Thanks for your response and actually your very excellent question.

What we are discussing in this thread is assuming that God exists, but is asking the question: “What is that God really like?” Or what type of Character is he?

In the case of this topic (violence & war), many people have suggested that God is okay with or even sometimes that he prescribes and empowers war. Obviously, the level of God’s involvement with war & violence suggests something about his character or what type of God he is.

In this series of blogs, I am arguing that God takes no pleasure in war and that no matter how justified people imagine themselves to be in doing violence to others that God does not endorse their efforts to find such justification. Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any other religion that claims to have God on its side in their wars, my contention is that God is not truly on the side of any one (or group) that engages in violence.

My belief is that God works to solve the dilemma of the human condition through self-sacrificial love rather than through self-promoting violence. This sacrificial love is the defining characteristic of what God is like and we see that clearly in Jesus.

Thanks for the comment. I’m not sure I completely understand everything you are asking, but to clarify at least this point, I am saying that I believe the life of Jesus clearly teaches that we should not only NOT be provokers in violent acts but that we shouldn’t respond to violence with violence either.

I have no idea what US foreign policy is or should be in this regard, but I do not view US policy and the message of Jesus to be the same thing anyway.

In this way, it may be okay for the USA to be an initiator of violence or a responder to violence with violence, by its own laws and rules. But, it may still be against the Kingdom message of Jesus for his followers to participate in that action.

Do I understand you to say that the Bible teaches, as well as US national policy, that people should not be the provokers in violent acts? Are you then saying that violence to protect the expansion of Christianity is acceptable? Please tell me you are being sarcastic.

Lance Johnson

I’m looking forward to reading the following posts and the comments of the people who follow your blog. I have a feeling your comments will drum up quite a discussion of divergent views.

I think I agree with you, at least mostly, and maybe this is a good point of clarification that you bring up.

I am NOT saying that the “rest of the bible” has nothing to say about the character of God or that there isn’t value in getting to “know” God through other parts of Scripture, such as the Old Testament. I am also not suggesting that we throw out these more problematic texts that are in the Old Testament (as some people have endorsed). I am not trying to communicate that we get a “feeling” for Jesus in the New Testament and then try to pretend that these atrocities didn’t occur. As you say, “God…has done what he has done.” We do not have the luxury to just wipe it away.

However, what I am saying is that we must START with Jesus as God’s full expression of who He is and then read the rest with this point of reference. Jesus is not the “additive” to our understanding of God. Jesus is the FULL EXPRESSION. The rest of Scripture is the additive. I can learn about God in all of Scripture, but ultimately God has chosen to be seen perfectly in Jesus.

If there are seeming contradictions between what we read in the Old Testament and the non-violent Jesus we see in the New Testament, we are called to attribute the fullest revelation of God as being found in Jesus. We realize that the whole book is about Christ. And as we hold onto and wrestle with these difficult OT texts, we remain open to how they fit into the full revelation of God–Jesus. Perhaps there are things at play that at first glance we don’t realize or intentions that we do not fully understand. Perhaps God involves himself in violence because it is the way of humankind and he is willing to begin his relationship with them on their terms, by getting his hands dirty, even if it is not his preference. But, alas, we are getting into another post…

At any rate, the task at hand for us today is to make sense of the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus. Not the other way around. You are right in saying that we cannot just “do away with” these troubling accounts. But reading the entire Bible through the primacy of Christ is what Christians do. It is how Jesus himself read Scripture; with himself as its focal point.

Interestingly though, I believe that these texts are difficult and uncomfortable to explain for both those committed to non-violence and those who–to whatever extent–embrace violence as necessary. Most Christians that I know that accept violence as acceptable for self-defense, for protection of another, or in military conflict, still are hesitant to make sense of a God that seems to go way outside those parameters to endorse mass genocide and infanticide in the Old Testament. In this regard, I feel that “starting with Jesus” actually helps provide a better way of understanding these difficult texts. Not tossing them out, but helping find their place.

In reference to my own personal biases and creating a “window” of understanding that is subjective to them, I am of course guilty. And so are you. All of us bring our baggage, history, and understanding to bear on Scripture. We cannot help it. I do, however, do my best to lay these things down and be as objective as I can.

But, interestingly enough, in this case I find myself at odds with what my natural “window” is to see. Personally, I would much prefer to smack people in the mouth and send people to war. This idea of non-violence is a difficult struggle for me. It is not what I would consider my “native lens”. Every day I wrestle with how to be non-violent not only in my actions, but in my words and thoughts. In this way, it is a bit ironic that I am it’s spokesman.

But, despite my natural “window” I cannot personally escape the picture of Jesus that comes to offer a kingdom “not of this world.” I cannot deny that he lived a life that was marked by bringing “power-under” people rather than exerting the world’s violent manner of “power-over” people. And in his death, I am clueless to contradict that this “power-under” is indeed more powerful than “power-over” could ever be; even when initially it seems that it is not.

Anyway, that turned into something long enough for a whole other post!

Thanks for your comments, Jason. I appreciate your thoughts and the chance to clarify a bit about what I meant. I hope you guys are doing well! I miss Southern Oregon… well, I miss the sunshine most, I think!

Have a great day!

I disagree with the idea of working backwards to find the character of God, because you presume that God’s full character was presented in the New Testament alone. I think it’s obvious *because* of the dichotomy between the testaments on topics such as violence that the entirety of scripture must be used to determine the character of God.

The directive “to know Him through Jesus most perfectly” means to incorporate the character of Jesus into our understanding of God in an additive, not substitutive, sense. Jesus did not change the nature of God; He emphasized an already existing (and revealed) nature.

I think it is a dangerous fallacy to look at parts of scripture and say, “That doesn’t fit in to my understanding of God, so it must be wrong or unimportant.” God is who He is and has done what He has done, regardless of how it contradicts our feelings of what He should be like.

Looking at God through the window of the New Testament is a valuable tool, but remember that it’s just a window, not the entire landscape. When you define the dimensions of the window (as through your own biases and imperfect understanding), you can make the landscape look like whatever you want.

I wish you’d followed up on the protective violence bit, it’s a question I once tackled myself: http://alamanach.com/2008/07/16/the-dispensation-of-suffering/ Perhaps you will discuss it in a later post? I hope so.