Last week’s events were a stab in the conscience for those who preach peace and want it to prevail over violence in the world. Two incidents cross the region captured the imagination of people! In Kenya, a group of Islamic militants hijacked a bus from Garissa and by the time they were done with it, a number of Christians had been gunned down at pointblank. I don’t want to count because it hurt. Then in neighbouring Uganda, a woman who’s now known as “the maid from hell” was captured on camera forcefully feeding a child who she later violently threw on the floor and stepped on her back with both her feet. The two incidents, happening quite some distance from each other, show that we are always living under the shadow of death. And then we ask ourselves, where are those who are supposed to keep us safe and secure? Where did we lose our human souls? However, God disapproves of such kind of unbridled violence in this world. When Cain killed his brother Abel, the first known of such violence in Christendom, his punishment was immediate. But some critics of the Old Testament always say that our God condoned violence, citing a number of verses from the Old Testament when even God sanctioned violence. Even the Koran says that if you are not “in the faith, then you deserve death.” But looking at it clinically, God does not condone death. The Old Testament was about another era. Yet when Moses was handed the commandments, God was very categorical; “Though shall never kill.” It’s very unfortunate that every one of us has been reading and twisting the Scriptures to suit their own interest. But as Christians, we should always be guided by these examples. Jesus always healed the sick. If it were for God to kill, then he could never have sent his only begotten son to die so that we may be free from our sins. God does not condone violence. When Jesus was facing his own version of violence, he said to Simon Peter and his disciples: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” But many of us are killing in the name of religion? But it behooves yourself, whom are you practicing or killing for? I asked my religious leaders today. And they told me this: “God does not command killing. Those who do violence to each other are working at the behest of Satan.” This was a statement from a visiting Catholic minister from Kenya. But what I got from his statement is that God Himself hates violence. In Isaiah 60:18 the Bible says: “Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.” So, why did God condone such terrible violence in the Old Testament? The fact that God commanded the killing of entire nations in the Old Testament has been the subject of harsh criticism from opponents of Christianity for some time. That there was violence in the Old Testament is indisputable. The question is whether Old Testament violence is justifiable and condoned by God. It must be remembered that God gave the Canaanite people more than sufficient time to repent of their evil ways but in vain.
