How Pacifist Christians should treat the Old Testament and warfare

It's a constant question, and one I've addressed before. I'm constantly frustrated by the lack of nuance I hear from both pacifist and non-pacifist Christians. If I wasn't a pacifist, I'd probably punch someone right through the internet (or try to, if there was an app for that). So here, in no particular order, are several things we all need to keep in mind, pacifist or not. 

1. Watch your words. 

Our words aren't neutral. They shape how we think. So we need to be careful with what we say. For example:

• How do we deal with God's violence in Scripture? Well, for starters, be clear that Scripture NEVER calls God violent. Violence is seen as something that evil people do, not God. So anyone who just starts with the assumption that God is violent needs to step back and justify what exactly they mean and why they see themselves as justified in describing God in this non-biblical way.
  
• Is it helpful to use the word "genocide" when you're talking about the conquest of Canaan? I think it isn't. Even if it's technically correct (debatable), that word is so loaded that it doesn't help us actually read the text well. It's a case of mapping a current concept back onto the biblical text in ways that obscure rather than clarify the text. 
• It may not even be helpful to use the term "war" when talking about some of the events, such as Jericho, Gideon, etc. Many of these events look nothing like modern (or ancient) war. Which brings me to my next point. 

2. Pay attention to the theological point of the text. 

Think about the story of Gideon. Does smashing jars, blowing trumpets and shouting--all leading to the enemy turning their swords on themselves--constitute a plan of war? The whole point of many Old Testament texts is that Israel doesn't have to fight wars like other nations because God delivers them. Especially in the miraculous holy "wars" in Joshua, Judges, and other miraculous victories like Moses at the Red Sea or Hezekiah's deliverance from Assyria in 2 Kings 19, the theological point is clear: trust God for your survival. Israel doesn't always do this, leading to the next point...

3. Not all Old Testament warfare is the same. 

Part of the problem here is the simplistic way that many Christians read the Old Testament, as though every character and every story is giving us some kind of example to follow. It's not. If you think just mentioning Joshua somehow validates participation in war, IT DOESN'T. Whether you look at ancient and medieval just war proponents like Augustine and Aquinas or modern ones like Paul Ramsey or Daniel Bell, no one assumes that just citing Old Testament warfare of any kind is enough to validate modern wars. 

Let me push this even further: when we interpret the Bible, we need to ask about the theological point being made (see no. 2 above). Even for the first hearers/readers of Joshua, these stories are not being told as examples to emulate. As these stories get passed on generation after generation in Israel, the moral of the story is not "go find a Canaanite to kill," it's "trust God for your survival, even though it's highly unconventional." What I find maddening about some contemporary interactions with the text of Joshua is that it doesn't even recognize this. For example, Peter Enns' book For the Bible Tells Me So... is, on the whole, a solid book when it comes to many aspects of hermeneutics, in part because he repeatedly emphasizes that we have to ask about the theological purpose and context of the original audience rather than imposing our own assumptions about what the text should say or how it should operate. Yet remarkably, Enns absolutely ignores his own central interpretive rule when it comes to Joshua and instead jumps right to hand-wringing about "how could God be so violent?" I guess this shows that, even for biblical scholars, old habits die hard. 

5. Abuse doesn't nullify proper use. 

Don't lump "what the Old Testament say about war" all in one basket. It doesn't work that way, and it ignores the complexity of the OT text. There's a difference between what happens when Israel trusts God for survival and when they lean on military might. Deuteronomy warns against kings importing military technology (horses and chariots) from Egypt. As J.H. Yoder points out, in the Old Testament, faith is a political virtue. Israel doesn't need a king like other kings because it's God who delivers them; they don't need to make treaties and trust foreign rulers to watch over them because God takes care of them. Of course, more often then not, Israel tries to secure their own peace and security by military means. But the OT is clear: some trust in chariots and horses, and some trust in the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 20:7). This is an either/or. It's not that God uses horses and chariots to protect his people; when his people use horses and chariots it shows they've abandoned God.  

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4. Not every text is supposed to be an example for us to follow.

So guess what? Did you guys know that a bunch of colonialist Christians cited Joshua to justify their horrific sins in a variety of places, including the Americas and South Africa? They must have been right in assuming that the message of that text is that God's people are now authorized to use lethal force on any people group occupying land they want, right? To quote Dwight Schrute: false. Let's not further perpetuate the sins of colonialism by assuming that they really got the meaning of those texts right. The abuse of those biblical texts doesn't mean we throw them out. It DOES mean that we need to be aware of how they've been misused so we don't do the same thing and so that we can confess our sins if need be. Speaking of sins...

6. Beware of subtle anti-Semitism in how people selectively address the problem of God's wrath in the Old Testament

This being the case, here are a few things to keep in mind: 

• God sets up Israel in the promised land as the firstfruits of his global project. Part of setting them up there involves (a) judging the other peoples who live in that land and (b) protecting his people from the threats of other nations. 
• The conquest narratives are non-repeatable. They are one-time events based on what's happening in salvation history at that point. They were not then nor are they now some kind of  apologetic that validates war per se. 
• God providentially uses Israel and other nations to keep each other in check. We see this all throughout the Old Testament. Yet, God's providential will is not the same as God's moral will. God uses nations and prideful kings to keep other nations and prideful kings in check. Yet the prophets nowhere say, "Go join those pagan armies because God is providentially using them." 
• Jesus came and announced God's kingdom. 
• That kingdom includes a posture of suffering servanthood, not only for Jesus but for his followers as well. Jesus calls his disciples to take up their cross and follow him. This means a willingness to die for one's enemies and friends. 
• Jesus' resurrection is validation that those who seek first the kingdom will receive all things, including their own life. We don't have to fight because Jesus has already defeated death. There are many things worse than dying (to quote Albus Dumbledore, not Jesus).
• God continues to use nations and prideful rulers to keep sin in check (Rom. 13). That was in place already in the Old Testament. God's people don't need to fulfill that role; they need to do what only they can do: preach the good news about Jesus and live out a new way of life together that proclaims to the powers that be that Jesus is Lord. The question is not whether everyone should act like Christians; we know they won't. The question is whether Christians will be faithful to who we are supposed to be. 
• God's people take their identity and marching orders from Jesus, not from how the surrounding culture tells them they should operate. If they are willing to kill one another for the sake of their country, they deny the truth of Christ in their actions. If they are willing to kill non-Christians for the sake of their country, they deny the love of Christ even for his enemies.   

7. The Bible is a story that's going somewhere. 

Here's how I often hear this line of thought going (please forgive me as I channel a sports-talk radio host in this section): how oh how can we possibly explain the violence of this nasty God who comes and wipes out the Canaanites in Joshua? This is a stumbling block unto my faith! Woe is me! This God is a moral monster. I'm going to have to do theological gymnastics to explain how this is not really God but people's projection of God (and ignore the question of why that's not the case for everything in the Bible, a la Feuerbach or Freud). I'm going to have to rearrange my entire theology because of the conquest narratives. 

Okay. But have you actually read the whole Old Testament? Do you know who gets the brunt of the wrath of God, with very detailed oracle after oracle after oracle about judgment, houses and fields destroyed, plague and pestilence, wild beasts run amok, severe famine to the point that people are cannibalizing their children, and so on? That's right: Israel. Yet, for some reason, this seems to just get ignored by people wrestling with the OT. 

"WHAT?!? God's going to destroy the Amorites? NO! My faith is shaken! How can I believe?" 
"Oh, God's going to send all hell against Israel? Meh." 

I'm fairly certain that people are not trying to be anti-Semitic here (although maybe I've got too much faith in people). I think it's more likely that (a) people haven't actually read the Old Testament and (b) people haven't actually thought about what they're reading. As I've pointed out elsewhere, the only people who think the conquest narratives are the most violent and troubling texts in the Old Testament are the people who haven't actually read the Old Testament. 

All of the above are important, but here's the number one thing to keep in mind:

The point is that we have to ask where we're at in the story if we're going to answer the question of what we should do. It's not because we can ignore the OT or because God's inconsistent or because God used to be mean and nasty but now he's nice. The Bible calls us to action by calling us into the story, a story of a suffering King who calls a people to follow him. Our call is to live from  the peace that has already been made, between God and humanity and between humans who are otherwise divided. The real question, then, is not whether we can fully make sense of Scripture but, when we do hear the call of Jesus, whether we'll take up our cross and follow him. 

For further reading, see:
John Howard Yoder, "Jesus and Old Testament Warfare," in Revolutionary Christian Citizenship.
John Nugent, The Politics of Yahweh: John Howard Yoder, the Old Testament, and the People of God (I highly recommend this book if you are interested in pacifism, the Old Testament, and the church). 
Another essay of mine that hits on related themes: "Conquest, Exile, and the Cross: Replacing Projection with Reality."