Is God violent? This is one of the most important questions raised in my recent book A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith. Although there are a few denominations or movements in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other religions that oppose violence as a tenet of faith, there is no question that the majority report is that God permits and even mandates violence. It's little surprise, then, that Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others have been violent across history -- and have enlisted God as a soldier (or commander-in-chief) in their cause. Faithful believers continue to struggle with how to reconcile violent and nonviolent passages in their sacred texts.
Yesterday's news story about a so-called Christian militia highlights the need for Christians to grapple with the question of God's violence or nonviolence. Federal agents arrested nine suspects with connections to Hutaree, an explicitly Christian anti-government group led by David Brian Stone. According to their website, the group trains its members to use weapons in preparation for a battle against the Antichrist. According to federal prosecutors, the arrests came in response to evidence that the group was planning a reconnaissance mission in a few days. The group planned to kill an officer, and then when other officers gathered for the funeral, they would kill more officers using home-made bombs. The group would then retreat for a violent standoff with government agents, which they hoped would trigger more violent uprisings against the government.
It's strange and sad -- but perhaps highly opportune for engendering needed conversation -- that this story would come up during Holy Week. This is the week Christians recall that Jesus was willing to be killed, but not to kill ... to be tortured, but not to torture. This is the week, according to the gospel narratives, that Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, saying, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). This is the week Jesus contrasted his kingdom in this world with the kingdoms of this world by their opposite responses to the violence question (John 18:36 ff). (The prepositions in and not of are important.) Many of us believe that Jesus embodies the image of a nonviolent God, an image intended to transcend and correct violent images. As a recent NPR story reported, such a proposal meets with strong resistance. Many Christians portray two sides to Jesus. Yes, they acknowledge, the Jesus of the gospels was nonviolent. But there's another side to Jesus -- the violent avenger with "a commitment to make someone bleed" -- which reinforces rather than overturns a violent image of God. To prove their point, groups like the Hutaree militia group point to an anticipated second-coming Jesus, especially as portrayed in Revelation 19:11 ff. There, they suggest, Jesus is described with a sword, so even though he wasn't violent in his first coming, he will be violent when he returns.
They fail to note one small detail in the text: that the sword is in Jesus' mouth (!), not his hand. Might this not be unveiling for us a deeper truth, that the Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday upon a humble donkey with tears in his eyes and with a word of peace on his lips was in fact more powerful than Caesar, Herod, Pilate, and their violent colleagues -- who would ride proudly into town on chariots and white stallions, with one fist raised triumphantly in the air, and with the other holding a sword of violence? Might Revelation 19 be restating and reaffirming rather than contradicting and supplanting the Jesus of the gospels?
Those of us who believe that the nonviolent Jesus of the gospels presents a nonviolent image of God note that the term "Revelation" or "Apocalypse" means unveiling. We side with increasing numbers of biblical scholars who suggest that Revelation, as an example of Jewish apocalyptic literature, was not intended as a prognostication about the end of the world but rather as an unveiling of the real meaning behind events in the time of its original readers. The apocalyptic genre functioned more like science fiction often does in our day: creating stories about the future as commentary on the present. Here's how I say it in A New Kind of Christianity (pp. 124-126):
To repeat, Revelation is not portraying Jesus returning to earth in the future, having repented of his naive gospel ways and having converted to Caesar's "realistic" Greco-Roman methods instead. He hasn't gotten discouraged about Caesar seeming to get the upper hand after his resurrection and on that basis concluded that it's best to live by the sword after all (Matt. 26:52). Jesus hasn't abandoned the way of peace (Luke 19:42) and concluded that the way of Pilate is better, mandating that the disciples should fight after all (John 18:36). He hasn't had second thoughts about all that talk about forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-22) and concluded that on the 78th offense you should pull out your sword and hack off your offender's head rather than turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39).He hasn't given up on that "love your enemies" stuff (Matthew 5:44) and judged it naive and foolish after all (1 Cor. 1:25), concluding instead that God's strength is made manifest not in weakness but in crushing domination (2 Cor. 12:9). He hasn't had a change of heart, concluding that the weapons he needs are physical after all (2 Cor. 10:3-4), which would mean that the way to glory isn't actually by dying on a cross (Phil. 2:8-9) but rather by nailing others on it.
He hasn't sold the humble donkey (Luke 19:30-35) on eBay and purchased chariots, warhorses, tanks, land mines, and B-1s instead (Zech. 9:9-10) ... He hasn't decided that the message of the cross is a little too foolish after all (1 Cor. 1:18) or that Christ killing his foes is way more exciting than that lame, absurd, "hippie" gospel of "Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).
He hasn't decided that ... nobody can be expected to worship a king they can beat up (Matt. 27:27) ... Jesus matters precisely because he provides us a living alternative to the confining [violent] narrative in which our world and our religions live, move, and have their being too much of the time.
Revelation celebrates not the love of power, but the power of love. It denies, with all due audacity, that God's anointed liberator is the Divine Terminator, threatening revenge for all who refuse to honor him, growling, "I'll be back!" It asserts, instead, that God's anointed liberator is the one we beat up, who promises mercy to those who strike him, whispering, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).
One would think that after 2,000 years of theological reflection -- during which uncounted gallons of ink have been spilled to debate thousands of religious controversies -- the question of the violence of God would have attracted more attention. Perhaps now is finally the time.
Brian McLaren, a former pastor, is the author of a dozen books, most recently A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (HarperOne). He blogs at brianmclaren.net.
The Violence of God: Thinking the Unthinkable. Does religion cause ...
In the name of God: are violence and religion natural bedfellows ...
When God Sanctions Violence, Believers Act More Aggressively
But the mentality of the fundamentalist [Christian, Jew or Muslim] comes from their primitive concept of god as a god of wrath who kills and destroys his enemies. This tragic belief gives fundamentalists license for them also to kill and destroy those they perceive as their enemies.
Fundamentalists pay homage to a fickle god, one who has only conditional love for humanity.
The power of the "fear of god" is used to control and manipulate believers.
The "Gospel" or "Good News" Jesus brought to the world is that God is perfect Love,
unconditional Love. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is an example of Divine love.
All punishment is self created by one's own actions. We reap what we sow.
There is no wrath in the Divine.
This is a no-brainer. We would not ask the question "Was Hitler violent"? when he murdered millions of people (fewer than god in the OT, however). It's like using the argument "I saw Hitler pet a kitten nicely" - as if that undoes all the damage he caused. If you believe the bible, and that jesus is god's son, you have to acknowledge OT violence ordered by god.
Everything on Earth has its own time. There is a time for birth and death, planting and reaping, for killing and healing, destroying and building, for crying and laughing, weeping and dancing, for throwing stones and gathering stones, embracing and parting.
There is a time for finding and losing, keeping and giving, for tearing and sewing, listening and speaking.
There is a time for love and hate, for war and peace. 8vs. These passages seem to sum life up and the fact that mans life is short and filled with troubles he is but a vapor a blade of grass that grows withers and dies off.
Time is very relevant to us but to GOD time has no relevance and HE can spin the earth slow,normal or fast forward and its still a 24hr day. Has anyone noticed how the day seems finished before it begins. Its like you blink and the day is gone.
3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
20 "Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
14And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
The whole thing was a set-up. God kept hardening the Pharoah's heart. A little detail Cecil B. DeMille left out.
One thing that is pretty certain, the zealots that follow their "gods" are certainly violent, & not just the fringe either. Violence is a part of the human condition and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
More relevant is the question of how we can break the cycle of violence. Getting rid of religion would be a bang-up terrific start but probably not the ultimate solution. Evolution is probably the key ingredient, if we can somehow overcome the fear instilled in us from the time we hunted each other for food I guess its possible to se a world centered around peace & not violence.
Id love to see it, but Im not holding my breath.
I've thought for many years now that it is interesting
that Edgar Cayce considered the Book of Revelations
as a treatise, sort of, on the human body, its operation,
the blood vessels, the interconnectedness of it all, and
yet no one has followed through on examining that
particular point of view as having any validity.
h-m-m-m.
A "violent" God. I think not.
"Thus the hatred of one generation of adults whose
parents were killed in a war helps generate the next one."
"If you agree with the killing of birds, you wind up with
the killing of men. You will all be taught the sacredness
of all life, and in the most practical way."
The above---
Good article, good points.
From our Post-Christian Founding Father, the one on Mount Rushmore.
The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus
are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words.
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.
Thomas Jefferson
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_adams.html
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http://books.google.com/books?q=by+the+supreme+being+as+his+father+in+the+womb+of+a+virgin+will+be+classed+with+the+fable+of+the+generation+of+Minerva+in+the+brain+of+Jupiter.+&btnG=Search+Books
http://holyheretics.blogspot.com/
Violence is the opposite of love.
God is love, not hate.
On the other hand, if there are super-natural entities that exist outside of our imaginations, ones that we do not observe or interact with, then we cannot, without verifiable data, understand or describe them.
In other words, God is either whatever we choose to say she is, or we are totally incapable of saying what she is. In either case the point is moot, because in one case we admit we are deluding ourselves, and in the other we admit that we are lacking in data.
at times a loving God; it depends on context, which is
created in the eyes of the beholder."
hint, hint
YOU (generic) make your own reality according to your
beliefs ABOUT reality.
God was always there for His people, even under the old convenant..read the Psalms and read about Isreal's deliverance, time and again. He worked with them as a nation.
Today there is no such thing as a theocracy, like back in the OT. There is no such thing as having to follow the law. Well-meaning people try to twist America's history and make us a Christian nation, or they try to stick the 10 Commandments on walls and such. It's all a waste of energy. I wish my fellow Christians would chill...and enjoy the life, rather than try and foist it on people who don't want it anyway.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
I think he was showing us what was really Law: people are more important than rules.
www.dgsma.wordpress.com
EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators.
http://books.google.com/books?q=an+honest+god+is+the+noblest&btnG=Search+Books
THE HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS IS WRITTEN IN THE LIVES OF INFIDELS.
http://books.google.com/books?q="The+history+of+intellectual+progress+is+written+in+the+lives+of+infidels."&btnG=Search+Books
Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll
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BIBLE BELTS
http://biblebelts.blogspot.com/
BEWILDERING BIBLE LEGENDS
http://bewilderingbiblelegends.blogspot.com/
In the East God Won - in the West, Science - The high cost of organized ignorance.
http://whengodwins.blogspot.com/