Cameron Reilly who once interviewed me about my work and probably more famously appeared on the front of the Bulletin magazine posted "how many people did god kill in the bible" on his blog. Just as I was thinking I should formulate some kind of intelligent response to the post. Lots of Xns beat me to it with, well mostly dumb responses.
Unlike some of the Xn posters on his blog I believe Cameron does have a right to attack Xy over any other religion in Australia as it is the dominant religion by far.
So, what about the question? Perhaps the key problem and why some Xns find this hard to explain is that they believe scripture is inerrant. I am a Xn not Bibleian (follower of the Bible) I do not see the Bible as the vehicle through which God speaks but rather the written account of God acting in the world. The culmination of that being Jesus. So that means for me that I read everything in the OT through the lens of Jesus. So when an OT prophecy talks about God sending a great leader to rule over all the earth. Rather than thinking Jesus did a pretty crap job of the whole military conquest thing, I see a difference between what the writer was anticipating and hoping for and what God actually had in mind. So instead of a great military leader we get Jesus a great leader but more in a Gandhi sense than a military sense.
Also, something that is important to me (and gets rid of 3 million deaths on the tally) is that I think Genesis 1-11 (the pre Abraham stuff) is myth rather than history. These myths explain how the world got here but probably more importantly they take pre existing myths like creation and flood myths and re-tell them in a Yahweh kind of way. So in the Yahweh version of the flood story for example God promises never again.
All that aside the honest truth is that yes this stuff does bug me and I often wonder if I am just using theological gymnastics to get around this.
By the time I had written the above, Cameron had posted an interview with John Dickson talking about the historicity of Jesus. Much as I suspected this was not going to be persuasive. At best all the historical stuff will prove that there was a guy called Jesus who did a bunch of stuff that people thought was amazing at the time, he was killed and then a bunch of his followers claimed he had been resurrected and they were prepared to die for that. Which is all well and good but doesn't really go any where meaty. None the less Cameron did end the interview by starting to ask questions about the internal logic of Xn theology. This I'm keen to hear.
With any belief system or religion I think there are a few key questions to wrestle with.
1) Is it historical (if it claims to be)
2) Does it have it's own internal logic
3) How can you square this with what you can and can't prove.
Unlike some of the Xn posters on his blog I believe Cameron does have a right to attack Xy over any other religion in Australia as it is the dominant religion by far.
So, what about the question? Perhaps the key problem and why some Xns find this hard to explain is that they believe scripture is inerrant. I am a Xn not Bibleian (follower of the Bible) I do not see the Bible as the vehicle through which God speaks but rather the written account of God acting in the world. The culmination of that being Jesus. So that means for me that I read everything in the OT through the lens of Jesus. So when an OT prophecy talks about God sending a great leader to rule over all the earth. Rather than thinking Jesus did a pretty crap job of the whole military conquest thing, I see a difference between what the writer was anticipating and hoping for and what God actually had in mind. So instead of a great military leader we get Jesus a great leader but more in a Gandhi sense than a military sense.
Also, something that is important to me (and gets rid of 3 million deaths on the tally) is that I think Genesis 1-11 (the pre Abraham stuff) is myth rather than history. These myths explain how the world got here but probably more importantly they take pre existing myths like creation and flood myths and re-tell them in a Yahweh kind of way. So in the Yahweh version of the flood story for example God promises never again.
All that aside the honest truth is that yes this stuff does bug me and I often wonder if I am just using theological gymnastics to get around this.
By the time I had written the above, Cameron had posted an interview with John Dickson talking about the historicity of Jesus. Much as I suspected this was not going to be persuasive. At best all the historical stuff will prove that there was a guy called Jesus who did a bunch of stuff that people thought was amazing at the time, he was killed and then a bunch of his followers claimed he had been resurrected and they were prepared to die for that. Which is all well and good but doesn't really go any where meaty. None the less Cameron did end the interview by starting to ask questions about the internal logic of Xn theology. This I'm keen to hear.
With any belief system or religion I think there are a few key questions to wrestle with.
1) Is it historical (if it claims to be)
2) Does it have it's own internal logic
3) How can you square this with what you can and can't prove.
I'm keen to hear where this goes I'm kind betting it'll get stuck in the substitution atonement theology stuff and Cameron (like any intelligent person) and much like the Dave Slusher's podcast that I wrote about is going to find it hard to reconcile a God that Xns say is loving and gracious but needs you to pay a price you can't pay for your sin that can only be made by the death of an innocent man (Jesus) all in order to let us spend eternal life with a bunch of Xns. Which, believe it or not is the best of two possibilities.
I also posted a response to the podcast with John Dickson supporting Cameron in his wrestle with Christianity.
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