A defense of Christianity

I recently found it necessary to write an email to a dear friend of mine (an atheist who is over-fond of arguing anything and everything) in response to a comment she posted on a Christian friend's Facebook post, which was roughly about how Muhammad and the Qur'an are false.

While I originally wanted to deal with the issue privately (hence email instead of another Facebook comment), it occurred to me that someone else might find something useful in what I had to say or else would be able to correct me if I'm wrong or missing something important.

It is long because my friend brought up many different points and I wanted to try to address them all. Her words are italicized.

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I know it's been sort of a long time and I really did mean to finish writing and sending this much earlier, but the overwhelming busyness of finals week and winter break managed to get in the way.

I saw the comment you posted on ______'s wall post about a month ago and it bothered me enough to want to make a few things clear because upon looking at the passages of Scripture you cite I can't help but wonder if you even read some of them yourself. I apologize that this is really long for an email but you brought up a lot of different points in your comment and it's taken a lot of time for me to go back and study the contexts of many of them so I would appreciate if you read all that I have to say.

Firstly, many of your examples seem to be trying to attribute the actions of men to God. The Bible contains countless examples of people who sin because it is a part of human nature. Honestly, if the Bible only told stories of perfect people who always did perfect, righteous things I wouldn't believe it one bit. Do you know any perfect, sinless people? I don't.

Secondly, it is important to understand some things about judgment. God is holy. He cannot sin, nor can He tolerate sin. It's not part of His character. Thus, once Adam and Eve sinned, they could not be permitted to stay within God's presence in the garden. He created all these people to have a relationship with them, but they rejected Him, choosing instead to follow their own desires and sin against Him. God is holy and just, the Judge of the world, and the sins of His creations cannot go without consequence. The result in the Old Testament is often the purging of the world of many people at once. God knows the actions of each and every person and He judges the individual accordingly.

"Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments." (Rev. 16:7)

An essay on Divine Judgment can be found here: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:iv_a7wVXnbkJ:biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org/documents/judgment%2520in%2520bible.pdf
I have not read the entire thing as it's a bit lengthy but it provides some general information on the nature of God's judgment in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible if you're interested.

What Christianity is about is God's making a way to live eternally in His presence. That cannot happen without the judgment of sin, and so He poured out His wrath for the sins of man on His Son Jesus, so that the price of the sins of any person who accepts this one and only way into the presence of God (heaven) has been paid (atonement). God then declares the person righteous before God (justification). Christianity is based on the New Testament way of justification by faith. Old Testament sacrifices were figurative of the sacrifice of Jesus, which was sufficient for all and did not need to be repeated. Sanctification is the process that follows "being saved" and involves learning how to become more like Christ.

See Hebrews 10.

I have broken up your points to try to address as many of them as I can. You made a lot of them :)

1. Jesus is descended from a prostitute (Rahab).
This is true. But what is your point? Are you saying that the actions of one's ancestor's determine if one is good/bad/worthy to be followed? We're pretty much all screwed then aren't we?
Yes, Rahab was a prostitute. However, in Scripture she is commended for her faith in God and not her occupation and not her lies. It was her faith and saving the Israelites that resulted in her being honored in Jesus' genealogy.

2. And god directed the Israelites to rape/kill thousands of people (Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Ezekiel 9:5-7).
Judges: The chapter you cite says absolutely nothing about the direction of God. Instead it says "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (v. 25). These are the decisions of men.
Numbers: This is a more valid example of your claim. It is God's judgment of the nation of Midianites.
Deut. 20: The Isrealites are told to utterly destroy the previous occupants of the promised land because mixing with them is what later causes their downfalls.
Deut. 22: This is the law regarding adultery. I don't see how it contributes much to your point unless you think the death penalty should never have been used in ancient times. It wasn't exclusively used by the Israelites.
Ezekiel: This is the judgment upon those who do not repent. They had been warned about what would come if they continued in their sins. God is not arbitrary with judgment.

3. And a lot of the men in the bible had multiple wives.
Having multiple wives is not a part of Christianity. In general, it was done because it was part of the culture of the time or because those men were being disobedient or unfaithful to God's commands.

4. And God directed people to burn humans to him (Judges 11:29-40, 1 Kings 13:1-2... See More, 2 Kings 23:20-25 ).
Judges: God does not tell Jephthah to burn his daughter. Jephthah makes a foolish vow to do so. It is his foolishness combined with his daughter's faith and willingness for it to be so that result in her being burned.
1 Kings: There is no direction here from God to burn people. There is a prophecy lamenting the actions of Josiah doing this.
2 Kings: Again, I see no order from God that specifically tells Josiah to burn the priests. It is an account of the judgment that came upon those who disobeyed God's law.

5. And to stone women who weren't virgins upon their wedding (Deuteronomy 22:20-21.)
God cannot tolerate the sin of adultery. Our culture today might be very different but that doesn't make it right.

6. And kill ANYONE (even your sibling/family) who doesn't follow Christianity (Deuteronomy 13:7-12.)
I'd think it quite hard to follow Christianity before Christ came into the world. The Israelites were told to follow God. This is the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and promised them great things if they followed Him. The gods of other nations that are warned about here were false, and choosing to follow them was an act of rejecting and hating the God who saved their lives. Rejecting and hating God is sin, and according to God the just reward of sin is death.

7. And let's not forget the killing of all the first-borns of Egypt (Exodus 12:29-30). Numbers 25:1-9 too.
Exodus: Pharaoh severely oppressed the Israelites and refused to listen to God's warnings. He also refused to believe any other sign that God had given him. God is glorified in both mercy and judgment. He could have justifiably killed all the Egyptians but instead did what was necessary to free His chosen people.
Numbers: This is similar to #6. God set the people of Israel apart from the rest of the world. He chose them as His special people who would follow Him and in return be protected by Him. When they wandered away from Him and threatened to pull the faithful ones away into their lives of sin God intervened to protect His people from following a path that would lead to their own destruction.

These crimes were COMMON in ALL regions/sects/groups/organisations/cults/moon-worshiping hippy communes in this time. EVERYONE converted by the sword, really. All religions have a bloody, bloody history, and hence it is hard to vilify one without analyzing your own.

I would argue the crimes are the result of human sin, not religion. Everyone is a sinner, including Christians, and while that does not excuse their actions, it makes no sense to blame them on God. My relationship with Christ is based on faith, not killing people for His sake, not condemning others for His sake, and not for vilifying other religions for His sake. It is arguable that Christianity is not really a religion, but I don't think it matters either way what we call it in this context. The human race has a bloody history, and humans are usually tied closely to religions and worldviews that influence their actions, so one might cite religion as a cause for a conflict, but humans will usually do what they want regardless.

But converted by the sword? Sure, that might be the case for many, but not for the early Christians. Christians were brutally persecuted in the 1st century. They continue to be persecuted around the world today. If everyone converted by the sword there would be no Christianity, because it was on the receiving end of the sword from the start.

Finally, the New Testament freed all Christians from the Old Testament law, so drawing on it as a way to undermine the Christianity of today is usually irrelevant. (Colossians 2:13-14, Galatians 3:13).

Why do people argue so much about this? People long for security in their beliefs. When people's worldviews are opposed they find it necessary to try to find security by finding ways to strengthen their own faith or put down others as false. My Christianity directly opposes your Atheism, your Atheism directly opposes my Christianity. That doesn't mean we have to kill each other over it.

One of the reasons I haven't pursued analyzing other religions too much is because I know how tempting it would be to want to rip them apart. I don't think that would help me in any way. Don't take this to mean that I follow my own faith blindly simply because it was the first I was introduced to either. My faith is grounded more firmly than that but I do believe we've discussed this before and to do so again here would be going a little farther off topic than I have time for right now, though if you have questions, feel free to ask.

Thank you for the challenge, and thank you if you read this far,

Melissa