I’m not an Orthodox Christian. Right now, my faith is in a very strange place. I think I got so deeply caught up in ridiculous arguments about the minutia of Christianity, that I had to take a step back and detox from any kind of organized faith, lest I throw all the good out with the bad. So, I’m not here to defend Orthodoxy, or anything else at the moment. But something is bothering me, so I’m going to post about it.
I know Jennifer/Cally has been posting about Saints in Orthodoxy, recently. Her goal was to show how women throughout church history have taken on “non-normative” roles while serving God, as they often did in the Bible. These women weren’t doing the things that they Hyper-Patrios say should be doing. And they’re recognized by the Orthodox church as extraordinary women, worth emulating.
Jennifer posted about St. Theodosia recently, and while I understand why, and respect that the Orthodox church holds this woman up as someone who would do anything to serve God, her story does make me a little uncomfortable. I worry about setting up the idea that killing for God is something to be desired.
But if we’re going to say that we’re uncomfortable with that story, or that it’s not a Godly story, shouldn’t we be equally offended by stories like 2 Chronicles 15 where we hear that anyone who won’t worship God should be put to death, including women and children? What about 1 Samuel 15 where the Israelites are commanded to kill men, women, children, nursing babies, and even the animals?
I’ll tell you the truth. I have trouble with these stories. I have trouble reconciling them to the loving God I believe in. And I have yet to get a satisfactory answer to my questions about it.
It just feels like a double standard to take issue with some killings for Godly motives, and not others. If it’s okay in the bible, why wouldn’t it be okay for St. Theodosia? After all, it’s not like the woman went out into the community and began attacking people. It sounds like she and her community were being attacked, as were things she believed to be holy, and that she defended them. She wasn’t the aggressor. I still find it sad that lives were lost because of differences in beliefs. But I find that sad when I read it in the bible, church history, or in the newspaper.
“After all, it’s not like the woman went out into the community and began attacking people. It sounds like she and her community were being attacked, as were things she believed to be holy, and that she defended them. ”
That is exactly what happened.
Anne, I totally related to what you express, past tense because it was about 30 years ago I had these struggles.
Regarding the Bible and what’s in the OT vs the NT on this subject, it’s one reason again I’m not a theonomist. We are not under a theocratic government like Israel was, and Jesus, who changed the covenants, said his kingdom was not of this world, otherwise His servants would fight. The mission of the church today is to witness to the love and forgiveness of the Savior. The NT teaches that the role of the government is to bear the sword to defend those who do right and punish those who do wrong. And the NT doesn’t mix the respective responsibilities of government and church.
In the OT, national Israel was under the direction of God, through the law of Moses and the guidance of the prophets. And God put an end to Israel’s rejection of Him by raising the Babylonian empire to slay many of them and take the rest into captivity. And when Jesus died, Jews and Gentiles were brought together. At this present age, God isn’t calling the Church to kill in His name, and any such killing in His name is, I firmly believe, wrong.
After this, I guess the question is, when does it become OK to engage in self-defense against an aggressor who is out to destroy life and pillage. Some are pacifists to the end, as Jim Elliot’s was – his church taught him to take no part in government, or national defense, and he probably also believed that for his own personal life. Others do not think this way and believe that stopping an attack, even if it means taking the attacker’s life, is legitimate, and they also support a nation’s right to defend itself.
I am today very supportive of nations’ rights to defend themselves against attack, and I *think* I believe the same is OK when it comes to someone trying to destroy the lives of my family, or my own life.
Whatever, the concern you state is one reason I do NOT support theonomy. And that’s because I find no warrant for it in the New Testament.
Are you allowing comments?
I have a vivid memory of this time in my life — the time I struggled with the violence, etc. in the OT and tried to understand it in the light of Christ’s teachings — and I wanted to share a tad more about it. The reason I remember this so vividly is on account of loving the works of CS Lewis – he was very instrumental in helping me place my faith in Christ through his apologetic literature, and I am still wild about his fantasy books.
Anyway, I read an essay of Lewis’ in an anthology called Christian Reflections, and it was on the imprecatory psalms, principally psalm 109. This was the psalm referenced by Peter on the day of Pentecost, in Acts, as referring to Judas. But when you read Psalm in the book of psalms, it is very troubling, because it is the opposite of “love your enemies.”
The upshot of CS Lewis wrote is that God condemns prayers like psalm 109, but we have to understand that this is how oppressed people feel by oppressors, and to understand why they might cry out like this. When I read this essay, I was troubled by it, because Scripture doesn’t treat the psalm this way, but in a prophetic way. IOW – Scripture doesn’t condemn psalm 109 as being an evil prayer.
Now today, I don’t believe Lewis’ assessment. Some of my reasoning is above, but not all. But it was this one thing that got me started on a study of theology years ago, which is why I recall it was not quite 30 years ago. But I do remember being very weighed down by all of this years ago. And if you’re interested, you might want to read Lewis’ essay in Christian Reflections, if it’s still in print and you can get a copy.
I’m going to apologise in advance if this ends up being offensive, because I know that there are Christians who would be horrified by my views on this.
My husband (who attends a peace church) and I have discussed this, because I agree, those are really difficult passages.
Remember, what people did which is recorded in the Bible is still what people did. And it was recorded by humans, with human understanding. We know this, and this is why we all study the culture in which a given book was written. But what I always forget, is that this cultural bias can come in even when the author said that something was well done, or that something was a good idea.
To give an example: based on our knowledge of God, God isn’t going to punish people for doing something wrong. He lets us make mistakes. Yet look at how many OT prophets announced that “God is doing X to punish us for not listening, we must repent!”. This doesn’t sound like the loving God who has been revealed in the NT. It was pointed out to me, that there’s a fine line between “God is doing X because we didn’t listen” and “X is happening because it’s a natural consequence of the way in which we didn’t listen to God”. The second one makes more sense, but I can still see how it turned into the first one.
In the same way judgements on someone’s violent actions (or instructions for actions to be taken) are going to get twisted.
Anne,
Your site was recommended by a friend of mine and I have to say that what you are doing here is a good thing. Regarding this particular post and your issues with the violence in the bible, I think you are right on in your evaluation of the issue…it is a double standard to condemn other forms of religious violence when we aren’t willing to face our own tradition’s violence with the same kind of scrutiny. I have done some reading on this issue and though I don’t claim to “have the answers” there are certainly ways in which the Church has attempted to address the matter of the violence in the bible that are somewhat satisfactory…at least to me. The challenge with this issue is what Lynn refers to above in her comment about Psalm 109 and her belief that “scripture doesn’t treat the psalm this way”—referring to C.S. Lewis’ comment about “condemning the Psalm”. Lynn is right, when we start to use Jesus as the lens by which we understand the rest of scripture, we have to face the possibility and need to “correct” or “clarify” previous “revelation” by the full and final revelation of God’s Son. And for someone, like myself, coming out of a form of fundamentalism that exalts a particular reading of scripture above even the authority of Christ, this is not an easy thing to do…but it is the right thing to do and I commend your honesty and courage to face this difficult issue. I can recommend some books on the subject if you would like. Just let me know. Peace.