This was my very first Amazon review, posted on October 19, 2006. I was actually attacked in the commentary section by a particularly vile fundamentalist who called my opposition to divine genocide "typical liberal-Marxist drivel". Several other people also attacked the review. Wow! The game was on...
"Show them no mercy" is a book
published by the mainstream Christian publisher Zondervan. But are the ideas
contained in the book mainstream among evangelical Christians? If they are, I
suddenly became more sympathetic to the wackos that are waging war on
Christmas. I found the book to be both disturbing and revealing.
The book deals with the perhaps most shocking part of the Bible, the Book of
Joshua, included in both Jewish and Christian Bibles. Joshua and the Israelites
conquer the land of Canaan (Palestine) and exterminate the entire civilian
population of several towns, most notably Jericho. This genocidal butchering is
commanded by God himself, who is also portrayed as the leader of the war
effort. In plain English, God commands genocide against civilian men, women and
children. They are all evil, and every one must die, lest they pollute the
Israelites with their wicked heathen cults. Indeed, "Show them no
mercy" is actually a quote from the Bible.
By modern standards, Joshua was a war criminal. There is also an obvious
difference between the message of the Book of Joshua, and the message of Jesus,
for instance as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, Christians are
supposed to believe that the God of Joshua was the same as Jesus Christ. Does
this mean that genocide is justified from a Christian perspective?
Disturbingly, only one of the four contributors to this volume reject genocide.
The exception is C.S. Cowles. Judging by his contributions, he is some kind of
Methodist. He argues for a radical downplaying of the Old Testament in favor of
the New. Cowles articles are very spirited and emotional, indeed the only
contributions that are. He's getting it.
The three other writers are all pro-genocide. I couldn't decipher their exact
denominational affiliations, but I guess one of them is a Baptist and the two
others Calvinists. Their texts, by contrast to that of Cowles, are
dispassionate, scholarly, even boring. Given the subject, this give them a
truly bizarre appearence. All three of them argue that genocide is not allowed
today, neither for Christians or anyone else. It was allowed "only"
in the past, "only" for God's chosen nation Israel, and
"only" at God's express command.
So that makes it alright, then?
It's very difficult to interact with these kinds of ideas in a dispassionate
way. However, I will make my best. But first, a hot coffee....
OK, I'm back.
First, the practical problem. The fact that Merrill, Gard and Longman limits
genocide to the distant past (but also to the future, in the form of the
apocalypse) may convince their own followers, but the real world is more
complicated than that. And more evil. A prophet or churchman may claim that
it's the will of God that a certain people, say the Tutsi, should be
exterminated. He may claim that the apocalypse draws near, and that his people
are simply doing Gods work. The prophet may even claim to have recieved a
direct communication from God himself as to that effect. It's unclear what
Merrill, Gard or Longman would say in such a situation. "You are right,
God does occasionally command genocide, but not in the present dispensation.
You have to wait until the apocalypse for the next chance". Oh my...
Indeed, every argument used by the three writers defending Joshua is used to
justify genocide still today. The Jews are not the only people who claim to be
chosen. For all I know, the Hutu claimed to be God's chosen people. One of the
writers even argues that not even the children of the Canaanites were innocent,
since they were part of an inherently wicked culture. They too must therefore
die. The same line of reasoning was used by White settlers to kill Indian
babies, and (I imagine) by Nazis to kill Jewish children. Nits, after all, make
lice. Its pretty chilling to see every genocidal argument on record in a
Christian book!
But what about the theological arguments? According to Merrill, Gard and
Longman, God isn't simply loving, good and forgiving. He is also holy. The
holiness of God means that he cannot suffer sin, but must exterminate it
completely. That is what happened at Jericho and Ai. But what exactly is
holiness? The contributors seem to regard it as something existing in and of
itself, without any attributes. God is altogether different from everything
human and created, and this Wholly Otherness is his holiness. Logically, this
means that God stands apart from our modern human morality, according to which
genocide is always wrong and its perpetrators should be brought to justice for
crimes against humanity. Should we simply say "Amen" to such a God?
It's indeed absurd that our gut reflex when reading the Book of Joshua, one of
shock and horror, is brushed aside by arguments about the unfathomable workings
of God, his holiness, how we puny humans cannot judge him, and so on.
Let's grant for the sake of the argument that God exists. How do Merrill, Gard
and Longman know that his holiness is a separate quality? Perhaps Gods
holiness, his perfect nature, means that he is loving, good, forgiving and
long-suffering. After all, perfect goodness would also set God apart from
fallen humanity and creation.
If God is unfathomable, how do Calvinists and Southern Baptists know that the
entity they are worshipping is really God? For all we know, it could be the
Devil. Indeed, if holiness lacks any qualifying attributes, the result can only
be nominalism: what God does is right by definition. But a God whose raw power
and will isn't coupled with moral goodness, is not much different from Satan.
I'm not being demagogical. I'm trying to make a serious point.
For what is power without morality if not the very definition of evil?
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