Addressing Violence in the Bible and the Quran

Before we who desire to be biblical Christians can quote or critique the violent passages of the Quran, we need to read, wrestle and come to terms with the imprecatory Psalms: 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 17, 35, 37, 40, 52, 59, 56, 58, 59, 69, 70, 79, 83, 109, 129, 137, 139, 140, 143. And the commanded destruction of the people and culture of Canaan in Deuteronomy 7; 12:2-4; Joshua 5-13; Judges; and Elijah’s slaughter of the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18:16-40. Lest we dismiss this as Old Testament only, also see Revelation 16-18. I am not at all suggesting that the Bible and the Quran are interchangeable or equivalent. Nor am I equating today’s Islamist terrorism with this Hebrew history. But I do believe that if we are to be honest and have any integrity in communication with Muslim folk and Islam of all varieties, we must not flinch in facing the things in the Bible we ignore or explain away because they are uncomfortable and even offensive to our sensibilities. I’m not interested in debating my assertion here, but I welcome conversation about how to honestly address this biblical material.

Benefits of Constantine

I have been cleaning out old files, books, closets et al as an important process of downsizing at this stage of life. I found the following in a folder of papers I wrote when a student at Wheaton Grad School. This one was in the first semester of Church History. probably in 1970. I am fascinated, and in some sense gratified, to find the seeds of nearly a half century of the development of my thinking. I am more convinced than ever that the Christendom model that arose from Constantine's making Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire has been harmful to authentic Christian faith and discipleship. The unholy alliance between nation and religion dilutes, distorts and undermines what following Jesus is about. Incidentally, the note at the top of page 1 questioned whether this was the assigned topic. The assigned topic was to answer whether Constantine's conversion was real or not. I did allude to that assignment in the paper but used it as a starting place for addressing something I thought was more interesting and important. Perhaps  Dr. Earle Cairns, professor for that class, gave me the A- because I diverged from the assignment. Or more likely, it was an A- and not an A paper.