Why I Worship a God of Genocide (and other horrible ways to begin a wedding toast)

Canaan Conquest, Oliver O'Donovan, and Building God's House

“Why do you worship a God who commissioned genocide?” is a question I get a lot. The idea behind it comes from the book of Joshua, where God commissions Israel to conquer the land of Canaan. As the story goes, Israel “kills everyone, men and women, young and old…They even killed every cow, sheep, and donkey” (Joshua 6:21).

Which isn’t great PR – especially when you’re trying to communicate with a generation that’s, statistically speaking,¹ more concerned with human rights than any other in history.  

me n the boys talkin’ theodicy

There are so many ways to respond to this question, but two general mindsets. One side over-romanticizes the Canaan conquest, like merciless killing is heroic and anyone who questions it must be a liberal snowflake. On the other end, there are Christians who don’t think God ever asked Israel to commit violence because, Jesus, the “exact imprint” of God, was non-violent; thus, all instances of violence in the Old Testament must be either (1) metaphorical literary devices or (2) the human misinterpretation God’s will.

Personally, I’m not a fan of either angle. But over the years I’ve heard plenty explanations that try to meet somewhere in the middle.²

(Like, kind of a crazy amount of explanations. I think there’s some rule that says that if you want to work in theology, you have to publish your own unique explanation or else you’ll lose tenure)

Here’s a few:

• Some people suggest it’s best to just not worry about the morals of the Canaanite conquest because God’s plan is perfect. Cool, but not all that helpful for anyone who’s even mildly curious about ethics or the moral nature of the universe.

• Others say the language is just hyperbolic – as in, they didn’t literally kill everyone; it’s just an exaggeration to make a point. Again, cool. But there’s little evidence that this is an exaggeration, and how do we make sense of other “commands” if there’s a decent probability He’s being hyperbolic half the time?

• Another argument is that the places Israel conquered were just military outposts, not residential districts full of civilians. So, in this sense, Israel probably only killed a few soldiers at most. This definitely seems better, morally speaking. But it also neglects that the text does say that “women” and “children” were killed, not just soldiers.

• Finally, Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser makes the argument that the only people killed in the land of Canaan were the demonic, sub-human offspring of the Nephilim-human inbreeding from way back in Genesis 6. Which, yes, sounds bonkers. But if you look through his research,³ it may have more basis than some of these other theories. However, if we’re trying to explain genocide to someone who doesn’t understand biblical theology, this explanation would likely make you come across as someone who needs a quaalude or lobotomy.

elevation worship drafting out hit song ‘do it again’, circa 1405 bc

I think there’s bits of truth in all these explanations. But it wasn’t until reading the theologian Oliver O’Donovan that I found an answer that, in my opinion, was satisfying. He wrote,

Like the elder brother of the prodigal son, Christians reading the book of Joshua need to learn how to ask other questions before the moral ones: the history of divine revelation, like the waiting father in the parable, is not concerned only with justifying the good and condemning the bad. This Old Testament history is concerned only to reveal the impact of the divine reality upon the human in election and judgment.⁴

Christians have always struggled making sense of the God of the Old Testament in light of the Christ of the New Testament. But chances are, this happens mainly because we treat morality or ethics as the single most important lens to read the Bible through.

This, like O’Donovan says, is the same posture that the elder son takes in the prodigal son story. The elder son is the idealist, the rule-keeping moralist that wants to paint everything in terms of good versus evil, right versus wrong. But as the arc of the parable shows, God’s vision of justice is rarely that simple.

To frame this another way, interpreting the Bible through a strictly moral lens would make us read the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel and assume that God should take immediate “eye-for-an-eye” style vengeance on Cain. But He doesn’t. Instead, it says the Yahweh puts His “mark” on Cain and declares that if anyone kills him, God will take vengeance upon them sevenfold (Gen. 4:15-16).

Now, if this happened today, the court of public opinion would put Cain up for the death sentence. But rather than abandon Cain, God continually protects him.⁵

Why? Because God’s covenant towards His people doesn’t seem to change depending on who did right and who did wrong.

Cain was a jealous murderer; Joshua and company, regardless of our interpretations, killed people; Thomas doubted.

Maybe we’re missing the point by trying to mine every single story for directly applicable ethical advice. To bring it back to the prodigal son story, maybe our takeaway should be that in the end, regardless of morals, both sons ended up with God.⁶ The elder son and the prodigal son. Joshua and Rahab the Canaanite prostitute. Abel and Cain.

Over and above judgements about who did what, who’s the victim and who’s the perpetrator, the oppressor and the oppressed, what if the absolute most significant thing is just that these characters were all with God?

And in and through Jesus – the One that all of that history of brotherly strife, genocide, and oppression was leading up to – God provided the way for us to be with Him always.

In Jesus, the “moral incompatibilities of the Old Testament aren’t overlooked, but set right.”⁷

Meaning, if you read the Old Testament and feel disturbed every now and then, you’re probably reading it as an orthodox Christian. So, your concern isn’t new – Christians have always struggled making sense of Joshua in light of the crucified and risen Yeshua.

Rather than ignore the Old Testament or allegorize it away, we can read it as a history in which shocking things happen, but not for their own sake, but for the sake of demonstrating how God has and will continue to set all things right through Jesus.

friends n me when the last rodeo went south

This also shows why our ethics need to focus on what the whole Biblical narrative is constructing. We shouldn’t build a moral vision for how to live by cherry picking a story from Joshua, a law from Deuteronomy, a command from the Sermon on the Mount, and an exhortation from Ephesians. This strategy isn’t helpful. It leaves us with a scattered list of rules that’ll probably bring more confusion than righteousness.

Instead, we have to build a moral vision through the entire scope of the Bible. It’s not about stacking one moral brick on top of another until we’ve racked up all 613 OT and 1,050 NT commands. It’s about looking at what all the bricks are supposed to build when brought together.⁸

In other words, what is the purpose behind the laws? Why are they there? What does their fulfillment look like?

The answer is, of course, Jesus (Matt. 5:15-17).

I don’t worship God because I fully understand every move He makes at every moment in history. I worship God because I believe that the house He’s building is more beautiful than I can possibly imagine.

me writing this

(P.S. I’m what you might call a “non-scholarly theologian.” I prefer communicating in plain, clear, conversational language. I do write the bulky kind of theology that no one including my mother ever reads, but I enjoy this style more. That said, even though I still try to write with scholarly integrity, there are definitely some points that could use more explanation/clarification. Please feel free to offer advice if you notice big issues/heresy. But for teeny ones, please refer to the fact that this is a Substack post that needed to be kept a digestible length. Cheow, love ya)

1. Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think (New York: Flatiron Books, 2020). See also The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley and Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker.

2. Charlie Trimm, The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022).

3. Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015).

4. Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2^nd edn, 1994), 157-158.

5. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, Revised edn., 2019), 83-87, 94-96.

6. This point is made beautifully throughout Skye Jethani, With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God (New York: ThomasNelson, 2011).

7. O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 159.

8. O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 200-201.