Redeeming Violent Verses: A Guide for Using Troublesome Texts in Church and Ministry

REDEEMING VIOLENT VERSES: A Guide for Using TroublesomeTexts in Church and Ministry. By Eric A. Siebert. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023. X + 186 pages.

The Bible is a complicated book. First of all, it is an anthology of literature that spans perhaps a thousand years, depending on how you date different books you find in the two testaments of the canon accepted by most Christian communities. One thing that a close look at the materials found inside this anthology, which many of us consider to be sacred scripture, is the amount of violence contained within. Just to be clear, it's not just the Old Testament that has violent passages. It's everywhere. In fact, there’s so much violence, including sexual violence that I'm surprised there haven’t been more efforts to ban it from libraries, especially school libraries.  After all, you can find stories in the Bible that describe and at times celebrate massacres and even attempted genocide. There are stories of incest, rape, and murder. So, if you read the text of Scripture flatly as if everything is equally authoritative, then you may find yourself facing numerous problems.

When it comes to preaching and selecting scripture readings for worship, there is a tendency, at least in my circles, to avoid the more violent and disconcerting passages. This is especially true for preachers, who like me, have used the lectionary to guide their selection of texts. The creators of the Revised Common Lectionary have done a pretty good job of filtering out the most violent and problematic passages. That’s one of the reasons you won't find many readings from Joshua and Judges. While avoiding problematic passages is understandable, is it wise? That is the question raised by Eric Siebert in Redeeming Violent Verses.

Eric Seibert is an Old Testament scholar who teaches at an evangelical college—Messiah College. He believes that avoiding violent passages in church settings is a mistake. Here’s the reason—if churches and their leaders (pastors) fail to tackle such passages, when people in their congregation discover such passages, they might be in for a big surprise and not know what to do with such passages. Now, if your people don’t read the Bible, perhaps that’s not a problem, but if you believe (as I do) that people should the Bible then it’s important that they have some guidance so they will know how to handle difficult passages, especially ones that describe God acting violently. Such encounters with violent passages could prove to be faith-destroying. It is with this concern in mind, that Eric Seibert wants to redeem the violent passages present in the Bible. To do this he wants to bring them into the church's conversation.

Preachers might find some of these passages distasteful, but sanitizing the Bible is not helpful. Now, bringing these passages into the church’s conversation is not meant to be a justification for the actions described. Instead, the goal is to help people handle violent passages in responsible ways. This might involve rejecting violence, even if it appears that the violence depicted seems to be justified as standing in line with the wisdom of God. Therefore, Siebert’s goal in writing this book is to help religious leaders "find constructive ways to use violent biblical texts responsibly when preaching, teaching, and leading worship" (p. 7).

While Seibert acknowledges there are violent passages in the New Testament he has chosen to focus on the Old Testament. He does this for two reasons. First, there are more violent passages in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, he is an Old Testament scholar. In entering this conversation Siebert mainly focuses on passages in which violence is directed at people. This violence, found in scripture, is carried out both by God and people. While some of the violence is portrayed as wrongful, other acts of violence are understood by the biblical authors to be virtuous. The latter form of violence is usually portrayed as being justified and even praiseworthy. It’s important to note that Siebert uses quotation marks around the word "virtuous" because these forms of violence do not fit his understanding of God’s nature. In other words, when we engage passages like this, we likely read them through theological lenses. For him that lens is love.

Seibert divides the book's nine chapters into three parts. Part 1 is titled "Understanding Why the Church Should Not Ignore Violent passages." The two chapters in this chapter serve as an introduction to the purpose of the book. In chapter 1 he introduces the problem of the vanishing violent verses. That is the tendency of preachers and teachers to avoid the violent verses found in Scripture. The problem here is that “when violent biblical passages are sanitized, the troubling parts of the story are omitted or mentioned only briefly in passing. There is no real discussion of the violence or of the kind of problems that violent verses raise for modern readers” (p. 5). The remainder of the book helps us understand why this is problematic and how we can address passages that contain violence. Chapter 2 addresses the problem mentioned in Chapter 1 by asking "Why Bother with Violent Verses?” He begins by asking why the texts are missing and then addresses why we might want to use such texts in church. He suggests several reasons including helping people read and interpret the entire Bible. That is, it’s a teaching moment. Secondly, it is required if we are to have integrity in what we assert about Scripture. It also bolsters the church’s credibility. In other words, our failure to deal with such texts can be seen as a breach of trust. Then there is simply the need to encourage people to wrestle with such texts. In his view (and mine), we should be troubled by such texts, especially ones that ascribe to God violent behavior that runs counter to the commandment to love our neighbors. Dealing with such texts is also required if we’re going to address obstacles to faith. He writes that some obstacles can be removed if we explain that “not every portrayal of God in the Bible reveals what God is actually like” (p. 23). These and other reasons offered answer the question of why deal with violent passages, but there is more to discuss.

Part 2 of Siebert’s Redeeming Violent Verses is titled “Finding Ways to Use Violent Biblical Texts Responsibly in Church.” This section of the book reminds us that this isn’t just a book about violent Bible passages. This is a practical-level book. In many ways, this is the heart of the book. It contains four chapters. The first of these chapters (chapter 3) introduces us to seven constructive ways to use a violent biblical text. These include demonstrating why violence is harmful, considering ways to respond to violence, developing compassion for victims of violence, talking about difficult topics, raising awareness of violence while acting to stop it, warning against using violent texts to do harm, and making personal connections and applications. Each of these suggested ways of using a violent text is quite helpful. It's not about justifying violence, but rather a call to deal with violence in responsible ways. The fourth chapter focuses on how we might use violent stories with children. It's important to remember that we've been using violent stories with children forever. Think about the stories we encountered as children, stories like David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark, and what about Samson and the Philistines. Sanitizing these stories is not helpful, but if we are to use such stories with children, they need to be age-appropriate methods (and teachers and pastors need to be ready and willing to address questions from children). There is also a chapter on using violent verses in worship, offering guidance on when, where, and how to use such verses in songs, Scripture readings, and prayers, including calls to worship (chapter 5). Finally, this section of the book includes words of guidance for preachers, many of whom are grateful the lectionary steers us clear of such passages. Fortunately, Seibert offers suggestions as to how to deal with such passages in sermons (and he suggests we take up such texts much more often than we currently do). Among the words of wisdom here is to make sure preachers offer trigger warnings, usually well before the day of the sermon.

Part 3 is titled “Exploring Sample Texts and Talking about Violent Portrayals of God.” The first of the three chapters in this section (Chapter 7) invites us to consider several texts and apply to them what we’ve learned to that point in Redeeming Violent Verses. The stories include Sodom as well as Jezebel's involvement in the execution of Naboth, where she seeks to take his land. He also addresses the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, including the fate of those who caused Daniel to be thrown into the lion's den. While Daniel is rescued, the same is not true of his enemies and their families. It’s good that Daniel is rescued but is vengeance warranted? The final chapter in the book addresses passages dealing with God's violent behavior. While we might not imagine God acting violently, or at least we might not embrace the idea that God acts violently, there are passages in Scripture where God does exactly that. Whether we want to or not, we will have to deal with such portrayals of God's violence, especially if we lean towards nonviolence. In response to these concerns, Siebert suggests ways of deconstructing violent views, including contextualizing them, suggesting that God might not have done everything attributed to God, and differentiating between the textual and the actual God (I will note here that Seibert does not engage with Walter Brueggemann, who is much more willing to keep these two together), finally, he suggests that we use Jesus as the lens through which to evaluate portrayals of God. On this last word of advice, while I largely agree with him, I am wary of pushing this too far. Progressives can fall into Marcionite traps that separate Jesus from the Old Testament. Seibert tries to avoid that trap, but at points, I thought he crept rather close to the line. Part of the problem here is that he focuses largely on Old Testament portrayals of violence and then largely skirts the issue of violence in the New Testament, including declarations of judgment and consignments to eternal punishment on the part of Jesus. Seibert approaches these questions from a particular perspective (Open and Relational) that others might not take up. Having read a biography of Brueggemann that contrasts his views with his friend Terry Fretheim, it is interesting that Seibert ignores Brueggemann and draws at one point on Fretheim.

Overall, I find this to be a very helpful book. I agree that when we ignore uncomfortable passages, especially the violent ones, in church settings, we can set up folks for unsettling encounters with the Bible. These can be destructive to a person’s faith in God. Therefore, being introduced to such passages and having some guidance as to how a person might approach them will be very valuable. For preachers and teachers who are uncomfortable with such passages themselves, Siebert provides a word of encouragement as well as constructive ways of dealing with such passages.

As I came to the final chapter of Siebert’s Redeeming Violent Verses, another recently published book came to mind that might be profitably read along with Siebert’s. That book is Esther Hamori's God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible (Broadleaf Books, 2023). Hamori’s book is very different in purpose, but it expands the boundaries of ways in which the biblical authors viewed God. When used together I believe that preachers will benefit greatly. Dealing with violent biblical texts might not be high on anyone’s agenda, but even if we ignore them, they’re still there. Thus,in Redeeming Violent Verses,  Eric Siebert invites us to take off the blinders and deal with them! That will be good medicine for all of us, even if we don’t like the taste!