My article in Sojourners on wrestling with violence in the Bible

My feature article just came out in the latest edition (Jan, 2012) of Sojourners Magazine. It is called:

"The Way of Peace and Grace: How Paul wrestled with violent passages in the Hebrew Bible"

You can read it online at the SoJo website for free (you just need to register).

As the title suggests, it deals with how we can faithfully wrestle with really disturbing passages in the Bible that seem to advocate and even command committing violence in God's name. As I've mentioned before, most commentaries tend to either justify or downplay these passages. What I propose is a very different approach: if we learn to read the Bible the way that Jesus and Paul did, we can deal with them like they did.

In the Sojourners article I deal in particular with how Paul wrestles with violent passages from the Old Testament, disarming them and putting them under Christ. You'll need to read the article for the details, but Paul's approach is pretty awesome. If Paul read the Old Testament like this, then I think its fair to say we would be on pretty solid ground if we read it that way too.

I'm really excited about this article, and am thrilled to finally be able to share it. As far as I know, it represents a unique contribution to biblical scholarship. I've found scholars making similar conclusions about Paul, buried in the middle of some obscure footnote in a dense technical commentary, but I have not seen anyone connect all the dots like this. In fact, books like the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament miss (or intentionally omit?) this pattern in Paul's reading entirely, even though Paul does this constantly. In doing so, they completely miss how Paul reads his Bible and arrives at a gospel of grace that is so different from how he previously read his Bible before his conversion to Christ.

What's more important than scholarship though is how we, as followers of Christ, read the Bible as Scripture. Adopting Paul's way of wrestling with these violent passages opens up a way for all of us to read the Bible that does not force us to check our conscience at the door. Jesus and Paul didn't, and neither should we!

So if you've ever wondered how Jesus or Paul could have read the Old Testament and arrived at a loving, radically grace-focused understanding of God, then check out the article.

The Real War on Christmas

Well, it's that time of year when Fox drums up outrage about the alleged "war on Christmas." This time around they are declaring victory because as they report,

"Walgreens is the latest store to return to explicit references to Christmas, switching its position a day after some Christian groups threatened to boycott over its generic holiday wording."

What I'd like to remind these "Christian groups" is that Christmas isn't actually supposed to be about shopping at all. We Christians don't need to fight to have Christmas associated with shopping, we need to fight for it not to be. You're fighting the wrong war guys.

So let's take a moment to remember what Christmas is really about: Christmas celebrates the story of God coming among us in the most humble of circumstances. Christ was born in a manger to a homeless teenage girl named Mary. These humble beginnings are in keeping with the ministry of Jesus which was focused on the poor, the sick, and the outcast. Jesus teaches us that the way we treat "the least of these" is how we treat him. It's a story about God coming among us, meeting us in the middle of our need.

With that backdrop in mind, let's also remember who the real Santa Claus was. Yes, Virginia, there really was a Santa Claus, but he didn't live on the North Pole, he lived in Asia Minor. Saint Nicholas was known for his love for children, and his generosity to the those in need, often given in secret. For example, one story tells of a poor father who was unable to provide a dowry for his daughters. At the time that meant that they could not marry, and so were destined to be sold into slavery. As legend has it, Nicholas secretly placed bags of gold in the girl's shoes and stockings, hung by the fire to dry. So those Christmas stockings you hang by the chimney are symbols of liberating the poor from the bondage of slavery.

The moral of all this is that the original Christmas story and the story of Saint Nick are both focused on caring for the least and on compassion. So what if we remembered that this Christmas, and spent a little less money shopping for all those gifts we don't really need. Then instead of standing in line at the mall or stuck in traffic, we could spent more time with people we love. And what if we took all that money we saved, and gave some of it away to people who are really in need? To the poor, the hungry, the hurting, the lonely, the sick? That's what the folks at Advent Conspiracy are asking.

So maybe the way we really should be celebrating Christmas is by caring for the least, rather than shopping til we drop. Maybe we should be teaching our kids lessons about compassion and giving, instead of about getting more and more stuff. And... just maybe... Christmas should be about showing "peace on earth and good will towards all mankind," rather than on getting mad at people who say "happy holidays" to us.

Does Defending the Bible Mean Advocating Violence?

There are many unsettling passages in the Bible. Consider these two verses that you will probably never hear read from the pulpit on a Sunday morning:

"This is what the Lord Almighty says ... attack the Amalekites ... Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants" (1 Samuel 15:2-3).

"O daughter Babylon ... Blessed is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks!" (Psalm 137:8-9).

Note that these passages are not simply about God's judgment. They are commands for people to kill other people in God's name -- to kill infants in fact. How can we, as Christians, reconcile passages like these with the God revealed in Jesus who commands us to love our enemies? The two pictures could not be further apart.

Many biblical scholars attempt to defend Scripture by downplaying or justifying the violence in some way. The 1984 Bible Knowledge Commentary, for example, argues that the genocide recorded in the battle of Jericho was justified so that Israel would not be "infected by the degenerate religion of the Canaanites," declaring that "pure faith and worship" could only be maintained "by the complete elimination of the Canaanites themselves." This argument bears a chilling similarity to those used by the Third Reich. Yet, this seems to be completely lost on the above commentator.

Commenting on the Psalm above, the more recent 2008 Two Horizons commentary suggests that this prayer would be less more palatable to us if it we thought of it in more abstract terms: "The modern reader ... would be much less troubled by the simple statement that it would be good when the evil Babylonian empire came to its divinely predicted end." In other words, atrocities and violence are less disturbing when its victims are thought of in impersonal and abstract terms. Wow.

It is frankly hard to imagine anything more morally abhorrent than smashing a baby's heads against rocks, or committing genocide in God's name. Such actions are simply and always categorically unjustifiable. It would be hard to conceive of something more self-evident than this. In fact, the only reason one would even think to question this is because of an a priori belief that biblical commands override conscience. When the Bible helps us challenge and deepen our moral vision and character this is surely a good thing, but when it leads us to abandon our most basic notions of morality, something has gone horribly wrong. The fact that so many biblical commentaries continue to attempt to justify the biblical genocide accounts reveals a profoundly disturbing disconnect between biblical scholarship and ethics.

So what causes otherwise decent and loving people like this to defend genocide in God's name? I think the problem lies in the basic approach they take to reading the Bible, which seeks to show how it all fits together in harmony. It's not just conservative scholars either; I was taught this same approach, and I'd bet you were too. In a way, it makes sense: If the Bible is the inspired word of God, then shouldn't it have one consistent message? So we seek to read in a way that weaves all these disparate parts together and end up with a rather schizophrenic picture of God. As we can see, when applied to passages like the ones above it leads otherwise decent people to become advocates of appalling moral atrocity. And what is perhaps even more shocking, they think that in doing so they are defending God's honor by defending the Bible.

I'd like to propose another way of reading the Bible that, rather than trying to justify everything the Bible says, instead seeks to identify a trajectory of moral development, and then follow in that same trajectory. I'll illustrate this principle with two examples:

The first is the Apostle Paul's core message that the Gospel is available to both Jews and Gentiles. Now, if we read the Bible with a proof-texting approach, we would need to conclude that Paul is out of line with Jesus here whose ministry was focused on his fellow Jews. As Jesus put it when a Canaanite woman appealed to him to heal her son, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). We do not see Jesus establishing a new religion, but rather him reforming his own. Paul in contrast breaks with Jewish law in order to open up the Gospel to all people, going beyond the boundaries of religion. So there seems to be a conflict here that many scholars have noted.

However, if we look at the teachings of Jesus we can also see a trajectory he sets away from nationalistic and racial boundaries. He expands the definition of "family" to include "everyone who does the will of God" as his true "brothers" (Luke 8:21). Here he is redrawing familiar boundaries of solidarity to go beyond family, tribe or nation. All the more, Jesus was known for siding with the sinner, the outcast, the marginalized, the least. Perhaps the most striking example is his well known command to "love your enemy" which completely shatters all categories of "us vs. them" thinking.

Looking at this trajectory Jesus sets up, we can see that Paul, in expanding the Gospel beyond the confines of his own religion is in fact following Jesus in that same trajectory. He is taking it farther than Jesus did, but in doing so he is following in the trajectory Jesus set. Based purely on building proof-text evidence of what Jesus taught, there is insufficient grounds for Paul to declare that followers of Jesus no longer need to be circumcised or to follow the food laws of Moses. What Paul is doing, however, is not following the letter, but the spirit of what Jesus taught. This allows him to run with it, and to take it to places beyond where Jesus did, following in that same trajectory.

Next, consider the example of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. King looked to the Bible as his inspiration. However, it would be hard to make a clear case for the abolition of slavery from a proof-texting approach to the New Testament. One can find verses that seem to support it, and others against it. Yet, Christians today take it as self-evident that slavery is wrong and even sinful. Again, what we see King doing (and all of us doing with him) is an example of following in the trajectory set by the New Testament that declares that "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Looking at how Paul championed opening up the Gospel to all peoples, it's a safe bet that he would have cheered King in his seeking equality for all people regardless of race. Again, King was going beyond where Paul went, but he was following in the same trajectory.

Returning to the violent passages mentioned at the outset of this article, it is rather clear that there has been a clear shift from the time of their writing to Jesus' command to love our enemies. There is a clear and obvious discontinuity here between these two understandings of God. What we see here is a major change in trajectory within the Bible itself that leads us away from a violent tribal conception of God, and towards a God seen in Jesus that demonstrates enemy love.

If we read the Bible as a proof-text, then we will find there are passages that command violence in God's name, and those that forbid it. However, if we instead step back, taking a larger narrative view that recognizes the Bible's developing trajectories, then we do not need to try and justify or embrace these violent passages any more than we need to cling to passages that advocate slavery (or food laws for that matter). Rather, we look to identify the upwards trajectory away from violence, oppression and dehumanization that the biblical record chronicles.

Jesus said, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these" (John 14:12). If that's true, then perhaps faithfulness to Scripture does not mean holding on to it with clenched fists and white knuckles no matter how wrong it seems. Maybe it instead means learning to make it soar by following in the trajectory it sets. Maybe it means we do not need to get stuck in the old, but can faithfully follow its trajectory into the new.

The More I Follow Jesus, the Less I Like His Teaching

Over the years I have been increasingly troubled by the doctrine of Hell. As my love for God and my neighbor increased, the horror at the thought of many of those I love suffering eternal punishment had increased with it. In other words, this was not a crisis of faith, it was the result of my faith. The more I experienced God's grace in my life and grew to share Jesus' heart for the lost, the more I was troubled by Hell.

Now what makes this even more complicated is the fact that most of the statements about Hell found in the Bible are said by Jesus. The one who is leading me to question Hell, is the very one who teaches it. Similarly, Jesus is known for preaching love of enemies and nonviolence, yet many of his teachings use very violent imagery. Again, how can we understand these apparent contradictions? How can we think of Jesus as compassionate and loving when he says such harsh things?

There's a movement among emerging folks like me to focus on the teachings of Jesus over the doctrines of Paul as a way to get away from legalism and back to grace. I like the idea of getting to grace, but I've always had a problem with this for two reasons: First of all, Paul is all about grace, and any legalistic dogmatic interpretation of him is a misinterpretation. Second, Jesus (as we have seen) is anything but easy to interpret. In fact, if one takes a literalistic approach to the teachings of Jesus they are sure to come up with the most un-Christlike teachings imaginable. So in light of that, I'd like to offer a more sophisticated approach to interpreting the teachings of Jesus that take all of this into account.

Let's begin with the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt 18:21-35). Jesus tells the story of a king who forgives his servant for a huge debt, but then when he hears that this same servant has refused forgive very small debt, the king becomes enraged. Jesus tells us that the king "handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed." and the concludes “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Now the debt the servant owed was basically unpayable. Scholars say that it was more money that an entire kingdom would have had, and so it would be like us saying "a zillion dollars" meaning he would never be able to pay it, and would thus be tortured forever. So are we to conclude from this that if we don't forgive others that God will torture us in hell forever? It is crucial here to look at the context: Jesus tells this parable in response to a question from Peter were he asked Jesus "how many times must I forgive, seven times?" Jesus answers "no, seventy -seven times" (v. 21-22). So if we read this like an accountant we would need to conclude that we should forgive 77 times, but God does not do this. God (according the parable here read in a pedantic fashion) does not even forgive seven times like Peter suggests, or two times for that matter. Just one chance and then that's it. God here appears at first infinitely merciful, forgiving a huge debt, and then suddenly flips and wants to torture us forever.

Does God suffer from some form of borderline personality disorder where he is at first loving and forgiving, and then suddenly becomes brutal and merciless? Are we more merciful than God? No, this is a parable, and a parable is essentially a loose analogy. As everyone knows, if any analogy is pressed too far it becomes absurd (as we can clearly see here). The broad point Jesus is making here is that it would be really horrible if we were forgiven a great debt, but then turned around and were merciless to others. We should treat others with the same grace that we need, and which God has richly shown us.

This is an interpretation that fits with the overall point of this pericope. To read it literalistically would mean that the point Jesus was making to Peter was completely undermined by Jesus' own parable -- be merciful as your Heavenly Father is... who is not merciful at all! Clearly, that cannot be what Jesus was trying to convey. To understand Jesus we need to listen to context of his larger point which is always about showing mercy to others, about radical unconditional grace.

Now, so far I've just been following rules of basic biblical interpretation -- considering genre (a parable), reading a passage in context (explaining to Peter why we should forgive more than seven times), and focusing on authorial intent (teaching that we should show great mercy as God has shown us great mercy). Let's take that a step further now: In the above parable Jesus compares God to a king who -- in the way dictators do -- flies into a rage and orders torture for an ungrateful servant. Yet if we keep reading in Matthew, we see that a couple chapters later, Jesus questions the entire idea of comparing God to a king. "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:25-28). In other words, Jesus models the way of God, not as one who "lords it over others" but as the servant Lord, and calls for us to embody that way too. Following Jesus means rejecting the way of domination, the way of kings.

So to the extent that you have embraced that idea, you will have a problem with the above parable of the king. You'll read "God is like an angry king" and think "No, Jesus teaches us that God is not at all like a king, God is like a suffering servant," and you would be absolutely right. In each of these parables, Jesus is turning our thinking upside down. He begins by turning the idea of payback on its head. When he says "not seven times, but seventy-seven" he is alluding to a passage from the Old Testament where Lamech says "If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times" (Gen 4:24), and reversing it. Jesus replaces escalation of violence with the escalation of mercy. In the second parable he is similarly dismantling our understanding of greatness, and redefining how we see God. God is the servant. Power is about lifting people up, not pushing them down.

In doing this, Jesus not only dismantles our traditional concepts of what justice and power are about, at the same time, he also dismantles his own parables. Once we have embraced Jesus' understanding of servant lordship, we cannot accept the crude comparison of God to a volatile dictator. So when reading these parables as disciples of Jesus, we need to keep in mind that each one is beginning with the assumptions of the crowds. He begins there, with their familiar ideas of kings and slaves and torture and then introduces a radical new idea into the mix which flips one of those ideas on its head. The more we embrace these ideas of Jesus' "upside-down kingdom," the more we will have trouble with the worldly assumptions that these very parables are situated in. That's not because we are disagreeing with Jesus here, but because we have fully embraced his new way of thinking. So the more we follow Jesus, the more we'll question the worldly values the parables are set in. That is, we can embrace the idea of forgiving a great debt (which is the point Jesus is making), but reject the idea that God is a torturing dictator (which reflect the worldview assumptions of his first century audience -- assumptions Jesus is repeatedly challenging).

That means that when we read statements about Hell and "torture," we need to ask whether these are the main point Jesus was trying to teach, or whether it is in fact part of the worldview that the people had already accepted -- like they had slavery and dictatorship -- which Jesus is dismantling bit by bit.

Consider the parable of the sheep and goats just a few chapters later in Matthew (Mt 25:31-46). Here we hear Jesus make some very harsh statements about Hell, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (v. 41). But again, what is the central point that Jesus is illustrating here? It is not a description of how the last judgement will look. That is the assumed setting, just as the first parable we looked at assumed a king and servants. Here Jesus is drawing on the familiar apocalyptic imagery of his Jewish audience, and once again he is turning the tables: The righteous will not be determined because they are part of the right race or religion (as his audience thought), but rather by how they love the least. Jesus redefines what makes a person "in" or "out" -- you are in if you care for those who are out. In doing this, he tears down the very barrier separating insiders from outsiders. Once again, he begins with a common assumption (the image of the final judgement) and turns it on its head: you show your allegiance to God by how you love those who are condemned.

If you study all the passages that allude to hell in the Gospels, you will see this pattern over and over: Jesus is not in fact teaching "this is the way hell is" any more than he is teaching "God is like a emotional dictator." Rather, these are the people's assumptions that he begins with in order to introduce a radical new idea focused on grace. That's how we need to read Jesus, and that's a point that even many biblical scholars miss. Because in order to really get it, you need to follow. You need to adopt the way of Jesus, and let his heart become your own. The more I do that, the less I think God looks like a king or a judge, and the more I think God looks like Jesus who redefines all those terms, and indeed redefines how we conceive of God.