Is
God violent, cruel, and genocidal? This is Brian McLaren’s third question and
surely all would answer with a resounding ‘no’. And yet there are many passages
in the Bible – and especially in the Old Testament – that suggest that this
exactly how God can be at times, passages that make him appear very un-Christ-like.
The question that McLaren attempts to answer is whether this is a true
reflection of God or whether the truth is that God is actually like Jesus –
loving, forgiving, and accepting of all. His conclusion is that it is the
Christ-like figure best represents God – but that leaves us with what to do
with those passages that suggest otherwise.
Evolving revelation
McLaren
suggests that the best way of dealing with such awkward passages is by understanding
the Bible as an evolving revelation of God rather than a static one. So for example in the early chapters of the
OT we see a God who is great among other gods – he is bigger, better and
stronger than all of them, but he is still one among many. But as the biblical
story continues what we find is that actually there are no other gods apart
from the God of Israel – all the rest are merely man-made idols.
It
is important to note that McLaren does not believe that God has evolved and
changed over the generations but that man’s understanding of God has changed.
In every age man does his best to see God but can only see partially and as
time progresses a fuller, truer picture of God is revealed to him. Following on
from this, of course, is the assertion that ‘we must not assume that we have
arrived’ at our full understanding of God and that we should not assume that
‘the process has stopped unfolding’. It is why, McLaren suggests, the early
Jewish people refused to tolerate the making of idols, since idols ‘freeze
one’s understanding of God in stone’.
Jesus - the living word
He
concludes this chapter by tackling some conservatives’ insistence that the
Bible is the highest revelation of God and that it should be accepted as such
in its entirety. In response McLaren says that it is clear from Scripture
itself (e.g. Hebrews 1:1-3) that it isn’t the written word that is the final
word on God’s character but rather Jesus – the living Word. Though we see Jesus
in and through the Bible, it is he alone who is the full revelation of the Father.
And who could ever imagine Jesus being violent, cruel and genocidal?
