Just read chapters 6-10 of Joshua and I have been horrified by the slaughter and religious justification to horde the wealth of the nations destroyed by Israel. In fact it is very off putting to think that this is even in a book that some regard as sacred as God himself. There is no justification in my conscience to slaughter men, woman and children because you think God wants their property and land. We see this today in countries like Zimbabwe and Iraq where people are abused because of the ideals, religious bigotry and the political aspirations of their leaders. It is even worse, the hypocrisy of those who use God as an excuse to justify genocide. Lets be very careful when we use this term “biblical” as God's word to justify our next genocide!
3 comments:
and so my belief that "not everything in the Bible is Christian" - or put differently, that we as Christ-followers need to read the Bible through the teaching/eyes of Jesus. And I am convinced that Jesus would have condemned this slaughter of fellow human beings
Hi...certainly not, "not everything in the Bible is Christian" but what is Christian and where do we get it from ?.. mainly scripture? (Tradition,Reason etc. secondary) So at some point we need to engage scripture on a level that says 'this is a way forward.' Why would I read Trevor Hudson's meditation on "Resurrection Life" based on the story of the post-resurrection experiences of Mary without sensing that 'it' (text) has something to say to me and not 'me' having something to say to the text. I am not a literalist in the slightest and at times I wonder whether it is all a conjured farce but if we don't collectively ponder around "Christian' parts of scripture" where do we find ourselves?
I enjoyed Brian Maclaren's comment on this - that the time of Joshua was extremely violent and God's people needed to be people of the time. So there was a legitimacy to the violence (in a sense it was socially acceptable). That legitimacy is obviously not here today and the Bible shouldn't be taken to endorse this sort of violence. I shared this with a Bible Study group who said vehemently that our times are just the same as then. Every nation at war. I don't think they meant we should justify violence - rather the opposite. But . . . the way of Jesus is seriously radical.
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