We do live in a world in which religious reasonings justify violence. We often think of it in terms of Islam, but we forget that our own Scripture (Old and New Testaments) have been used to justify violence. There is the possibility that our own Scripture will continue to be used to justify violence. This book is not so much a defense of Islam, as an uncovering our propensity to use our Scripture to justify violence in our struggles with others.
Christians throughout Christian history (and Jews also) have turned to Moses and Joshua to justify violence, but generally, in most eras and most societies, the vast majority of believers have not. As members of a society founded upon a Judeo-Christian tradition, we have not learned to take genocide …show more content…
It is difficult to imagine, just as it is difficult to imagine Christians using the Bible (e.g., the Gibeonites and the curse of Ham) to justify human slavery. The book of Judges gives a list of regions and villages where the native peoples were not expelled, but rather subjected to forced labor and serfdom (33). Although we do not use this now, what would prevent it from being thus used in the future? This makes it hard to condemn the Quran relating to slavery, while not condemning our own verses relating to slavery.
The case of the action of Phineas against Jews who had relations with non-Jews has been used to remain keep Jews a separate people. Even at the time of the return to the land, Ezra emphasized separation from non-Jews, even husbands and wife (perhaps the story of Phineas is a Scribal story to enforce a then contemporary Jewish purity). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah boast of cleansing themselves from everything foreign, yet these books with their commands to kill, commit ethnic cleansing, institutionalize segregation, and to hate and fear other races and religion are a part of our Scripture
Christians throughout Christian history (and Jews also) have turned to Moses and Joshua to justify violence, but generally, in most eras and most societies, the vast majority of believers have not. As members of a society founded upon a Judeo-Christian tradition, we have not learned to take genocide …show more content…
It is difficult to imagine, just as it is difficult to imagine Christians using the Bible (e.g., the Gibeonites and the curse of Ham) to justify human slavery. The book of Judges gives a list of regions and villages where the native peoples were not expelled, but rather subjected to forced labor and serfdom (33). Although we do not use this now, what would prevent it from being thus used in the future? This makes it hard to condemn the Quran relating to slavery, while not condemning our own verses relating to slavery.
The case of the action of Phineas against Jews who had relations with non-Jews has been used to remain keep Jews a separate people. Even at the time of the return to the land, Ezra emphasized separation from non-Jews, even husbands and wife (perhaps the story of Phineas is a Scribal story to enforce a then contemporary Jewish purity). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah boast of cleansing themselves from everything foreign, yet these books with their commands to kill, commit ethnic cleansing, institutionalize segregation, and to hate and fear other races and religion are a part of our Scripture