Why violent portrayals of God in the bible are wrong about God but right about us.

One of the things you’ll notice if you spend much time reading a bible, is that it contains a lot of violence. You don’t have to get very far before you run into the spilling of blood. The first incident of violence in the scriptures is in the story of Cain and Abel. Cain becomes jealous of his brother and ends up murdering him. To the story’s credit, this is portrayed as a ‘bad’ thing, the kind of violent story in the bible that is easy to make sense of. The bad person, Cain, does something we are supposed to see and reject.

But what happens when the violent texts get a little more complicated? Because it’s not too long before we start bumping into all kinds of violence, and this time it’s not just the bad people, it’s the heroes. We have ‘fathers of the faith’ like Abraham taking womb slaves; young servant girls being forced into bed to bear them children. We have the Israelite conquest of Canaan, which on the one hand is told as a story of liberation from slavery in Egypt and entry into the promised land, and yet on the other hand is the story of genocide as the people of Israel move into territory that is already occupied and apparently wipe out all the people there; men, women and children.

And not only is this what they do, it seems they’re doing what God has told them to do. What do we do when the heroes of our stories turn out to be violent people, using violent means to accomplish violent ends? And what do we do when it seems that God is on their side helping them do so? We could of course go further and explore those texts in which it is God who does the violence. It is God who kills and wounds and curses. And it is God who gives people the strength to kill their enemies in huge numbers.

What do Christians do with this when seeking to follow the way of Jesus who told people to love their enemies, to forgive those who have sinned against them, to not take an eye for an eye but turn the other cheek? The author of one of the New Testament letters says that no-one has ever seen God but that when we love one another, we are seeing God.

How does this make sense given the violence that seems inherent to the story?  

Of course this is not a new conversation and there are a few different responses to violence in the bible.

At one end of the spectrum is the view that the bible is primitive, silly and oudated. How could anyone believe in a God who endorses and participates in this kind of violence? Surely this is a good reason to not believe in God at all. At the other end of the spectrum are those who have taken it as an instruction for their own ethics e.g. endorsing violence against the ‘other’, whether their otherness be related to religious, ethnic, cultural, gendered or sexual identity. Over the years, far too many people have used these violent texts to justify violent actions. In many respects both of these approaches view the bible similarly, it’s just their response that differs. Both groups see these biblical stories as saying that God endorses and acts with violence. One group rejects this God, the other embraces it.

A third approach accepts the violence of God, but suggests that things have changed because of Jesus. This is how it used to be (and these were very bad people who deserved to die), but God is now witholding judgement because of Jesus. We’re in an era of grace, but when that era is done then God will sort this out in judgement and with the ultimate acts of violence against humankind; defeat and everlasting punishment. A further suggestion, building on this, is to allegorise or spiritualise these stories for the present era. The enemy becomes the devil, or your own sin, or some other impersonal enemy. The battle stories become stories of how to overcome obstacles in your life.

But all of these options leave you with a bible and a God who, at some stage at least, endorses and participates in extreme violence.

So is there an alternative?

In the first instance, it depends greatly on how we think about the bible itself. Rather than seeing the bible as an instruction manual, or as divinely dictated, it is helpful to read these ancient writings as resources for wisdom, rather than divinely composed rules for life. Which means that when we read of an ancient figure or an ancient battle, the first inclination doesn’t have to be: “oh right, this means that whatever they believed, thought and did is right and we should do it too.” Even if the way the story is told celebrates them as a hero.

What if we were to read these violent stories as a commentary of wisdom on the human psyche and the human condition? As an insight into the age-old human struggle with ego, with competition, with violence and the fear of otherness, and as a window into the way people express these through their religious beliefs, views of God and sense of identity?

Deeply integral to the human psyche is a need to meaningfully belong, to have your people. It helps us to feel safe and secure. But if belonging is defined by competition with others, then our identity is shaped by both the group we belong to, and also those whom our group is defined against. Our sense of ‘in-ness’ is created by the contrasting sense of ‘out-ness’ that we ascribe to others. 

Violence is a natural response to this reality, and religion is often co-opted into the process. Our sense of belonging in a religious community can be fostered by the idea that God is on our side but not theirs. And God becomes implicated in our own violence. We use the name of God to give divine support to the causes and battles we align ourselves with. These biblical stories tell us not only what “they” did, but what “we” continue to do. They are a mirror, not because we should reflect them but because we do. 

For all of our civilisation, modernity, technology and philosophy, we’re still fighting tribal wars of ego and competition. And we’re still trying to mold God into our violent ends. All sorts of ways to justify the elimination of the different, of the other. The one who triggers fear in us. The one who makes us uncomfortable. And this doesn’t just happen on a systemic scale – lest we get ourselves off the hook too easily here – it happens at a personal level too. 

But in the biblical story, we’re invited to see how views of God evolve within scripture itself. We see an ongoing wrestle with, debate about, and even argument over who God is, what God has told us to do, and what God is like. And then we bump into the commands of Jesus to “love your enemies” and to embrace radical inclusion, forgiveness and grace. This is another step in a progressing and evolving view of God, a trajectory that leads us to the New Testament insight that ‘God is love’.

And although stories in the biblical text are brutal in their acknolwedgement – and at times endorsement of - violence, we are also offered contrasting and innovative ways forward. So instead of mirroring the violence we see, we can ask ourselves some important questions:

Why was this story being told?

How are they using the name of God?

Do I use the name of God to justify my own actions?

What does this story tell me about how they saw God?

How do I see God? 

What would it mean to transform this story with a God who is love?

How would that God act?

How would I act? How do I act?