Is God vengeful & violent?

I can’t ignore world events.

I was planning to continue in a positive way with my posts on “What’s God really like?”. But the bombardment of Iran by USA and Israel, and the things some US officals are saying about it, push other thoughts aside.

Everything I say in this brief post has been said by others, but I have to add my voice. What we think about God can affect how we behave, and in this case in the most terrible way.

“War is hell”

War is horrible. It blows people apart. It tears apart families and communities. It destroys. It provokes revenge. It brutalises.

There may be cases where war is the right and inevitable response. The last resort. But generally it could and should be avoided.

I’m no expert, but it seems like the US and Israeli bombardment of Iran must be condemned for all these reasons.

Disregard for human life

Heavy bombing of densely populated cities must inevitably lead to massive civilian casualties. Almost 200 primary age school girls were killed in one attack. The overall death toll is currently estimated to be over 1,200.

Truth is the first casualty

It is often said that “truth is the first casualty of war” (see note).

The US administration has give several responses to the bombing of the girls school. Originally spokespeople expressed doubt that it happened. Later the President suggested the bombing was actually by Iran because their munitions are very inaccurate, despite investigations indicating it was indeed a US bomb.
The adminstration hasn’t offered clear reasons why warfare, including bombing of civilians, was necessary at this stage. Was it to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons (despite the President’s assurance last year that Iran’s nuclear capability had been “totally obliterated”)? Was Iran about to start a war against the US? Does Iran actually constitute a threat to the US people? Did the President want to change the regime? Is it a coincidence that recent US action against Venezuela and Iran have both targeted countries with large oil reserves?
Both Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump currently face serious accusations – corruption (Netanyahu) and sexual abuse revealed in the Epstein files (Trump). I have no idea whether any of these accusations are true. But some have claimed both men have used the fighting in both Gaza and/or Iran to distract from the accusations.

A lack of truth plus changing stories and “facts” to avoid responsibility and criticism have been a feature of this administration, so these disturbing events are not entirely surprising.

False Christs will rise

Jesus predicted there would in these last days be false Messiahs and false prophets (Mark 13:22, Matthew 7:15), and warned us to be wary and not to be deceived by them (Matthew 24:11). So followers of Jesus should be alarmed at what we have been witnessing lately.

Armageddon?

It has been reported that troops have been told this is a holy war, and that Donald Trump has been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. “Armageddon” refers to a location referred to just once in the book of Revelation 16:16. According to some fringe theology, this will be a great battle that will precede Jesus coming back to earth, though the book of Revelation doesn’t actually say that. Some extremist Christians believe the return of Jesus can be hastened by starting such a war now.

All this totally ignores these Biblical facts:

Jesus was very clear in his teachings to us – not revenge but forgiveness, not violence but love for enemy (Matthew 5:38-44), those who live by violence will likely die violently (Matthew 26:52), it is the peacemakers who will be blessed (Matthew 5:0). Those of us who follow Jesus must start with these teachings. War, if it can ever be justified, must be a last resort.
The apostle Paul give similar peaceful teachings (e.g. Romans 12:14-20).
The book of Revelation is a genre of literature (apocalyptic) that uses vivid and symbolic language to make its point. Few if any Bible scholars would distort and embellish this Revelation passage to come to this conclusion.

Old Testament

In the Old Testament there is a command for the Israelites to kill the Amalekites (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) and Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:1-5). Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have used such texts to justify his genocide in Palestine. However Jews may use these passages, they cannot be used in this way by Christians:

There is good reason to believe God didn’t give these commands and they certainly were not carried out.
Even if they were given back then, there is no justification in applying them to today.
The Ten Commandments are generally recognised as the strongest ethical teachings in the Old Testament, and they say “You shall not murder (or kill)” (Exodus 20:13).
Most importantly of all, Jesus came to make the Old Testament obsolete (Hebrews 8:13) and to bring a new covenant and new ethic (Matthew 5:21-22). HIs teachings are what Christians must follow.

Trump as Messiah?

It is reported that many evangelicals see Donald Trump as a messiah, someone anointed by God for a particular purpose. They base this partly on a reference to the ancient Persian king Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1) who freed the Jewish exiles to go back and rebuild their city and temple (2 Chronicles 36:22-23).

Of course for Christians, Jesus is the Messiah. This doesn’t mean they are placing Trump on the same level as Jesus, though some Jewish people are apparently going close. But making Trump out to be God’s anointed and endorsing everything he does, including those things based on blatant lies, is surely a bridge too far for anyone wanting to follow Jesus!

Christian or “christian”?

So what should those of us who are trying to follow Jesus make of all this?

Some Christians I respect are calling this war out as wicked, unchristian and unjustified.

The Pope is reported to have spoken strongly against the idea of a holy war, saying “only peace is holy”.
Protestant activist Shane Claiborne calls out the current holy war idea: “It is evil. It is wicked. It is an offense to God …. [a] violent perversion of our faith” (Facebook, 6th March).
Jim Wallis has written: “The story now being told about Iran is built on the same familiar foundation of fear, deception, and political convenience.”
A raft of Christian leaders have called for peace and diplomacy.

Two different christianities

All this reinforces what I have argued before; there are now in the US (and to a lesser degree other western countries) two totally different christianities.

One form of christianity sees following Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount as the core of Christian faith and life. They tend to be interested in how people live as much as (or even more than) what they believe. They are often politically active, but don’t want to force christianity onto others. They believe in serving the poor and suffering and alien, as Jesus said. For them, Jesus’ teachings guide how they interpret the rest if the Bible. We may call them Jesus followers.

The other form of christianity sees patriotism and Christian supremacy (“America First”) as the core of Christian life. They believe that Christian America is under threat but God is going to defeat its godless enemies, probably through Donald Trump. So it tends to be a white supremacist religion – they tend to be fearful of other races and beliefs, enough to justify repressive measures against them, and even murder (think Renee Good and Alex Pretti). Jesus will return soon to put things right, they say, and bloody war may be a necessary prelude. They reject Jesus’ non-violent teachings, saying they can’t be applied to the world right now. THey reject care for the poor and al;ien as “woke” and a threat to the US. In many ways, their ethics are Old Testament rather than New. We may call this christian nationalism.

It’s not really Christian

It’s not my place to call out any person as being Christian or not – God knows and I don’t. But it is clear to me that “christian nationalism” isn’t Christian belief at all, for it makes little attempt to follow Jesus’ teachings on non-violence, care for the poor or truthfulness.

It was interesting to see the reaction when conservative evangelical John Piper posted Leviticus 19:34 which says we must care for strangers in our land (i.e. immigrants). He was lambasted by christian nationalists as being “woke” and “weaponizing scripture”.

I can’t help feeling that Jesus followers need to clearly separate from christian nationalism and churches that support it.

I feel angry that Christianity is identified in the public mind with atrocities like we have seen from this government and its christian nationalist supporters.

I’m guessing that most readers of this blog agree and don’t have to be told this.

So what is God like?

Anyone who follows Jesus can say quite definitely, God wouldn’t so easily disregard human life that he would start a war and bomb civilians with so little pretext.

Note 1. The saying is given in several different forms, and the original author is unknown.
Photo: Rescue workers and bystanders at the Minab school after the bombing (Wikipedia).