Committed Critic

Next week I’ll attempt a defense of divine violence in Revelation, arguing for a certain integrity/consistency in God’s use of violence throughout the Old and New Testaments. But first, to start a conversation, here are some of the questions I find most interesting on the topic.

Feel free to pick one and run with it:

Does Scripture ever indicate that killing is evil in and of itself, or is its claim only that we are not allowed to kill (i.e., at our own initiative)?

Can/does God live by different standards of morality than humans?

If so, is something right just because God does it, or does God have to live according to standards?

Can we be more moral than God (or, at least, the God described in Scripture)? If so, what standard do we base that on?

Is human pain evil, or morally neutral?

Can violent death ever be a just punishment?

Was the flood just?

If the flood tells us something theologically true about God (whether you believe it was an historical event or not), then how does it impact our understanding of God, humans, and sin?

What are the implications if we refuse to worship the “kind of God” who would do that?

Is the flood (people killed directly by God) a different kind of violence from the conquest of Canaan (people killed by people at God’s command)?

If we believe the actual God practices this kind of violence but we disapprove, can we nevertheless (morally) follow him –– whether for a heavenly reward, or out of obligation for creating us, or simply because we believe that God, as God, is worthy of service –– even if we think he is, in some sense, wicked in his use of violence?

Can the Bible be understood apart from violence (the flood, the plagues on Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, the punishment and exile of Israel, Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus as a conquering warrior in Revelation)?

Can we argue that the violence described in the Old Testament was not divinely sanctioned and yet read the Old Testament as the Word of God?

How should Christians understand the acts of genocide around the world in light of the teachings of, e.g., Joshua? What about acts that are considered divinely-commanded violence, such as Islamic extremists, or lynchings by the kkk?

Is the cross a condemnation of human violence, an act of divine violence, or both (or neither)?

OK, here’s a question you’re welcome to either have fun with, or, if you prefer, take seriously. Earlier this year my housemate asked: If God had only revealed five books of the Bible, which ones would we want them to be? (A variant on this would be to name which five books you would take to a desert island for the rest of your life.) It’s quite an interesting exercise, and I recommend trying it sometime, but here I want to put a twist on it and pose another question instead:

Given the opportunity, which five books of the Bible would you cut, and why? The idea here is that God would not have revealed (or however you interpret inspiration) these five books at all, and we would have no notion of their content, unless it is material also found elsewhere. You have to pick exactly five (no more, no less), and you can’t just drop parts of a book either (e.g., 1 Timothy 2, or that psalm about bashing babies’ heads).

I could see this going two different directions. The first is if you really like all the books of Scripture, and would have to concede which ones to give up. The other, of course, is if you have a canonical bone to pick and really want something gone. Or you could do some of each.

And just to keep things interesting for those taking the first option, the books that are really short, largely redundant, or no one ever reads (let’s say 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Obadiah, Nahum, 2-3 John, and Jude) are already out, so you have to pick something else.

As your resident stalwart defender of Scripture, I will of course do my best to challenge everyone’s picks.