Q.
82
Does God justify violence in scripture? What
about genocide?
Jarrod McKenna
Who is...
?
Jarrod McKenna
I do like walks on the beach (I would mention
sur ng but it might mislead people into
thinking I’m cooler than I really am).A.
The Bible doesn’t present itself as a collection of refi ned religious
wisdom. The story of God’s redemption (the Bible) is as wild,
messy and complex as we are. Like Jacob and the angel, what is
central to our scriptures is wrestling within the text with God, which climaxes
in Christ transfi guring everything through him.
The darkness, horror, and brutality that (miraculously) are not edited out
of scripture are nothing other than what God has been wrestling to trans-
form and has done so “in Christ.” How our Muslim friends understand their
Qur’an is like how we understand the person of Jesus: as the literal Word of
God (Jn. 1:14).
If the Bible is authoritative for us (and I hope it is), we must avoid being
modern-day Marcionites, editing out (from the Holy Bible or ourselves) that
which reveals what God longs to transform. Take the story of genocide in
Joshua 11 as an example.
Today, God is no less on the side of oppressed landless minorities fl eeing
oppressive empires, no less calling us to be a people among them seeking a
future of risk against the most powerful military forces in the world, no less
a warrior fi ghting on our behalf. But in Jesus, God has conquered not with a
sword, killing his enemies, but with a cross, dying for them (Rev. 12:11). The
Bible not only does not justify violence, war, and genocide; in light of Jesus; it
abolishes them with the inbreaking of the kingdom.