No images? No art? Show no mercy?

Religion

How do animals and women fit in? Why do evil and viruses exist?

How big was the flood and why doesn't God intervene?

What is the Trinity to other religions? Where does Jesus fit in? Does purgatory exist?

No further word from God? Only containing God's words? What about the errors?

Can it have different meanings? May a bible story be legend? Help from outside the bible...?

How dangerous is wealth? What about forgiving the unrepentant? Can euthanasia be Christian? What makes a church a sect?

Is Jesus the one to follow? Did Jesus rise bodily? Jesus and the Holy Spirit? How is Christ coming back? A synthesis of traditions?

Am I a real disciple of Jesus? What do I do when I am tempted? Why should Christians suffer? Why are other Christians a problem?

Creationism? Evolution? Other populations than Adam's? Who was Cain's Wife? Does God feel threatened? Was he harsh on Pharoah?

On a more streamlined edition of my analysis of Richard Bewes' book, the Top 100 Questions: Biblical Answers to Popular Questions, I will be tackling two very different passages.

12: Exodus 20:4 - No Images, no art? I have been told by devotees of other religions that if paintings or carvings of human beings or any other creatures are made, then we Christians are disobeying our own commandments.  Is this true?

The first of these passages focusses on the Second Commandment of the bible:

"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Exodus 20:4

The question asks whether Christians are disobeying their own commandments if they worship paintings or carvings of human beings.  And this question has greatly intrigued me.  The Protestant Reformation was partially borne out of how Martin Luther didn't agree with the numerous sacraments present in Catholic worship, amongst other reasons.  All of these statues were barriers between man's relationship with God.

What Richard Bewes, and my Christian friend Naomi, stressed was how it is fine to create these idols, but not to "bow down to them or serve them." If these statues and figures were created for the purposes of adornment or teaching, then there is nothing wrong with this.  We run into trouble if we begin worshipping these idols, or we respect them more than we do with God.  This is a logical argument and one I agree with.  While I can understand the Protestant concern of idolatry, I think we'll run into trouble if we stigmatise the appreciations of Christian-inspired art.  As we've discussed in previous articles, Christianity has had a massive effect on popular culture.  The vivid imagery in Revelation inspired the art work of William Blake, while John Milton took strong inspiration from Genesis for his magnus opus, Paradise Lost.  If it is wrong to appreciate this artwork, then the great cultural tradition that existed around Christianity just wouldn't exist.  We can appreciate it without worshipping it.

18. Deuteronomy 7: 1-3 Show no mercy? God's commands to Israel, to obliterate the nations in Canaan, sounds like a nationalistic programme of ethnic genocide.  How can we escape coming to this conclusion?

This is a very interesting questions, as it addresses one of the major concerns I had while reading the bible.  How could an omni-loving God endorse the slaughter of the Canaanites? How could this type of genocide be acceptable? How is it okay for the Israelites to kill the Canaan men and rape their women? Isn't one of the Ten Commandments "thou shalt not kill?"

Firstly, the commandment is actually "Thou shalt not murder." Murder is not the same as killing people.  This distinction is very important.  Soldiers have to kill in war and they're not murderers.

The crux of Richard Bewes', as well as Naomi's response, is that the Canaanites committed terrible acts.  They regularly practised idolatry, sexual promiscuity and child sacrifice.  Their destruction was just desserts for their crimes.  The Canaanites and Ammonites were given chance after chance to repent for their sins, but instead they continued to forsake and reject God.  Their continued disobedience incurred God's wrath.  This would then serve as a warning for the rest of us.

Richard Bewes also argued that we have to consider the bigger picture.  The 'Promised Land' was much more than a strip of land.  It served as the right to the Israelite's inheritance of the new heaven and new earth that would be brought about by Christ's return.

Do the actions of the few or even the many justify the destruction of the "all?" Is it better to wipe out a group of people and start again than punish the minority? Bewes is arguing that this ethnic genocide was justifiable through how the Canaanites had so turned from God.  They had rejected his love and had turned to sexual depravity and child sacrifice.  This would then serve as a warning to anyone else willing to break the rules.  I don't think this is right.  Initially reading about these ethnic genocides is what led me to have such a distaste for the Christian God.  I couldn't understand how an all-loving God could condone this.  In war, there are rules about killing civillians.  Yet God disregards these rules completely.  He is a force onto himself.  How am I supposed to respect and worship a God who condones the death of the innocent? I think it was an ethnic genocide.

As always, my opinions are just that.  Opinions.  They might be wrong so be sure to correct and challenge me.  Just keep it mature.  Keep it intelligent.  Keep it respectful.