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Dichotomy of a Schizophrenic God
The following post was the basis of my arguments in a debate with Jim Penton in October 2004 at the Northwest Conference in Wenatche, WA. He argued that a Christian should be a pacifist, whereas I argued that we should not judge a Christian who may be in the military. I am a conscientious objector, but understand that some wars must be fought. I do not include Jim Penton's many good points and arguments, because that is not the reason for this posting.
This post caused some serious consternation resulting in some accusing me of blasphemy and abominations. It is written in a thought-provoking style with NO intended disrespect for Almighty God. I admit that some of the points made could shock some Christians because of the hard realities involved. Some Christians may not have realized some of these points before, and could find their views threatened. The word "dichotomy" used in the title is the clue as to how this post was constructed, and should have been understood. I am interested in your comments. Thanks, Jim W. Posted by Jim Whitney on Sun - Jul 17 - 7:51pm on Channel C: I will provide scriptures later if needed. We have been talking about the ways of war and whether Christians would or should serve in the military. Lets start at the beginning. The Bible tells us that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change. What is his view of war?
In Genesis it is God who first introduces the spinning and flaming "Sword" to Adam and Eve to keep them from the Garden of Eden. These two new humans had no experience with war, or weapons, or anything like that. God himself introduced the first weapon in recorded history.
God does not deal with Adam and Eve's sin with a nice discussion and some non-physical or non-violent discipline ... no, for eating some fruit, he chooses the death penalty, and a difficult death by old age, disease, and infirmity. Further, he condemns the entire human race to death by such horrid means ... all for a bite of the apple.
God then fights for his captive people to get them out of Egypt. Does he use nice guy passive tactics, or advanced technology to merely gently bar the Egyptians from messing with his people? No, he kills their first-born, wipe out crops, send in locusts, turns water to blood, and then in a giant swoop, kills Pharaoh’s army in the collapse of the walls of water in the Red sea. This is God's example to all nations and to Israel, his people. Kill, kill, kill ... slaughter with violence!
Then, when Israel was about to take the promised land, could God simply have taken some barren unoccupied dessert and made it lush with life and moved his people there ... not uprooting other nations? Would not this have demonstrated peace? Or, if he was going to dispossess people from the land for Israel, could he not moved them gently without killing them, thus setting an example of kindness? No, he had Israel go in and slaughter these people for decades.
Not only did Israel slaughter male warriors, they killed civilian men, women, children, babies, and even livestock in a purification process - all "ordered" by God, and it was considered rank unfaithfulness by God to even keep a small spoil, such as some little gold bars. Achan and his clan were wiped out for this, and before they were wiped out, Israeli soldiers died because of his sin! Why? What possible pathetic excuse can anyone today make for this kind of psychotic behavior?
Added to this, God deliberately kept nations about Israel in order for Israel to fight so as to keep them trained for war. In other words, God uses such violence to keep teaching violence for the very purpose of war! This was God's clear command! YHWH is a manly person of war, a God of Armies, and he has his people slaughter other peoples like there is no tomorrow! Oh sure, he stops David from building his temple because of the blood on his hands ... the very God ordained and commanded blood!
If we look at the animal kingdom, whether in the sea, air or land, we see constant vicious death. The lion is designed to chase down and kill a deer or gazelle. Snakes bite and their poison kills with extreme pain and suffering. Bears cut their victims to pieces with their powerful sharp nails. Bulls gore with their horns, insects like scorpions and black widows kill with powerful poison, and so on ... all designed by God in the most violent and gruesome manner of killing. Animals kill Christians and non-Christians alike all the time.
To save humanity, God does not choose some pacifist method to set any example of peacefully redeeming humans. No, he chooses to have his own son die by being nailed to a cross/stake at the hands of soldiers ... and having his side pierced with a spear. Why the violence?
Yes, Jesus told Peter to put away the sword just before he died ... but why did Peter and the Apostles keep and bare swords in the first place? Clearly, Jesus was not blind and would have said something if weapons were so bad to have on hand! And, Jesus took the opportunity to brag about the legions of angels he had at his command, ready to do battle if he wants. Why have such heavenly armies? Why brag about this type of capability?
God then shows his own son in the future, with armies of angels and resurrected heavenly humans engaged in the greatest massive slaughter in the history of the universe. Eyes popping out of heads, hands instantly withering, blocks of stones and fire falling from the sky to crush and burn people.
But then, through Jesus, we are told to love our enemy, do good to our enemy, do not resist our enemy, to put away the sword, stand down, and accept being slaughtered by our enemies. We are to show love, kindness, gentleness, and peace ... amidst all these terrible metaphors of war and real life history of God's wars, and promised wars in the future. All the violent and bloodthirsty examples are given to us at the hand of God, and we are to learn peace?
Is there something wrong with this picture? Are we getting conflicting messages? Or, is there something wrong with our interpretation of Jesus and his teachings?
God tells us, through the Apostle Paul that the government is our minister, appointed by God as his servant to execute justice with the sword. So, some kind of police or military force has been used to deal harshly with bad guys, and sometimes good guys.
I understand all the good studious and scholarly efforts to quote early Christians, and take certain Bible verses to prove one side or the other ... but frankly, anyone can take either side and make a case that God either loves peace, gentleness, and kindness, or one can make a case that God is a blood-thirsty lover of killing and he glorifies war. The Battle of the Great Day of God the Almighty is found in his closing work of cleansing humanity! Even if this is allegorical, why did God inspire the example using metaphors of violence and war and painful slaughter?
What puzzles me even more is how we can sit here, like little schizophrenics and debate this stuff ... argue and fight with words like we are in a battle? It is beyond me. It makes no sense. Unless, we take another long hard look, and are willing to stop fighting with words long enough to try and figure out the God we worship, the love he has, and how there is room for both peace and war, for fighting and standing down from fighting.
Ecclesiastes says there is a time for war and a time for peace. A time to break down and a time to build again. War and death are part of the cycles of our human and spiritual experience. Our Christian experience is even termed in metaphors of war ... putting on the suit of armor and carrying the sword of the spirit. Clearly, God inspires our work as a warrior.
The reason that I continue to be a conscientious objector is not because I wish not to seek justice through severe penalties, even the death penalty ... but because I don't frankly know for sure what God wants me to do. While I am coming to terms with early Christianity and examining the Orthodox church as it is today in the 21st century ... I am still trying hard to wade through these other confusing messages.
I frankly find that judging the pacifists or warriors among us is not a good thing to do until we can concretely reconcile this seeming dichotomy of schizophrenia on the part of our God.
Jim W.