I remember watching the movie “Heidi” as a child (I think it was the 1968 version), and there was a scene in it with Heidi coming across the town pastor as he was practicing his sermon on a mountain in Switzerland. Heidi, in all of her innocence, listened to the pastor’s fire and brimstone barrage, and said something like, “You know, there are more Bible verses about God’s love than about God’s judgment.” The pastor was immediately changed – a Christmas miracle, I guess – and he began to preach a softer, more forgiving Gospel. My childlike theological mind was impacted by this idea as well; as I was watching all the violence in the world – and in my own life – I found the idea intriguing and hopeful. God should be more about love than punishment. God was more about grace than judgment. More peace – less war.
The answer to this question is both/and, at least, for me. The simplistic lie I was taught – that the Hebrew Bible is about judgment and the Christian Bible is about love – falls short when one takes the time to read them. There might be more violence and gore attributed to God in the First Testament, but there is plenty of it in the Second one as well. This idea also sets up a subversive antisemitism; one which portrays Judaism as a religion of anger and suffering, and Christianity as a peaceful antidote. The Hebrew Bible was the Scripture of Jesus and Paul and the early church; in fact, all of Jesus’ teachings can be found in that First Covenant. There’s plenty of negative and positive lessons to be learned in every part of the Bible.
More importantly, to me, is which one a person prefers. Do we want a God of peace, or a God of war? My experience of many so-called Christians is that they would rather have a God that smites their foes than a God who welcomes repentance and good works. They preach a God of control, not freedom. The worship a God who lives in a Kingdom of war and violence, not a peaceable realm. We cannot, it seems, cure ourselves of our own warring madness (the hymn God of Grace and God of Glory describes this beautifully), but when we teach that God prefers war over peace, we have perverted the message. War may be our nature, but peace is God’s hope. If we worked towards God’s desires rather than our own, we might have a little less war, and a little more peace. Which would be good, don’t you think?
Prayer – Holy God, please – please! – cure us of our warring madness and teach us peace. Amen.
Today’s art is “The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks (1833).