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A Moral Critique of the Book of Exodus

Today @ Healingsprings fellowship

Last week I noted that the Book of Exodus is problematic. And that it promotes a sense of entitlement which byproducts include: nationalism, colonialism, slavery, unfair trade, exploitation, genocide, and religious wars.

No matter which angle we treat the Text from, we are still faced with these problems. Hence Prior argues that,

[a]ny association of God with the destruction of people must be subjected to an ethical analysis. (p. 2).

This is one of many challenges facing religion today, hence the need for critical studies. Sadly, no critical studies are handled in churches or seminaries. In fact the latter is designed to ‘inseminate’ (hence the term seminary, meaning to plant a seed) students with traditional doctrines.

As a result we have a faith which fails miserable in addressing the challenges facing humanity.

So, how do we reconcile the message of universal love and kindness taught and preached by Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, when we are presented with an angry God that will not let go until he sees the brutal death and blood of his son as a ‘sacrifice’ or ‘atonement’.

Even if we go with the idea that a transition took place from the Old to the New Testament

  • how do we then reconcile the fact that even with the death of Jesus as an ‘atonement’ for sin we are still faced with the possibility of punishment here on earth (by God or/and the Devil) for non-compliance, and eternal judgement in hell fire after death?

These doctrines are grossly contradictory. It will seem that if humanity relied on Christianity it is destined to doom.

To this end there are issues with the idea of the Bible being ‘infallible’, because the writings and doctrines it presents are largely disjointed, as such, they offer contradictory angles on major moral and social issues, which breeds fundamentalism.

These Texts were written by people trying to make sense of their world through the lenses of their religious framework. Some of their ideas are useful, others pose major problems, especially on human rights and morality.

Hence new coverts to Christianity were called to faith almost as a crash course amidst persecution, owing to the complexity of trying to teach Judaism as foundations, before moving to the revisions of doctrines carried out by Jesus.

In similar vein the notion that Christianity is cast in stone is dangerous, it leaves no room for advancement – which is clearly what Jesus was doing with similar doctrines in Judaism.

Hence the call today for revision of Christian doctrines, hence the call for theological education through the instrument of tertiary institutions, not seminaries, especially for those called to lead churches and parachurch organisations.

Join us at 3pm today for the series: From Order to Chaos: a study on Exodus

St John the Evangelist Hall, Church Rd, Sidcup DA14 6BX

Healingsprings fellowship: Human Capital Development

http://www.healingsprings.org.uk

Reachout | Revive | Recover

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Today @ Healingsprings fellowship

Who truly am I? The quest for a sense of identity: an exploration of the Book of Exodus

In previous weeks, we established that unlike traditional doctrine that the Old Testament was written by Moses, it was in fact written retrospectively by multiple contributors.

Most scholars now agree that the recording of their oral history, compilation and redaction started during the Exile, and was completed at some point after the Exile.

By way of background, amidst the disruption of political and spiritual institutions, and the destruction of The Temple; they needed to come to terms with their understanding of the Divine, and the geopolitics of their time.

Much like we have today, the competing powers of that era were: Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Persia. And as a result of the location of the Israelites (the bottle beck between Africa and the Middle East), geopolitically they became an important nation for these competing super powers.

Consequently the book of Exodus is not historic or biographical, but what is known as a founding myth. Although more comprehensive in terms of depth, it is not dissimilar to the founding myths of African Kingdoms like the Yoruba’s in western Nigeria, which is centred around a mythical figure – Oduduwa.

Therefore, it’s purpose was not to account for what happened in terms of historicity, but as a reflection and commentaries on the historical experience of the exile community in Babylon, and later Jerusalem.

Like all founding myths, the primary goal was to galvanise the people towards a metaphysical and physical identity, and for the purposes of nationhood.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see the positive impact of these stories on the Jewish people, and in the same vein, the detrimental impact of competing ideologies and beliefs on the psyche of people that have been enslaved and colonised.

In the absence of a central narrative that provides a sense of identity, co-existence and nation building becomes an impossible task.

Here lies the challenges of Africans and our dear brothers and sisters of African descent.

After years of being educated to believe that we are pagans, that we are backward, that we are cursed, that we are black, that we are uncivilised, that we are primitive, that we are uneducated, that we are ugly; and that God was angry with us because we were not Christians or Muslims.

Scriptural focus: Exodus chapters 7-9 (NRSV)

Join us at 3pm

St John the Evangelist Hall

Church Rd,

Sidcup DA14 6BX

Reachout | Revive | Recover

http://www.healingsprings.org.uk

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#spiritualintelligence

Thought Leaders Series: 2017

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. – (2 Timothy 2:15)

The popular way of reading the Bible is through one dimension. I don’t know why we do this, because we don’t read any other book that way. This, I believe is the biggest challenge facing the Church.

When we assume this position we take the text literally, and we read or study from our Worldview.

For example, the Fishermen from Galilee are seen as mere fishermen today. We fail to understand that like Jesus (whom many assume was self-taught), these men would have benefited from the reform by Ezra et al. As such they would have been in education from the age of 5 to at least 17, and at this point they would have studied a vocation in preparation for marriage.

A small amount would continue with further studies, thereby deferring marriage. In fact this was the only reason why a man could defer marriage. They would have studied Jewish history, commentaries, prophetic texts, wisdom texts, and poetry.

We also loose the sociopolitical forces at play at the time of the writing (the context), the opposing arguments, the prevailing worldview, and the author’s intent (the spirit of the writing).

In essence, these life transforming Texts becomes powerless when these dimensions are ignored. They become shallow and irrelevant in thoughts and deeds.

Reachout | Revive | Recover

http://www.healingsprings.org.uk