Text & Violence

Friends
Spiritual sons of Luther and Calvin may not know some of the nastier bits of their history such as the fact that both Luther and Calvin had their spiritual sons and heirs apparent murdered by drowning.  Yes, murdered for believing that adult baptism was the biblical model and so giving them a total baptism by emersion until dead.  This was a part of a larger persecution of the “rebaptizers” (the anabaptists who renounced infant baptism in favour of adult baptism)  that included burnings at the stake, hangings, having their tongues cut out and other atrocities.  If you are not familiar with this story, you may wish to get “The Reformers and Their Step Children” by Leonard Verduin & Franklin H. Little and remember that the histories which we read are written by the victors rather than the vanquished especially if we are the sons of the victors.

Those inheritors of the protestant reformation that are not aware of how their heroes in the faith persecuted the anabaptists will, however, be aware of how the Roman Catholic Church murdered many that it considered heretics over much of its history but especially during the Inquisition.  Others in the Eastern Orthodox stream will know of times when Russian Orthodox murdered each other over whether to cross themselves with two fingers or three. 

Religious violence is not new whether Christian or Muslim.  However, this is not another polemic on moral equivalency saying that followers of Jesus or Mohamed are equally capable of behaving badly.  They obviously are.  This is a look at how faith in an infallible text leads to violence which is something quite beyond Jesus or Mohamed.  However Mohamed clearly  practised and  commanded killing in his name while Jesus did neither.

Have you ever considered that the two world wars of the last century were fought between the two nations that had, to that point, sent out the most foreign missionaries?  Yes, Germany and Great Briton were the top mission sending nations in the world.  Why were the Christians of those nations so given over to civil religion and the worship of power and violence?  What would have happened if they had actually followed Jesus in loving, serving, forgiving?

Have you ever wondered why the most powerless, imprisoned,  executed and poorest followers of Jesus, those in Communist China,  were the seeds of the largest mass movement of the Kingdom of God in history?
Do we really believe it is not by might or power but by the Spirit? 
Do we really believe that love never fails?

Most of you will self identify as followers of Jesus who read the bible.  .  What do you believe about it?  Infallible?  Inerrant? Inspired by the Holy Spirit?  Even the passages where God commands genocide and Joshua carries it out?  What do you do with these passages where God  is portrayed as behaving very badly indeed? 

Various authors in various contexts have posited that no civilization can rise above its view of god. 
Do you take the passages depicting God as violent and genocidal as literal and inerrant? 

Or do we actually believe Jesus who says in Matthew 5:43- 44.“You have heard it was said You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” 

How could any one who is a follower of Jesus kill anyone for anything to say nothing of killing them for the “crime” of believing differently about how to do church!,

Do we really believe Jesus when He says that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father?  The one who would rather be killed, than to kill?  If that is how we are to see the Father, then how do we see the God of the Old Testament?  We can go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to try and justify God behaving badly to keep the text of the Old Testament inerrant and infallible.  That was the view of Saul of Tarsus who as the inerrant literalist of his day went out to kill and imprison all who followed Jesus.  His view made him a violent murderer of those who disagreed with him. 

Then he met Jesus.

What happened to his view of the Old Testament?  Could it be that he no longer took it literally as infallible and inerrant?  Could it be that he saw it as the story that the Jewish people told of themselves?  Yes, it is an inspired story.  Yes, it is a story that created a culture and context in which we can understand Jesus.  Yes, he tells Timothy, it is a “profitable” story.  Again, it is a story written by the victors and it is a story which gives us a wrong view of God the Father,  a view which Jesus  came to correct (John 1:18).  Could it be that when he met “The Word of God” his view of the text changed?

Yes, the scriptures call Jesus "the Word of God” and Jesus says that the scriptures “testify” of Him (John 5:39).  The scriptures also call the early disciples “the word of God.” (Acts 12:24).  Jesus calls the scriptures, the scriptures.  He does not call them “The Word of God”.  The scriptures call Jesus “The Word of God” and also designates the disciples as “The word of God.”  Why should we do any different? 

Why is it that faith in an infallible, inerrant text creates in those who believe it a right to harm those who disagree with them?  Why do we like our faith to be in texts that we can memorize, control, wield as swords? Does faith in a text create its own insecurity and fear?  Do we know on some deep level that we hold it and that it can never hold us?

There is peace  in relationship with Jesus. 
A peace that would rather die in Him than kill for Him.
The peace of being the Word of God.

Your brother
Steve