Re-Visiting the Biblical God

- G.B. Singh

Being liberal and open-minded, I have no problem in delving upon the subject of Biblical God (BG) again given the circumstances and the need to go deeper than the last time when we explored the issue of slavery. This was published in August 2005 issue of SikhSpectrum.

The discussion was followed by some rebuttals, and it was satisfying to see different views on the questionable passages in the Bible. To an inquisitive and rational mind, those commands of BG promoting slavery should have been a wake up call to look at BG with a critical mind. Instead, I received two replies that encouraged me to reopen the subject of Biblical God. Sam Harris in his famous book, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason said, “The God of Abraham [Biblical God] is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.”

1. Jatinder P. Gill is a pastor of BETHLEHEM PUNJABI CHURCH located in New York City. Upon my inquiry, he responded to my article on slavery. While I respect his personal views I couldn’t believe what I was reading. To what extent will one go to protect the BG is beyond belief. Gill’s point of mellowing down the unsavory doctrine of slavery to an acceptable doctrine of “employer-employee” relationship or related typologies has already been discussed in the rebuttals following my original article on slavery.

Pastor Gill told me in another e-mail that the Christian people are doing, and have done, good deeds. From this presupposition, he most likely is extrapolating that BG must be a good one.

2. Jass Singh responded to my inquiry through my “dialogue” with another reverend. I respect Jass, and beyond us addressing each other as brother, I know hardly anything about him. Oddly, his reply left me staggered. I have come across many American Christian apologists and understand their vocabulary. Some use the sophisticated art of the language of logic, hypothesis, and induction to reason themselves out of the quandary; thereby, turning self-evident questionable ideas of BG to those that sound reasonably good. Jass Singh’s coming across as another apologist is something out of the ordinary and it took me by surprise. Like Pastor Gill, he too failed to address slavery as well as BG’s tales of atrocities. Like Pastor Gill, Jass took refuge in the concocted tale of Christianity’s positive impacts on those societies fortunate enough to hear the “true Christian message.”

During my extensive travels in the last thirty years, I have indeed come across wonderful Christians. So many of them have helped me and I have seen them helping others on a routine basis. Recognizing this as currently factual, I am not blind to the history. In Christendom, for roughly 1,000 years, ever since Christianity reigned over Europe, Christians committed carnage on the Jewish people. These never-ending bloody episodes of anti-Semitism gives a glimpse of the relationship of Europe’s Christian majority with its minority Jewish neighbors! The New Testament is replete with anti-Semitic verses.

If we believe in the “true Christian message” why did Christians in the past not follow it? Around early 1500s, Christians from Europe spread out beyond their borders to subjugate other peoples and in the process they colonized much of the world. Consequently, unparallel devastations of the indigenous peoples and their cultures resulted. Those of us who live in the United States are aware of African-Americans and their plight as slaves.

Pastor Gill and Brother Jass Singh appear ignorant of these facts. Here is another example closer to the heart: During British Christians colonizing of “India” signs were put up that read: “Indians and Dogs not allowed.” British Christians joined the Brahmins and other upper-caste elements of the Indian society in exploiting the Untouchables. How can we forget the genocide of the native populations in the Americas, Africa, and Australia? The list of atrocities is a long one.

Gill and Singh should pay attention to Christian history. Both made use of deception and were miles off from addressing the issue of slavery. Seemingly, Jass Singh copied a good section of his rebuttal from the website hosted by Brethren Revival Fellowship. Provided he had read the Bible critically and had he tried to write his own views, I am sure he would have executed a better job. I urge both these brothers to first read the Bible carefully, and independently of the apologists material.

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Rebuttal From Pastor Gill

Almost all the references that have quoted here are not talking about forced labor or slavery. In all these places God is not telling people to go and make slaves instead the context here is about the relationship between employee and the employer. Those days it was prevalent tradition to hire servant for home or work, people would go and buy them from the market by paying them money. It was not too long ago; in fact not even a decade ago a similar kind of thing was practice in Punjab also. When Zimidars will pay some amount of money to a particular person and he would work for them stipulated years under the terms and conditions settle beforehand by the both parties.

All the references which you have mentioned if you read them carefully without any preconceived ideas about the terms Slave or Slavery, then you will understand God in all these places is not promoting any slavery but He is telling people how to behave at work.

How the employer has to behave and how the employee has to behave. And how they should follow rules and regulation without doing any injustice to each other.

Instructions for living

How husbands should live

How wives should live

How parents should live

How children should live

How Masters (Employer) should live

How servants (Employee) should live etc.

1Timothy 6:1-2 Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.

2 And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things

Colossians 3:20-25 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

22 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.

23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

Colossians 4:1 Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Ephesians 5:22-33 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.

24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,

27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.

29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.

31 "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesian 6:1-9 Children, obeys your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

2 "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise:

3 "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."

4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

5 Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ;

6 not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,

7 with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men,

8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

9 And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

When instructions were given to the employee at the same time employer also is warned. Following one of the instances from the Bible will help you understand how some of the masters (Employers) were sensitive to the needs of their servants (Employees).

Luke 7:1-10 Now when He concluded all His sayings in the hearing of the people, He entered Capernaum.

2 And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die.

3 So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant.

4 And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving,

5 "for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue."

6 Then Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, "Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof.

7 "Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.

8 "For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

9 When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, "I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"

10 And those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well who had been sick.

Jesus himself said Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

I must mention here that these systems were not introduced by God upon the society, they were already practiced there but now God is admonishing them how to work justly in the then present system.

When you talk about God’s way, He is always a Deliverer and there is no partiality in Him.

Galations 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

God’s standard….

Colossains 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

In Bible God always rebuked injustice and punished for that sin. God delivered whenever they cried in their situations. Exodus 1:11-14 we read about slavery forced upon people and God set the people free

From their bondages by through a man named Moses. Exodus 3:7-10

Exodus 1:11-14 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.

12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

13 So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.

14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage-in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Ex 3:7-10 And the LORD said: "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

8 "So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

9 "Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

10 "Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."

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Rebuttal From Brother Jass Singh

Dear Sardarji G.B. Singh,

I understand that you have been having a discussion via e-mail with Pastor Harinder Singh Sahota. He has asked me to respond to your question on slavery & the God of the Bible. It appears that you are interested in the topic of slavery for the purpose of disproving the God of the Bible as the True God.

I have read your e-mails to Pastor Sahota as well as the link to SikhSpectrum. Judging by the wonderful photo of you on this website, you must have a very charming & charismatic personality and I look forward to a fruitful exchange with you and maybe the pleasure of meeting you in person.

The essence of your argument can be summarized as follows:

Major Premise: Any deity who promotes/commands slavery cannot be the True God.

Minor Premise: The God of the Bible promotes/commands slavery.

Conclusion: The God of the Bible is not the True God.

This is a perfectly logical and valid argument & the conclusion is necessarily true if the premises are true. But there is a problem with your minor premise which necessarily renders the conclusion false.

Your basic mistake is of interpretation (hermeneutics). Bible verses taken out of context, and out of the culture in which they were intended, and thousands of years removed from the socio-economic setting in which the text was written violate the basic rules of hermeneutics and will inevitably lead to confusion and erroneous presuppositions, premises, and conclusions. Your minor premise that the God of the Bible promotes/commands slavery is in fact false. You erroneously believe that there are moral and ethical problems with the God of the Bible.

Archaeological evidence shows that slavery was universal and very widespread throughout the Middle East in ancient times as well as during the Roman Empire. The Israelites simply adopted the custom of their many neighboring cultures when they enslaved people. The Bible assumes slavery because it existed when the Bible was written, but slaves were always very well-treated in Jewish society - the Bible merely describes management of that cultural/social condition in a just and humane manner. In the Old Testament every 50 years (jubilee) you were supposed to cancel all debts and free all slaves, but many preferred to remain slaves. It is true that one will not find in the Scriptures a call to actively abolish slavery. In the New Testament, the goal was not to change the “social” issues of the day but to get the gospel out, for the greatest slavery is not social but spiritual – slavery to sin, which masters humanity. It is important that we do not confuse God's use of an institution (or of evil) with His approval of it. The first of the holy festivals given to the Israelites is the Feast of the Passover, which is to commemorate their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. In the celebration of the Passover, the Lord painted for us a picture of our ultimate deliverance from the bondage and slavery of sin. Year after year, the memorial of the Passover reminds the world that God does not approve of slavery.

It is estimated that there were something like 60,000,000 slaves in the Roman Empire including doctors! You must also remember that many of theses slaves chose to be slaves because they at least got food, water, clothing & shelter (much like today when people prefer to be in jail). For the Church to have encouraged slaves to revolt and rebel and rise against their masters would have been fatal. It would simply have caused civil war, mass murder, and the complete discredit of the Church. Neither Jesus nor Paul advocated social revolution which would lead to the immediate emancipation of every slave. Such a sudden upheaval would have resulted in indescribable misery for many slaves who depended on their masters for a living. Instead, what happened was that as the centuries went on, Christianity so permeated civilization that in the end the slaves were freed voluntarily and not by force. Here is a tremendous lesson. It is the proof that neither men nor the world nor society can be reformed by force and by legislation. The reform must come through the slow penetration of the Spirit of Christ into the human situation. Things have to happen in God's time, not in ours. What the Bible teaches is that love coming from both sides (master and slaves) will melt cruelty into kindness, and in so doing, despots will be changed into kind employers and slaves will become willing servants. All will become brothers and sisters in Christ.

The New Testament does not advocate the overthrow of slavery by forcible revolution. Rather, it condemns and removes the abuses of slavery by striking at its roots, by lifting up the power of the Gospel to change hearts, and by setting forth principles for dealing with fellow human beings:
1) All human beings are made in the image and likeness of God and are worthy of respect (Genesis 1:28).
2) All human beings are loved by God who cares for us (John 3:16).
3) All Christians are to love their neighbors as themselves (Matthew 22:39).

The abuses of slavery have disappeared wherever the Word of God has been widely and faithfully taught. Christianity never had as its immediate goal an attempt to change society, but to change people. And to the degree that people change, to that extent, society and its structures change. And so wherever the true Christian message has made deep inroads, slavery has been eliminated.

Conclusion

The fact that the God of the Bible did not advocate/promote/command slavery means that your minor premise is false, which means your conclusion is also false and invalid.

PS. In one of your e-mails you stated “Only in the 19th and 20th centuries was our human civilization been able to put a ban on this malignant institution.” This is a false statement. Slavery is still practiced around the world. In Sudan for example, Christians are sold into slavery at $500 a head. In China, Christians are being forced to perform slave labor in concentration camps. Parents are jailed for merely teaching their children about the Gospel. The Geneva based International Labor Organization released a report in March, 1993 that says, "Tens of millions of people around the globe, including children as young as six, are working in bondage in dangerous and degrading conditions that often involve 18 hour workdays, beatings, and sexual abuse." The ILO reports that slavery like these practices exist in Sudan, Haiti, Pakistan, Mauritania, India, Thailand, Peru, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. See Time magazine, March 22, 1993. Human civilization has NOT eradicated slavery, for humanity is itself enslaved to sin.