By the hands of other faithless nations come for bloodlust and glory? Do we attribute these things to God's ferocious judgments or to the more refined view of God's inability to help redeem the wicked as they sowed whirlwind's of calamitous destruction upon their own heads? And to this, how are we to understand Jesus' command to love one's enemies? To bless them who curse you. To turn the other cheek. To offer cups of cold water to the thirsty? To give aide to those waylaid on the roadside? To what degree do we redact the OT material? Do we uphold it? Do we admit national/personal fear and confusion in the midst of sin and pain and broken biblical treaty? And to what degree do we accord Jesus His own personal redaction of Scripture back towards the contemporary Jewish understanding of His day against its straying elements of simplistic literalism? And, as central argument of all, do we utilize Jesus' depiction of YHWH through Himself as that truer picture of God in the OT. Both His anger and His grace; His judgments and His forgiveness; His terribleness and His beauty? To use the concept of Christology not only as a forward element in Scriptural interpretation prophetically, but as a backwards element of Scriptural interpretation didactically? Or, if we could create another word-image-concept: to utilize the theological idea of Jesus as the measure-and-meter of all of Scripture.

 

That is, through Jesus do we have the right idea of God in the OT. If YHWH appears un-Jesuslike, than we have reason to doubt whether the OT passages truly depicts God as God. Yet, you might ask, what about the warrior image of Jesus as the Lion of Judah come to smite His enemies in the book of Revelation? Certainly the Apostle John seems to depict Jesus in the image of YHWH's judgments and anger. And yet, should we turn those apocalyptic elements around on their head, perhaps the Lion that comes, comes as a Lamb covered in His own sacrificial blood, to the cursed and the damned requiring salvation. That the Armageddon we read of is by man's own doing; his destruction by a corruptible planet corrupted by man; of a universe that is indeterminate in its nature; and of a government and nations heedless of the Creator God, their Redeemer. Where then can be found the beat of drum and dash of sword except in the irony and paradox of the images under the Apostle's pen? And by our own conflicted hearts so warlike and unChristlike in its depositions of survival and glory, pride and ego, storms and loss? As we read forwards of Christ in the OT perhaps we should do the same backwards from the NT of the YHWH we thought we understood but missed. Who declared to Abraham His fidelity and love. Who cut treaty with Abraham using Himself as the propitiating, severed carcass. Who declared blessings and help within a wicked world crying for blood and disorder.

 

For I do not think it is correct to say that in the NT Jesus' commands have come to supersede YHWH's judgments - for then we have two very different Gods. One severe and the other gracious (to put it simply). But perhaps it is more realistically to admit that Israel misunderstood YHWH's laws and commands, and too easily fell from faith to behave just as her neighbours did around her. By interposing her deepest fears of God as a very terrible God who would do to Israel and He would do to her enemies, and worst, if she were not to obey. Or perhaps, doubting YHWH's protection, write of YHWH as a terrible God who would do terrible things to His enemies. Kinda like a small, weak kid saying to a large bully, if you do this to me, my dad will do worse to you. Largely, I think its a dialectic problem lost to us in our scientific, over-rationalizing cultures far removed from the ancient cultures and customs of the OT. For myself, I believe Jesus is the truest illumination of the God of the OT. That this same YHWH then is the same YHWH now come within our midst. To ascribe to God the violence we read of in the OT is to actually ascribe its violence to the sinfulness of our own hearts. That we are a wicked people who do cruel things to one another all in the name of God. And when done, give support to our wickedness by using God's word as support to our guilt and crimes. Nowhere in the NT do we see Jesus, nor His disciples, harm others, rape and pillage, kill or maim, in YHWH's name. The New Covenant cut in Jesus' blood was a sacrificial covenant cut as the same covenant as that of the Abrahamic Covenant, committing us to the Holy Other known to us by many names: King of Peace, loving Lord, Merciful One, Forgiver of my soul, Almighty One, Protector of His children, Benevolent One, and Father of all.

 

Lastly, I would suggest a book by Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, SJ, entitled Abandonment to Divine Providence. Here we'll find another world than the familiar world we live in today. An ancient world with forgotten customs and traditions, fears and sentiments, give to us some idea of the ancient Near-Eastern world of Israel's day when its people were growing and developing under the Abrahamic covenantal faith in its early days of tribal formation. Or under the Sinaitic (Mosaic) charter's observances in Israel's various stages of nationalism which theologians would describe in short as her "salvation history" under God as a forming, monotheistic people. Whose customs and traditions were fundamentally different from that of her polytheistic neighbors everywhere abounding around them. Becoming a people of God that were godly, Yahwistically-imbued, and culturally sensitised to the movement of God in their lives. Even as the church today is forming under Jesus' charters and observations in varying degrees of redemptive enlightenment and failure. Giving to us Christianity's many transitional forms from the first century until now, as we struggle to embrace what it means to be a people of God. A community of believers. A grace community bearing love and forgiveness. Holding to its trust in God against calamity, disaster, ill-will, harm, and destruction. Witnessing the transition of redemptive movement under the hand of God, and by His Spirit, to a forming kingdom of Light and Life. A kingdom hidden to the world but growing mightily like as a mustard seed. Or like yeast as it leavens out the whole world under the direction and rule of the Redeemer God of the bible. Not by might or by muscle. Not by war and pillage. Nor rape and injustice. But by service and humility, peace and assistance, sacrificial giving and wise justice. Well it has been said that the Church is ever reforming, renewing, reviving, rebirthing, resurrecting. Even now, let it be so once again in declaring to ourselves all that is Jesus, as a risen people unto His blessed name.

 

R.E. Slater

March 13, 2013

 

*For more Articles on this Subject please refer to the sidebars as listed below

 

 

 

 

Peter Enns was interviewed on the Drew Marshall Show

shortly after I wrote my piece referenced at the end

on the violence found in the OT...

 

 

I Have Conquered Canada: My Interview on The Drew Marshall Show

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/03/i-have-conquered-canada-my-interview-on-the-drew-marshall-show/

 

by Peter Enns

March 15, 2013

Comments

 

The Drew Marshall Show is “Canada’s most listened to spiritual talk show,” though probably not any more: last week they interviewed me.

 

All kidding aside, this was a fun 15 minutes and I hope to be invited back so I can pontificate further on Evangelicalism’s failure to offer a convincing explanatory paradigm, the problem of divine violence in the OT, and perhaps have a chance to dislodge the shoe from my mouth.

 

Drew Marshall show, 3-9-13

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Some Notes

 

mostly mine own by premeditated arrangement

:)

 

R.E. Slater

March 16, 2013

 

According to Iron Age tribalism, found between 1200 to 500 BC, it was believed that "God's" preferred means of conflict resolution was to slaughter people and wipe them out (sic, Noah and the Flood, Israel's enemies, even Israel herself through her Exiles). This was thought to bring about purity amongst people, and maintain fideism to God.

 

Consequently, the church has kept to old Israel's ancient ways and mindset by burning martyrs at the stake; banning witchcraft by the same; locking away and/or torturing those who differed with the church's "official" attitudes; subjugating people groups in power battles of "might-and-right."

 

Many centuries later, when Jesus came along in the NT, He changes things up and said, "Love your enemies. Pray for them that do evil against you. Don't kill each other. Don't wipe each other out so you can get their property and land. Don't stone those who differ from you, whom you thought has created transgression."

 

In effect, I say unto you "Stay in the tension you live in, and try to get along with each other justly, rightly, fairly, without resorting to murder, killing, and war. This is what God says... And by the way, 'I am God.' So, this is what I'm telling you to do. Not like what your ancient forefathers once thought I had told them to do. Nor by how they explained how I rolled with the universe. But to learn to love one another. To get along with one another. For if you love one another then have you seen God."

 

"Back then, in the OT, they couldn't explain me because they couldn't see any other way other than how they saw it being done around them. But my ways are higher than man's ways so much farther than the East is from the West, and the heavens are higher than the seas. Finally, I had to come to humanity to explain how God rolls through myself. Hopefully to make things absolutely clear how God operates, and what He thinks about people - those that doubt; those that live self-righteously; those that would make a religion out of a living faith of trust and commitment."

 

 

 

Greg Boyd's Take on "Violence in the OT"

 

Getting Honest about the Dark Side of the Bible
http://reknew.org/2013/03/getting-honest-about-the-dark-side-of-the-bible/

by Greg Boyd
March 7, 2013

While most of the Bible exhibits a “God-breathed” quality, reflecting a magnificently beautiful God that is consistent with God’s definitive revelation on the cross, we must honestly acknowledge that some depictions of God in Scripture are simply horrific. They are included in what is sometimes called “the dark side of the Bible.” To give just a small sampling, we find God portrayed as doing things such as:

 

• causing parents to cannibalize their own children (Lev. 26:29; Jer. 19:9; Lam. 2:20; Ezek. 5:10)
 
• causing pregnant women to having their wombs ripped open and their children dashed on the ground (Hos. 13: 16)
 
• refusing to allow any compassion to keep him from smashing parents and children together (Jer. 13:16)
 
• commanding the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman, child, infant and even animals – “everything that breathes” – though they are not to harm trees, for “trees are not your enemy” (though babies are?) (e.g. Deut. 7:1-2; 20:16-20)
 
• telling Israelite men that, while everyone else in a region is to be mercilessly slaughtered, they may spare women they find attractive and marry them. However, if they later “find no delight in her,” they may turn them out on the street (Deut. 21:10-14)
 
• commanding parents and others to stone to death children who are stubborn or who strike a parent (Ex. 21:15, 17; Lev. 20:9; Deut. 21:18-21)

 

In my forthcoming book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, I have an entire chapter of material such this. It is not easy reading! Now, out of obedience to Christ, who consistently spoke of the Hebrew Bible as divinely inspired, and in solidarity with the historic orthodox Church, I feel obliged to confess all Scripture, including horrific material such as this, is “God-breathed” (theopneustos, 2 Tim. 3:16). At the same time, I believe it is also vitally important that we remain ruthlessly honest with ourselves and others and God about this material. How else can we describe material such as this as anything other than horrific, macabre, grotesque, and even revolting? If a portrait of God commanding people to slaughter babies and causing mothers to eat them doesn’t qualify as revolting, what would? If you found material like this in any other ancient or modern text, would you hesitate for a moment from labeling it as macabre, revolting, or some such phrase? If we are honest, we cannot deny it. So how does horrific material like what I just reviewed suddenly become less revolting by virtue of being found in our sacred text rather than someone else’s?

 

Not only this, but if we refrain from calling this material what it is and instead gloss over it in order to sound more pious, we are in effect condoning its violence. And as I mentioned in a previous blog, there is now a wealth of research demonstrating that violence in literature that is considered sacred is a powerful force in motivating religious violence. It can only be negated by being renounced.

 

I know it sounds impious to describe any of God’s inspired Word to be horrific or revolting, but I am actually in good company in speaking this way. No less an authority than John Calvin was willing to describe some of the portraits of God in the OT as “utterly barbaric,” “crude” and “savage” as he affirmed that God had to condescend to give such brute laws because his people’s hearts were so “hard,” “incorrigible” and “depraved.”[1] So too, Calvin admits that God’s command to destroy “everything that breathes” in Jericho “would have been savagery” (immanis) and would have been “a deed of atrocious and barbaric ferocity” (quad atrociter et barbara saevitia) were it not God who commanded it.[2] Elsewhere Calvin describes some of God’s commands and actions as “harsh,” “savage” and “barbaric’” (durum, immane, barbarum) as well as “savage and fierce” (saevi et atroces), as involving “execrable savagery” (detestabilis immanitas), and as constituting a “barbaric atrocity” (barbara atrocitas).[3] I appreciate Calvin’s candor!

 

Of course, once we acknowledge that some portraits of God in Scripture are horrifically violent, it forces the question of how we can nevertheless continue to affirm this material as “God-breathed.” Calvin tried to resolve the dilemma by arguing that God accommodates himself to human sin and by insisting that God is not subject to our sense of morality.[4] This view is highly problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it undermines the analogical basis of referring to God’s “goodness” and “love” etc. Unless what we mean by “good” as applied to God is analogous to what “good” means in other contexts, then the “goodness” we ascribe to God is devoid of content. The idea that God utterly transcends our moral categories also unwittingly ascribes to God a Nietzschian ethic in which morality is reduced to nothing more than the preferences of whoever is in power. If God says that it was “good” in a particular instance to cause pregnant woman to have their unborn children ripped out of their wombs, then in this view, it was in fact “good,” because he has the power to send you to hell if you disagree.

 

These problems with Calvin’s view aside, the more fundamental problem is that the dilemma we’re facing isn’t first and foremost about the clash between horrific portraits of God in Scripture and our moral intuitions. It’s rather about the clash between these portraits and God’s own self-revelation in the crucified Christ. On the cross he reveals his eternal nature to be self-sacrificial, enemy-loving, non-violent love. God is love (1 Jn.4:8), and this love is defined by the cross (1 Jn. 3:16). This love doesn’t seem compatible with God committing himself to mercilessly smashing families together, and that is the core problem. In fact, not only would we expect all material in Scripture to be consistent with what we learn about God in Christ, but on Jesus’ own authority as well as the uniform witness of Church history, all material in Scripture bears witness to Christ (Jn 5:39-45; Lk 24:25-278, 32, 44). It’s not self-evident how a portrait of God committing himself to mercilessly smash families together and causing parents to eat their children bears witness to Christ. That is the real problem, and nothing Calvin says has any bearing on this issue.

 

I will say more about this in blogs to come, and much more to say in my forthcoming book. For right now I will just leave you with this. I only began to discern a way to understand how horrific depictions of God in Scripture bear witness to the crucified Christ when I finally stopped trying to deny these depictions were horrific. So long as we try to tidy up, sanitize, minimize and piously gloss over material that we honestly know in our hearts is macabre and revolting, the best case scenario is that we will succeed at finding a slightly less revolting deity in these portraits than we initially found. This is what standard evangelical apologetic approaches accomplish, on a good day. It is in essence the approach I adopted five years ago when I began this present project. But I came to see that even the very best of these approaches are of no value when it comes to disclosing how this material bears witness to the self-sacrificial, enemy-loving, non-violent love of God on Calvary. And to make matters worse, all the while we are tidying up our macabre depictions of God, we are bearing some responsibility for the way this material continues to serve as a precedent for people to appeal to in order to justify their hatred and violence, as it has served throughout history.

 

To be clear, in obedience to Jesus, I adamantly affirm that all this material is inspired by God. In my book I argue against the many scholars today who try to resolve the problem this material poses by dismissing the text, whether on historical or theological grounds. But to say it is God-breathed says nothing about how it is God-breathed. Nor does it say anything about how this material is to be interpreted such that it bears witness to God’s unfathomable love revealed on Calvary.

 

As with all matters of faith, the place to start is by getting honest with ourselves, each other, and God by admitting the obvious. It was when I got to this point that the clouds began to lift and I began to discern that something else is going on in these horrific portraits that I hadn’t noticed before. So can we be honest? Can we agree that causing babies to be viciously ripped out of wombs, causing babies to be dashed on the ground, and causing mothers to eat them is horrific, macabre, and revolting, regardless of where the divine portrait is found, and regardless of the deity this behavior is ascribed to? As we admit this, let us hold fast to the conviction that this material, in all of its ghoulish detail, is “God-breathed.” And now begin to prayerful ask – how might this depth of depravity point us to the cross?

 

Lord bless our honest ponderings!

 

 

---

[1] For discussions of this material, see D. F. Wright, “Accommodation and Barbarity in John Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries,” in Understanding Poets and Prophets: Essays in Honour of George Wishart Anderson, A. G. Auld, ed. (JSOT, Supp. 152: 413-27; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 413-27; item., “Calvin’s Pentateuchal Criticism: Equity, Hardness of Hart, and Divine Accommodation in the Mosaic Harmony commentary,” Calvin Theological Journal, 21 (1986), 33-50. There is, of course, a “paradox” running throughout all Calvin’s work – shared by all other Calvinists – that the hardness that God must condescend to work through and that God ultimately punishes people for was all predestined. But that issue is for another time.

[2] Wright, “Accommodation,” 417.

[3] Ibid., 417-18.

[4] He says, for example, “let us remember that the court of heaven is not one whit subject to our laws.” Ibid., 418.


 

Peter Rollins: The New "Anti-Theists" of the 21st Century

 

 

Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens: The New Theists?

http://peterrollins.net/?p=4370

 

posted by Peter Rollins

March 10, 2013

Today the word “sacred” is employed to name a certain realm of life that can be contrasted with the secular. The idea here is that some object, area of life or geographical location can act as a “thin place,” i.e. a site where the transcendent shines through.

 

This approach to the sacred is ubiquitous in the contemporary situation and is borne witness to in the phenomenon of religious music, books and art, in the New Age interest in ley lines, the notion of Christian universities and in the embrace of artefacts believed to contain supernatural power. Here the religious or sacred is taken to be a sphere that can be identified in some way, visited, held or touched.

 

In contrast to this the work of theologian Paul Tillich reveals a different approach. For rather than seeing the sacred as some distinct thing (even the greatest thing), one can see it as the name we give to the affirmation of a depth of dimension that can be found in all things.

 

In this way one does not attempt to place the sacred alongside reason, ethics or aesthetics, but rather sees the sacred affirmed in our heartfelt commitment to these. From this perspective, insofar as we affirm the world as wonderful, we express the sacred. It is as we show loving care and concern for existence, and as we participate fully in life, we proclaim the sacred even if we are not aware of it. This is somewhat similar to the way that everything we see proclaims the existence of light even though we likely have no direct cognisance of the light (for we are focused on what the light illuminates).

 

As such, Tillich argued that a serious rejection of God (rather than a mere lack of interest in the subject) is a deeply sacred act. For when someone rejects the notion of God because of the wars that have been fought over that name, as well as the abuse, the fundamentalism and the ecological destruction that is bound to so much religion, they are demonstrating a profound concern for both people and the planet. As such their attack is directly testifying to a depth dimension in existence. The stronger their attack the more care and concern they are showing. In this very assault they are thus asserting, in a direct and visceral way, a commitment to the protection and promotion of life. The result is a proclamation of the sacred that is birthed from the same mother as the message found on the lips of the various poets and prophets in the Biblical text. To take one example, consider the words of Amos who cries out, in the name of God,

 

I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assembles. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

 

It is because of this that both the theologian Tillich and the philosopher Heidegger each claimed that there is a form of atheism that is closer to the divine than the standard theism witnessed in the church. For wherever a concern of beauty [is found], [wherever] an embrace of life and a love of liberation are exhibited, the sacred is proclaimed. In this way the passionate critiques of God propounded by the New Atheists can be seen as potent defences of the sacred. Defences that, at their best, are worthy of being called divine.

 

Peter Rollins

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

My take-away from Peter's essay is that we are to listen to a-l-l elements of humanity - not just are chosen favorites. Moreover, counter to the idea of atheism is arising an element of men and women committed to religion's deconstruction... who we would not normally deem a theist or theologian, but not necessarily an a/theist or a/theologian either. Rather, they are to be viewed as ones eschewing a Christianity become religious and not spiritually antithetic to its originating Creator and Author. But become more of an institutionalized faith emphasizing all the worst of humanity's passionate elements. As such, perhaps we should deem such men and women as anti-theists, or anti-theologians, sent amongst our midst to point out the illogic of our Christian faith become un-Godlike. Un-image like. Un-natural.

 

Who stand up to tell us that God created by evolution (Darwin). That God does not condone violence, abuse, biogtry, idolatry, injustice (Richard Dawkins). That God says to love, not hate; to serve others, not ourselves (Rob Bell). That Jesus is not religion but a Person; not an institution but a relationship; not what we do but who we are and can become  (Peter Rollins). To each person there is an element of truth that they vibrate passionately for. And rather than seeing such passionates as anti-God or anti-Christianity, we should accept their passion, allow it to sink in, and then become redirected in our hearts and minds to the more subtle things of God we have missed in our religious zeal and fervor.

 

For does not sin even corrupt our faith making of it a religion, a platform, a belief, a life model? To these things God has brought to us contradictory ideas and epistemologies that need sorting out, deconstructing, and reconstructing. Which can give to us, God's people, His light and life into a human faith sped upwards and outwards, inwards and downwards. That illumines and breaks us down, helping to see our Creator God-Redeemer more truly for who He is, and wants, and does. This is the wonderful promise of God to never leave us nor forsake us. But to give to His children at all times the sustaining manna they need from heaven, and His reviving waters from the arid deserts surrounding us. Restoring us. Keeping us. Holding us to Himself, eternally, for all our days.

 

R.E. Slater

March 12, 2013

 

 

 

Rob Bell: What People Talk About When They Talk About God



Toco Toucan, Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, Brazil



Rob Bell's newest book debuted yesterday at my church, Mars Hill, to a lot of hype and adulation, without any further word from Rob as to its contents. Rather than wearing his basic Johnny Cash black, Rob wore a silky California grey suit buttoned stylishly in the middle, complete with a white shirt and no tie, underneath a greasy mop of wavy auburn hair and shod in whitish-tan docksiders. He looked healthy, rested, restored, refreshed, and especially excited about his upcoming book tour for this next month. It was good to see him again, and especially good to hear of his future plans for a Christian talk show, more books, more hip-pastoral conferences, and more road tours (perhaps he'll use these to take his TV show on the road someday as Christianity's newest Jay Leno late night figurehead).

My prayer for Rob is that he is successful. Not in this world's sense of monies and riches - for Lord knows he's already got that compared to our simple Grand Rapids lifestyles here in Michigan. But that he is spiritually successful both in his own life, with his kids and family, and in his urban ministries wherever they may be. That God would protect Rob from the sin and harms of this world while allowing him to share Jesus with a world questioning all-things Christian. Certainly Rob's brand of Christianity will provoke, prod, rebuke, and reprove Christians about their faith and good works. As well it should. But I suspect it will also bring a magnitude of spiritual blessings and help to many who have been discouraged in their faith outlook about God, the church, by Christian friends and fellow-workers, to a degree that will be enlightening, absorbing, convicting, steadying. If anything, these past many years at Mars has been a testimony to the many fractured, broken lives that have found wholeness in Jesus against unhelpful religious upbringing, education, knowledge, worship, and self-imposed cynicisms. To me, that has always been the mark of a spiritually healthy church. Is Jesus preached? And, are people finding love and forgiveness?

So I got to wondering, in a Robbish-sort of way, about Toucans, and what they would talk about if they were to talk about the Jungle. Not being a Toucanologist I can only speculate if when a Toucan talks whether they talk about the latest sources of food supply, its quantity or quality, variety, and location. If whether they talk about water supply, its hazards or protection, its coolness or dank infested waters. If predators are in the area, perhaps from the air, or on the ground. And if they are knowledgeable about what can make them sick. If a certain source of tree(s) or bushes are available with fruits and nuts. Whether their plumage is colorful enough to attract the latest female of their interest. Whether their beaks are bright enough, long enough, large enough, strong enough. And whether in all this Toucan talk they enjoy the beauty of resident sunsets, the smells of the cool morning Jungle air, its liveliness and stream of avian consciousness.

Similarly, when we talk about God just what is it that we wish to know about God when we talk about God? I suspect I would like to know if God is real like the jungle-experience of the toucan. If He is present in my life or simply unconcerned with anything I do, how I feel, my troubles and woes. If He loves and cares for His creation, and especially me and my family, my friends, and all mankind like He says He does. Or, like History channel's recent movie about "The Bible," simply goes about killing women and children, beasts and burden with lasse-faire disdain, hardness, austerity, and holy zeal in religious wont and fervor. Using Ninja-like angels to mop up the blooded fields of urban battle and warfare against any who do not fear and worship Him. If whether my life actually matters to God in my dark loneliness and brokenness, questions and hazards. Or if God understands my heartaches, lies and deceit, and through them all still yearns to make Himself everywhere present in my toils and failures. And whether this God of the Bible, and of the Church, is the actual God of the universe and cosmos, or some misconceived, misplaced product of religious zeal, ego, pride, inward legalism, self-righteousness, and proud academic learning, that I, and others, have had to endure along with legions of other mind-numbed, cauterized penitents who only wish to gather around His forbidden, holy temple ushering freedom's joys amid man's grand, spiritual restrictions. And if, within this bonded servitude of ours to Christ, my heart is pained, wronged, angry, or despairing. Or whether this burden can be made right in Jesus - that He'll forgive me for my many faults and sins - and help me find His humility, modesty, divine favour and fellowship within this precious life that we live?

Hence, I suspect that Rob will be asking very similar question in only the way that he can ask them, because, as you can tell, I've yet to buy the book or read it (with, or without, Rob's requisite authorial signature, which I'm told makes reading his book all the more valuable to his ardent followers). I suspect I'll disagree with some things he says (as I have in the past); that I may wish he turn a phrase or a word one direction or another than he does; that I may make less harsh, accusational comments towards fellow brethren already beaten up within their church traditions; perhaps allow readers a little more grace against God's gathering convictions in their benighted lives. Being younger than myself (as Rob always has been to me), and growing in God's grace and glory, I've watched Rob learn about life as a young man, and now as an aging father of young children; as a maturing husband; and, as a tortured public figure that has sometimes been self-imposed if not relished. At times Rob says things that I can relate to, and at other times, he is learning things that I have already been through (without as high a public cost or its summary notorious consequences). As such, not everything may be as relevant, or as meaningful to me, as it is to him as he grows and learns, matures and learns humility before the hand of man and of God (sic, he reminds me at times of a modern-day version of the biblical "Job"). Nonetheless, I pray for his spiritual health and well-being against the religious onslaught that is surely to come from the world, Satan, sin's temptations, and even the church itself.

That overall, my prayer is that this world's success is disdained by Rob. And that its Hollywood allures and glories not go the way of so many other would-be public figures in Christian life. I really don't want to see his spiritual train-wreck should it happen. I rather would like to see Jesus preached against Christianity's many religious detours and non-sequitors. For in Christianity we worship God come in the flesh in the person of Jesus. However, we do not worship the church, its pulpiteers, its servants, nor its many letters and doctrines. But God himself. Unfortunately, it is inescapable to not make a religion out of Christianity like so many other sects and faiths have done with their beliefs. I suspect its part of the sinful fabric of mankind to want to put on an altar anything-and-everything that has to do with God. The wisdom here is that within Christianity is a religion that has at its faith center a person - Jesus. Not a tradition nor an institution. And this is where Rob comes in to help us with the task of keeping faith, and not a religion. By questioning us about ourselves, our wants, our needs, prides, ego, accomplishments, sin and disbelief. A good preacher is hard to listen to when the Spirit of God is upon him. And Rob is a good preacher. Quirky. Not quite my cup of tea at all times. But a steady preacher as a servant of Christ. Who convicts many with God's word, even to the point of exasperation at times. So then, let us give him his due, neither praising nor worshipping him, but together with him, seeking the God of the Bible who wishes to come to the hearts of man. Serving in the name of Jesus, the Son of God come in the flesh to mankind, who was risen as the divine Son of Man unto the right hand of God on high. And empowered by that self-same Spirit of God as Jesus was abundantly empowered. For we have now become fellow servants together in this postmodern age of faith and witness, service and solitude. And by these things may the God of grace and mercy, forgiveness and hope, redemption and salvation, be glorified and embraced until the end of mankind's illustrious days of sin and woe, bright choices and foul deeds. Amen.

R.E. Slater

March 11, 2013
edited August 22, 2013

 

 



May this light be you... however humble, however small



 

 

 

Join Rob Bell via USTREAM for the launch of What We Talk About When We Talk About God -- LIVE from powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, NY on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 4:00 pm PST / 7:00pm EST. To watch the live event from your computer or other device click here: http://www.robbelllive.com/.

 

 

 

The Imcompatibility of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act with the U.S. Constitution

March 8, 2013

 

Why Bill Clinton Signed the Defense of Marriage Act

 

Posted by Richard Socarides

 



Bill Clinton shakes hands with members of gay-rights groups after a speech in 1992. Douglas C. Pizac/AP.



It is extremely rare for former Presidents to admit mistakes made in office, and rarer still for one to disavow a major piece of legislation. That’s partly why Bill Clinton’s op-ed in the Washington Post calling the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act—a law that he signed—“incompatible with our Constitution,” and asking the Supreme Court to overturn it, is so important.

 

The essay, a Clinton associate told me, was Clinton’s own idea; he wrote it out himself in longhand on a legal pad. As his former White House adviser on gay-rights, I was not surprised by the message. But Clinton’s willingness, just twenty days before two gay-rights cases go to the Supreme Court, to publicly call DOMA discriminatory is a big step, even if his comments stopped short of the full apology some have asked for.

 

But the op-ed leaves a political mystery intact. Clinton, though clearly unhappy with the law today, does not really explain why he signed it, other than to say “it was a very different time.” Perhaps that is explanation enough. Still, how was it that Bill Clinton, the first President to champion gay rights, put his name on one of the most discriminatory anti-gay statutes in American history?

 

The simple answer is that he got boxed in by his political opponents, and that his campaign positions on gay rights ran ahead of public opinion. But there was another important factor: a failure to imagine how quickly gay rights would evolve, and how difficult it would be to undo the damage that DOMA did.

 

When Bill Clinton first ran for President over twenty years ago, he was the first candidate for national office to seek and receive support from an organized gay political community, which was itself new to Presidential politics. In 1992, after twelve years of Republican control of the White House, the federal government had neglected funding the battle against the quickly burgeoning AIDS epidemic. Clinton was sympathetic; because of his interest in civil rights generally, and long friendships with gay and AIDS activists, he was then one of the national politicians most conversant on gay-equality issues.

 

During that campaign, in May of 1992, as governor of Arkansas, Clinton spoke at the first large-scale Presidential campaign event for gay and lesbian supporters, in West Hollywood, California. He gave an emotional speech largely focussed on the AIDS crisis, in which he spoke of the moral costs to the country of ignoring those suffering from the disease. Gay men with AIDS had been dying at a stunningly rapid rate. Their families, friends, and caretakers had, in many cases, shunned them, and so had national leaders. In contrast, Clinton said, “I want to give you my thanks for that struggle…,” and concluded, “I have a vision and you’re a part of it. I believe we’re all a part of the same community and we’d better start behaving as if we are.”

 

Clinton won the enthusiastic support of gays and lesbians in the 1992 election. For the first time, contributions from gay Americans factored significantly in campaign fundraising. Gays and lesbians finally had a President who included them rhetorically in the national policy debate.

 

But soon after Clinton took office, in 1993, it was apparent that his tenure was off to a rocky beginning. The early days of the Administration were marred by opposition within the military and the Democratic Party itself to Clinton’s idea of gays and lesbians serving openly in the uniformed armed forces. The White House was unprepared to shepherd a major social-policy change through Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sam Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia, led opposition to Clinton’s gay-rights policy, working behind the scenes with General Colin Powell, who was a Bush-holdover as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The so-called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell compromise was born: gays and lesbians would be allowed to serve so long as they kept their sexual orientation secret. Gay-rights advocates were outraged that Clinton had agreed to a bad compromise, but at this point, in the spring of 1993, it was clear that the President was going to lose this battle. (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, in fact, turned out to be a policy and personnel disaster.)

 

After what was regarded as a fiasco on gays in the military, the Administration entered a phase of deep reluctance to tackle substantive gay-rights issues on the national stage. Although Clinton made a number of first-ever, high-profile appointments of gay leaders to his team (I was one of the minor ones), any kind of gay-rights policy agenda seemed stalled as a result of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell hangover.

 

As Republicans prepared for the 1996 Presidential election, they came up with what they thought was an extremely clever strategy. A gay-rights lawsuit in Hawaii was gaining press coverage as an initial series of preliminary court rulings suggested that gay marriage might be legally conceivable there. Clinton was on the record opposing marriage equality. But Republicans in Congress believed that he would still veto legislation banning federal recognition of otherwise valid same-sex marriages, giving them a campaign issue: the defense of marriage.

 

What Republicans had not counted on, though, was just how adverse the Administration had become, especially in an election year, to getting ahead of public opinion on gay rights after having had to backtrack on open military service.

 

On May 23, 1996, as DOMA began its rapid journey through Congress, the New York Times reported:

George Stephanopoulos, a senior Presidential adviser who has overseen the issue, said: “It’s wrong for people to use this issue to demonize gays and lesbians and it’s pretty clear that that was the intent in trying to create a buzz on this issue. But the fact remains that if the legislation is in accord with the President’s stated position, he would have no choice but to sign it.

That was a bit of a bombshell, but it laid an intentional marker. The columnist Frank Rich, then writing for the Times, wrote that, “The bill also forces Mr. Clinton, who says he opposes both same-sex marriage and anti-gay discrimination, into a corner…. He’s presumably praying it will never reach his desk.”

 

Inside the White House, there was a genuine belief that if the President vetoed the Defense of Marriage Act, his reëlection could be in jeopardy. There was a heated debate about whether this was a realistic assessment, but it became clear that the President’s chief political advisers were not willing to take any chances. Some in the White House pointed out that DOMA, once enacted, would have no immediate practical effect on anyone—there were no state-sanctioned same-sex marriages then for the federal government to ignore. I remember a Presidential adviser saying that he was not about to risk a second term on a veto, however noble, that wouldn’t change a single thing nor make a single person’s life better.

 

What we didn’t fully comprehend was that, sooner than anyone imagined, there would be thousands of families who would be harmed by DOMA—denied federal benefits, recognition, and security, or kept apart by immigration laws.

 

During the campaign season, Clinton would sometimes complain publicly about how the Republicans were using the marriage issue against him. He said, derisively, that it was “hardly a problem that is sweeping the country” and his press secretary called it “gay baiting, pure and simple.” And that September, when the Defense of Marriage Act was passed, President Clinton signed it.

 

There are no pictures of this occasion—no pens that were saved. My advice to the people who arranged for these things was to get it done and out of the way as quickly as possible; he signed it late at night one evening after returning from a day-long campaign trip.

 

The Defense of Marriage Act became law, and President Clinton was reëlected, again with overwhelming support from gay Americans. He was enthusiastically endorsed by the nation’s leading gay political group, the Human Rights Campaign, which had urged him to veto the legislation. They had called DOMA“a Bob Dole for President publicity stunt.” (There was a small dustup during the later stages of the campaign when a Clinton-related committee ran a radio ad in the South, heralding the enactment of the legislation. The ad was quickly pulled.)

 

Was it realistic to think that a Presidential veto of DOMA would have put Clinton’s reëlection in jeopardy? At the time I thought not. But in 1996 less than thirty per cent of Americans supported gay marriage, and even eight years after that, in 2004, President George W. Bush used gay marriage extremely effectively as a wedge issue against John Kerry, who at the time only supported civil unions. In fact, many believe that it was the Bush campaign’s very strategic placement of anti-gay-marriage state constitutional ballot initiatives throughout moderate and conservative leaning states (like Ohio) which brought out conservative Bush voters and carried the day for him in that election. Could similar tactics have been used with the same effectiveness in 1996? Obviously, we will never know.

 

Had there been a President Dole, none of the advances President Clinton accomplished in his second term for gay equality would have been possible. Funding for H.I.V. and AIDS would have no doubt been cut. A DOMA veto would likely have been overridden anyway, and so even if President Clinton had been reëlected, we would still have had the Defense of Marriage Act.

 

After his reëlection, President Clinton became considerably bolder on gay-rights issues. He became the first President in history to endorse gay-rights legislation by announcing his support for a new federal hate-crimes statute that included sexual orientation. He supported legislation banning employment discrimination against gays. He continued, and even stepped up, appointments of openly gay Americans to important Administration positions, including the recess appointment of James Hormel as the first openly gay Ambassador. He signed an executive order banning sexual-orientation discrimination in the federal civilian workforce, leading the way for much of corporate America to follow.

 

A decade later, in 2009, when Clinton finally endorsed same-sex marriage, he commented, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, “So I said, you know, I realized that I was over sixty years old, I grew up at a different time, and I was hung up about the word. I had all these gay friends, I had all these gay couple friends, and I was hung up about it. And I decided I was wrong…. I had an untenable position.”

 

What are the lessons of the Defense of Marriage Act? Perhaps the clearest one is that if you compromise on principle, on the assumption that the world will never catch up with your ideals, you will likely come to regret it. Marriage equality was not some completely far-off vision; it was something that could be achieved. Clinton never believed that the federal government had the right to discriminate. The harder question is this: When is winning the most important thing? Would a veto, in retrospect, have been worth the risk?

 

Richard Socarides is an attorney, political strategist, writer, and longtime gay-rights advocate. He served as White House Special Assistant and Senior Adviser during the Clinton Administration.

 

 

 

Who Is the God of the OT? Is the Jesus of the NT that same God?

 

  

I continue to be interested in the topic of whether we have a dipolar God of the bible who is harsh and judgmental in the OT, or loving and forgiving in the NT. Some have answered that this is a problem between cultures and societies - that humanity is progressing steadily forwards in its apprehension and understanding of divine redemption and forgiveness (sic, David Webb's "Redemptive Movement" hermeneutic). While others suggest that it is the biblical authors themselves who allowed their nationalized perspectives to overrule their descriptions of God (re the creation of the composition of the bible during the Jewish second temple period when collating Israel's ancient, oral legacies and stories). Some, like Richard Dawkins, simply give up trying to understand the God of the OT altogether and throw both God, and the bible, out as imperfect representations of the true God of the universe, recreated by zealous, religious bodies of believers. And then there are charges of a less-than-sublime bible that cannot be authoritative nor infallible if it isn't also inerrant and literal. Which subject we have declared null-and-void in previous discussions pertaining to all things salvific and redemptive, as versus literature that is genre-based (poetry, songs, psalms, hymns, etc) and comparatively written to the cultural beliefs of ancient Near-Eastern societies of the day.

 

 

 

 

So that it seems to me that the issue of discovering who the God of the bible is, is one that has been percolating within the ranks-and-files of the church for awhile now. On the one side, we see wild acclamation for the unbelievable and unsupportable in films like History channel's recent depiction of "The Bible" supporting the stoutest of evangelical doctrines delivered in the best of the American imagination. And in years past, we have beheld Discovery channel's many interpretive depictions of the bible and its characters swinging from conservative beliefs to liberal charges of incredibility and inaccuracy. So that battle lines are drawn up between the faithful and the heathen, and no one seems to be able to civilly discuss their charges without delivering one-line zingers from one side to the other in smug propositionalism and fracturous impunity.

However, the better course of action is to attempt to provide civil answers to these topics rather than denigrations about fellow rivals by honestly allowing legitimacy of the problems pertinent in each area while working towards resolution without the necessity of having to form complete answers. That is, to live in the tension and mystery of the bible where-and-when it must reside, while at other times declaring what we think we do know couched within whatever working paradigm we are coming from. And in this case, when looking at the seeming differences between the God of the OT and the God of the NT, asking ourselves just what area does this discussion fall within.... Is it Theology Proper - the study of God Himself? Is it in the field of biblical interpretation and hermeneutics? Is it within our frame of modernism's scientific enlightenment and forced syllogisms? Or is it within postmodernism's frame of tension and narrative? Does it delve from questions of Sovereignty, or the Divine Character of love and holiness - touching then upon the several theosophical areas of Classical Theism, Relational Theism, Process Thought, and Open Theology? Is it one of human subjectivism based upon our closed epistemologies and personal existential needs of the moment?

Accordingly, this broad base of anomalous biblical study is made even broader and more complex so that we find ourselves sucked into the vortex of a black hole of theologic discussion causing us to flail around its turbulent center unable grasp onto anything solid enough without losing hold to drown even deeper within its violent philosopohic whirlpools and eddies. Ultimately to give up and say its too complex, or to determine within ourselves our own subjective declarations and pejorative judgments regardless of fact or reason, creates in essence our own revisionistic fiction and mitigating group beliefs.

However, theologians, historians, sociologists, psychologists, academicians, ethicists, and so on, each are asking, like Eric Siebert himself, who this God of the OT is when we see Him so brightly portrayed again in the NT by its many biblical authors and descriptive stories. And to that extent we need answers, not calls to be more "zealous and faithful" to the Bible. Part of the answer lies in not separating out the Actual God of the bible from the Textual God of the bible, which can be fraught with redactive subjectivity and cultural impingement. But in sublimely discerning that Jesus identified the YHWH (God) of the OT as His God, who was present in Himself fully, who was Himself YHWH, become Incarnate amongst His creation, in the NT.

Thus, we know the God of the OT through Jesus who necessarily redefines Yahweh by His incarnate life and ministry. And apparently this needed to be done because by the time Jesus appears in Jewish history the templed priests and hierarchy were speaking of a God of merciless law judgment rather than of one who ruled by divine love and example. So that when Jesus corrects these representatives of the Old Covenant He is crucified for His heretical teachings and rejected for His example. Leaving with us the gnawing feeling that those who study only the OT cannot know God's true mind and heart without the Christ of the NT. Such is the legalism found within religious man's prideful heart. A legalism no less found in the church today as it was 2000 years ago.

Henceforth, for guide and guidance we must start with a Jesus-centered bible and move both backwards in time, and forwards in mission, with Jesus at the center of all things present, historical, and teleological. For it is in Jesus that we have a fuller understanding of God whose image is all the poorer and murkier without Jesus. In Jesus Yahweh becomes One. Not less. Not two. Not idealized nor idolized. But one in revelation by divine incarnation. It is the grand mystery that Christianity must spin around less we become flung from orbit around the very God we proclaim and vouchsafe.
 

And it is here then that we have a baseline to begin with. A baseline that Siebert mentions many articles earlier as a possible answer to the charges of a dipolar (ethical) God. One which he says that the Jesus of the NT is the exact representation of the YHWH of the OT - an OT God who doesn't simply judge, but loves, and loves intensely. Just as the Jesus of the NT not only loves, but judges intensely (ultimately, Himself, upon the Cross, for our sins). Charges that may transcend mere human editorial in the OT and NT, towards discovering a consistency between the God portrayed in both Testaments, singularly and alone.

 

That said, we might then begin  with Scott McKnight's review of David Lamb's book, "God Behaving Badly," and see if we cannot discover another line of thought alongside the several that Eric Siebert has helpfully proposed. Thus transitioning this discussion from one of biblical interpretation to that of "theology proper" (e.g., "the study of God"). To begin here first before moving forward to all other areas. And more than that, to the study of Jesus, the incarnate Yahweh, come to men.

R.E. Slater
March 9, 2013

 

God has a bad reputation. Many think of God as wrathful and angry, smiting people right and left for no apparent reason. The Old Testament in particular seems at times to portray God as capricious and malevolent, wiping out armies and nations, punishing enemies with extreme prejudice.But wait. The story is more complicated than that. Alongside troubling passages of God's punishment and judgment are pictures of God's love, forgiveness, goodness and slowness to anger. How do we make sense of the seeming contradiction? Can God be trusted or not?

 

David Lamb unpacks the complexity of the Old Testament to explore the character of God. He provides historical and cultural background to shed light on problematic passages and to bring underlying themes to the fore. Without minimizing the sometimes harsh realities of the biblical record, Lamb assembles an overall portrait that gives coherence to our understanding of God in both the Old and New Testaments.

 

- Amazon book description, "God Behaving Badly"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Articles by Scot McKnight

May-June, 2011

 

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 1

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 2

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 3

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 4

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 5

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 6

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 7

 

God Behaving Badly, Part 8

 

 

 

Suggested further study

 

How God Became King, by NT Wright

Book Review: How God Became King, by Scot McKnight

 

 

 

Interpreting the Violence of the OT, by R.E. Slater