Newark Congregational Church

Here’s my latest article for the Newark Advertiser – published today.

I wrote this article around 10 years ago, and at the time the person coordinating the articles on behalf of Churches Together in Newark wouldn’t pass it forward for publication because it was “very unorthodox and would not be acceptable to most churches.”

I argued that some who are not in churches might find my views on biblical interpretation helpful.

Anyway – it’s finally found it’s way into print. Have a read and let me know what you think.

Mark

Richard Dawkins is probably the best known atheist in the country. A few years ago he wrote a book, ‘The God Delusion’ which gave his view of why believers are wrong to have faith.

One of the main things he bases his arguments on is that, as he puts it:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Surely he’s got a point there hasn’t he? Some of the stories in the Old Testament are bloodthirsty and seem to paint God in a most unfavourable light.  Take this passage from the first book of Samuel where God is reported to have commanded the Israelites:

‘Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’

Just as Mr Dawkins said.

The problem is that Dawkins doesn’t understand the nature of the Bible.  The Bible was written down by people.  It contains many very valuable insights regarding the nature of God.  But the people who wrote the books of the Bible weren’t taking down God’s dictation.  Undoubtedly, on many occasions they were genuinely inspired by God, but sometimes they got it wrong.

Now you may be asking how can I possibly say that? Well what needs to be taken into account is the single thing that has changed people’s views about God the most in all of history; the life of Jesus Christ.

Christians believe that ever since Jesus was here on earth we have had the huge advantage of having seen God’s own likeness, here.  And we have a record from those who were around at the time of the important things that happened, some of what he did and what he said.  It’s very clear from the Gospels that there is a strong underlying theme in Jesus’ message – it’s about love, loving one another, caring for each other.  And if Jesus is the exact likeness of God’s own being, then what he said and did must matter to us, as we struggle to understand what God is like, far, far more than anything else.

Now Jesus would never have said what God is supposed to have said in that extract from Samuel. So if Jesus is God’s own likeness it follows that God couldn’t have said that either. The person who wrote that down simply got it wrong.

The American theologian Marcus Borg said this:

‘‘When the Bible and what we see in Jesus conflict, as they sometimes do, Jesus trumps the Bible. This is what it means to say Jesus is the Word become flesh. In him Christians see clearer than anywhere else the character and passion of God.’

So no Mr Dawkins – God isn’t like you say at all.

God is like Jesus.