Is God a War Criminal? January 30, 2012
Posted by Matt in EfM.Tags: Bob Dylan, conquering Canaan, EFM, evil, genocide, God's favor, Israel, Joshua, war crimes
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I’ve written before on more than one occasion that I’m going through the EfM (Education for Ministry) program at our church and that it has been quite interesting and enlightening. In case you don’t recall what it is, EfM is a four year program from the Sewanee School of Theology that takes participants through the Old Testament (year 1), the New Testament (year 2), Church History (year 3), and Theology (year 4). Each week we work through in depth readings from the Bible and the materials from Sewanee, then we meet on Sunday evenings to discuss the things we learned and talk our way through various issues. Every time we meet I’m struck by the level of intelligence and insight from my fellow parishioners and it has quickly become something I greatly look forward to each week.
Last week’s reading was a troubling one for me, though, as I read through the book of Joshua, the account of Israel’s conquering of Canaan. In this book, you read time and again where, according to the writer, God tells Israel to completely wipe out cities, killing every man, woman, and child, in order to take possession of it. In essence, God is telling Israel to commit genocide.
It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around a God characterized by love, who later in the manifestation of Jesus is known as the prince of peace, that then demands these sorts of atrocities be carried out. It’s certainly not a God I would want to follow. So the question must be asked, should God be automatically absolved of these acts? Should God be held accountable? Is our sense of morality today better than God’s? We would surely not hesitate to condemn actions like these if taken today.
It’s a difficult situation, and one that I can only reconcile by looking beyond the actual text. In reading the accompanying materials, you learn that these accounts were most likely written much later, centuries after the actual conquest took place. I wonder if, when looking back, the writers felt the need to justify these actions and in doing so, bolster their claim to be the chosen people of God. Is there a better way to legitimize unconscionable acts than to proclaim it the will of God?
This of course led me to reference the great Bob Dylan song, “With God on Our Side,” and its lyrics describing the dangerous American myth of divine predilection. It’s a dangerous thing to believe that deity can be claimed and contained, yet the idea continues to perpetuate itself around the world, whether in followers of radical Islam, the fundamentalist churches of America, or untold numbers of other ways.
The farther away I’ve gotten from a belief that the Bible is inerrant and perfect, the better my understanding has become. There’s still a long way to go and a lot of questions to ask, but this look at things has done wonders to soothe my soul.
P.S. In succeeding meetings I’ve name dropped Derrida and Dylan. This is my kind of program.
God On Our Side December 2, 2008
Posted by Matt in Christian Beliefs, war.Tags: Bible, Bob Dylan, difficult passages, genocide, god, Joshua, war
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For the past several weeks at church we’ve been working our way through a sermon series on the book of Joshua, in accordance with one of the most un-Christlike programs found within our denomination, Lads to Leaders, which we silently protest by keeping our children at home on Sunday nights…but that’s another blog entry for another time.
The book of Joshua is one that I find to be incredibly problematic in the scope of scripture. It is here that we find the conquest of the promised land, in which the people of Israel are commanded by God to lay waste to the cities in the land, killing all – men, women, and even children – who reside there. This divinely ordained genocide seems to fly directly in the face of the words of Jesus, an embodiment of God, when he said things like, “Love your enemy.” I find it impossible to reconcile these things in my mind and none of the easy, pat answers that are so likely to be given will suffice.
I tend to have a different view on Biblical inspiration, one that would most likely cause many in my denomination’s heritage to label me as a heretic…and they may be right, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take. When looking at the book of Joshua, I see a wartime history of a conquering army, a military force that went to any means necessary to capture the land away from those making their homes there. The years of conquest and genocide proved to be successful, so when composing the record of their victorious invasion, it was stated that this was in accordance with the will of God.
Through the years this same reasoning has been applied over and over again, from the Crusades, to hundreds of years of Islamic conflicts, to the extermination of native Americans, to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and I can’t help but wonder what message we send by focusing on these difficult passages. The words of one of the great prophets of our time come to mind and I think it may do us all some good to think on these things:
With God on Our Side
by Bob Dylan
Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.
In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
