War.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions wars of conquest and extermination.
“Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight” (Ps. cxliv, 1).
The Old Testament is largely a record of wars and massacres. God is represented as “a man of war.” At his command whole nations are exterminated.
“Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, ... and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein” (Num. xxxiii, 52, 53).
“And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them” (Deut. vii, 16).
“Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them” (Deut. xx, 16, 17).
“And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.... And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles with fire” (Num. xxxi, 7–10).
Moses is angry because the women and children have been saved, and from this fiendish conqueror comes the mandate: “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man.”
The mourning remnants of twenty thousand families are thus to be destroyed. The fathers, far away, lie still in death beside the smouldering ruins of their once fair homes; and now their wives and little ones are doomed to die. The signal is sounded, and the massacre begins. The mothers, on bended knees, with tearful eyes and pleading lips, are ruthlessly cut down. Their prattling babes, in unsuspecting innocence, smile on the uplifted sword as if it were a glittering toy, and the next moment feel it speeding through their little frames. The daughters only are spared—spared to be the wretched slaves of those whose hands are red with the life-blood of their dear ones.
And this is but a prelude to the sanguinary scenes that are to follow.
“Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon; behold I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.”
“And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones of every city, we left none to remain” (Deut. ii, 24, 25, 34).
“The Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we smote him until none was left to him remaining. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities.... And we utterly destroyed them as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city” (Deut. iii, 3–6).
Moses dies, and Joshua next leads Jehovah’s troops.
“And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho.... And they utterly destroyed all that was in that city, both man and woman, young and old” (Josh. vi, 2, 21).
“And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand.... And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand.... And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever” (Josh. viii, 18, 25, 28).
“And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel with him, unto Lachish, and encamped against it, and fought against it. And the Lord delivered Lachish into the hands of Israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein” (Josh. x, 31, 32).
“And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and all Israel with him; and they encamped against it, and fought against it. And they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day” (Josh. x, 34, 35).
Thus city after city falls, and nation after nation is vanquished, until thirty-one kingdoms have been destroyed. And still there “remaineth much land to be possessed,” and many millions more of unoffending people to be slain to please this God of War.
Christ came, heralded as the “Prince of Peace.” But he “came not to send peace but a sword”—a sword his own arm was too weak to wield, but which his followers have used with dire effect. Expunge from the history of Christendom the record of its thousand wars and little will remain. From the time that Constantine inscribed the emblem of the cross upon his banner to the present hour, the church of Christ has been upheld by the sword. Five million troops maintain its political supremacy in Europe to-day. To “express our national acknowledgment of Almighty God as the source of all authority in civil government; of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations, and of his revealed will as of supreme authority;” in short, to make this a “Christian nation,” as Bible moralists demand, means a standing army in this country of five hundred thousand men.
The Bible has inspired more wars in Christendom than all else combined. It is a fountain of blood, and the crimson rivers that have flowed from it would float the navies of the world.