Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014, 351 pp. Welcome to the third (and final) installment in my review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan’s book Did God Really Command Genocide? For part 2 click here. The second installment of this review ended […]
genocide
Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 2)
Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014. 351 pp. This is the second (and penultimate) installment in my review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan’s book Did God Really Command Genocide? For part 1 click here. I recommend readers begin with part […]
Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 1)
Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014. 351 pp. Given the spate of books recently published on the Bible and violence, you might think this is a newly discovered problem. That would be a misreading, however, for theologians have wrestled with this […]
What’s splitting your church redux
A few years ago I wrote an article titled “What’s Splitting Your Church? Worship Music or Genocide?” This month Regent College (my Alma mater) is featuring it in their publication “Regent World.”
58. Matthew Flannagan on God and Genocide
In his bestselling 2006 book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins throws down the gauntlet against the Judeo-Christian God. While much of Dawkins’ book is devilishly quotable polemic, he arguably reaches his rhetorical apex with this oft-quoted passage: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud […]
The Mercy of Hell? A Review of The Skeletons in God’s Closet (Part 1)
Joshua Ryan Butler. The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War. Thomas Nelson, 2014. The title was the first thing that drew me to this book. One hears a lot about the skeletons in God’s closet, so a book that takes the topic by the proverbial […]
Joshua 6 in Zondervan’s True Images Bible
I have long been interested in the way that Bibles interact with the violent portions of scripture. In “How do you teach God’s genocide to children?” I noted how the Zondervan Adventure Bible for children deals (or doesn’t deal) with the genocidal mandate in Deuteronomy 20. Here below I have another example, this one drawn […]
Outraged at homosexuality, but unaware of genocide, and not angered by poverty?
You have to wonder how World Vision could be so out of touch with their constituency that they would think any policy change regarding homosexuality would be anything less than catastrophic? As soon as they lifted the ban on hiring practicing homosexuals, the response was swift as conservative evangelicals across North America vocally expressed their outrage […]
William Lane Craig on genocide as a sign of purity
This is the tenth installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s defense of the Canaanite genocide. For part nine, “The Canaanite genocide as cruel and unusual punishment in extremis,” click here. We rejoin the podcast at (14:16). Just prior to this point Craig had argued that God did not wrong the Canaanite adults […]
The Canaanite genocide as cruel and unusual punishment in extremis
We’ve now arrived at the ninth installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast “Richard Dawkins and Driving out the Canaanites.” And you’re thinking to yourself: “Geez, isn’t this overkill? Move on Rauser.” And I’m thinking: “That pun was in poor taste. And I’m not moving on, because there is just so much […]
William Lane Craig thinks the Canaanites should’ve run! (And too bad if they didn’t.)
This is the eight installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast “Richard Dawkins and Driving out the Canaanites.” In this installment we’re going to return to an excerpt from the podcast which I transcribed originally in part 5. In this section Craig argues that the Canaanites had time to “get out of […]
William Lane Craig on killing the Canaanite infants
This is the seventh installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast on “Richard Dawkins and Driving out the Canaanites.” You can find the sixth installment here. As in previous installments, we’ll begin with Craig’s own words as we join his discussion at 10:57 into the podcast: “So the only moral question that […]
Could the punishment for legalized abortion be a national abortion?
In my article “William Lane Craig’s defense of genocide based on a reprobate culture” I pointed out that the “reprobate culture” rationale provided for slaughtering all the Canaanites could apply equally well to the United States based on the argument provided by Clay Jones. Bilbo replied by suggesting that one could plausibly argue for the […]
William Lane Craig’s defense of genocide based on a reprobate culture
This article is the sixth installment in my series “On William Lane Craig’s defense of the Canaanite genocide”. (You can find part five here.) At this point we join the conversation at 10:32 into the podcast when Craig observes: “When you think how utterly corrupt these Canaanite cultures were — practicing child sacrifice to their gods, […]
