God and War

For the last year, on Wednesday mornings, I have been reading through the Deuteronomistic history with a group of people from St. Paul's.

What is the Deuteronomistic history? It is one way to describe a section of the Bible from the fifth book all the way to the twelfth book. These books, starting with Deuteronomy, going through Joshua, Judges, Ruth (Sort of), 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings, tell the story of the people of Israel conquering and occupying the promised land. These books tell nearly seven hundred years of history.

It is called the Deuteronomistic history because various records, stories and other materials were eventually gathered together and edited by people who have a similar point of view, and use the same language, as whoever wrote the book of Deuteronomy. In other words, we're not just reading history. Largely because of the editing work of the Deuteronomists, we, along with the text, are trying to figure out how God is present in these events and how and why the people behaved in a way pleasing to God, or not.

As we faithfully read the text, we keep running into a giant, seemingly unsolvable problem. The text in many cases celebrates what we all view as immoral violence that cannot truly be pleasing to God. Women and children are slaughtered. Kings and leaders are punished by God for not being violent enough. What do we make of this? We feel a deep gut reaction that, despite the fact that it is in the Bible, the slaughter is wrong and is not a part of the Kingdom of God. But haven't yet come to total common clarity about the Christian view of war.

For the next few weeks we're going to take a break from the scriptural text and just explore this issue. All of us are going to be rooting around online and in libraries for resources to help us gain deeper insight. Is total Pacifism the only legitimate Christian view? If not, what are the alternatives?

I believe the deepest wisdom around these kinds of issues comes when a faithful and trusting group of Christians reflects and discusses together with open hearts. As the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, there is no more important issue in our world. Come on Wednesday mornings or keep reading this blog and prayerfully reflect with us.