A Thought on the “New Atheism” and Old Testament Morality
What has been called the “New Atheism” (NA) represented by such writers as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and some others, has come under tremendous scrutiny and virtual dismissal in many circles. I agree with others that the New Atheism is really an old atheism, just not argued quite as well, but I also think that this movement puts its finger on numerous issues that Christians would do well to pay close attention to.
One of these issues is the very real challenge to Christians of OT morality. In defending the faith, there has been a tendency to laud the moral supremacy of the Bible over other religions and especially over atheism. NA is quick to point out that no reasonable, compassionate person would model his or her morality by much of Old Testament behavior.
Much of what we find in the OT is, to use an NA phrase, “Iron Age tribalism”: our god is better than your god, and he told us to take your land, kill all of you, and keep the booty. When Christians respond that the OT also carries the injunction to “love your neighbor,” NA responds that one’s ”neighbor” in the OT is fellow Israelites. God is not telling the Israelites to walk on over to the Canaanites and “love them.” Rather, he is telling them to wipe them out and take their land.
I don’t think this observation by NA is cynical or driven by a blind bias (as some of their observations are). Rather the observation is correct. Here the Christian reaction, motivated as it is to defend their understanding of the Bible against criticism, is unconvincing.
Rather than protecting the Bible against such criticism by justifying such instances of OT morality, I think Christians would do better to understand the nature of the OT, accept it for what it is, but then do the necessary theological thinking to give a reasonable and sophisticated account of things. Central to that necessary theological thinking is to bring the NT into the discussion.
The issue of one’s neighbor is treated in the NT in the well-known story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus is speaking to a crowd, and an “expert in the law” sought to challenge Jesus by asking him what one must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him what the law said, and the man responded with the well-known confession: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus commends him for his answer, but the man asks Jesus, “and who is my neighbor.” This is not an innocent question, but one that seems to be motivated by his desire to draw as small a circle of love around him as he could (hence the comment in the story that this expert in the law was seeking to “justify himself”).
Jesus responds with that wonderful story of the Samaritan who sees on the side of the road a Jewish victim of a mugging, and goes well out his way to help him, even to the point of incurring personal expense. Samaritans were hated by Jews, yet—if I may get to the point of the story—even this hated Samaritan had more a sense of God’s love than these “pious” Jews (a priest and a Levite) who did not hesitate to step over a countryman in need.
“I will tell you who your neighbor is,” Jesus says. “Let your hated enemy show you. Are you Jews humble enough to see that the love of God transcends these nationalistic and sociological boundaries?” Jesus blows these boundaries away. “Love your neighbor” is given a broader and rather unsettling meaning. Whatever such boundaries existed in the OT, no longer do.
NA misses this entirely. Christianity is a faith that is not bound to every OT expression of morality. Rather, it has built into it a moral trajectory that goes beyond the culturally informed moral limits of the OT period. Where Christians box themselves into a corner is when they fail to see that moral trajectory and try to maintain the notion that everything in the Bible is of equal ultimacy.
The Christian reaction to what NA says about OT morality may seem to some to be a “high view of Scripture,” but it actually fails to take into account the moral trajectory of the NT. Ironically, both NA and the Christian reaction share a sub-Christian understanding of the Bible.
This is why so many Christians still have trouble assimilating the Sermon on the Mount, where a similar moral trajectory is clearly seen. There Jesus contrasts his teaching with not only the added burden of legal tradition upon the OT law, but with the OT law itself. In both the Sermon on the Mount and the Good Samaritan, Jesus is saying “I’m here now and things are going to be different.” (Jesus’ views toward the dietary laws and the Sabbath similarly show how the NT passes beyond OT “boundaries” of another sort.)
The NT represents a moral trajectory vis-à-vis the OT. Rather than feeling threatened when NA points out what is fairly clear in the OT, Christians should be as ready to accept what is plain to all in the OT, but then to round out the picture with an understanding what the gospel brings to the discussion.
We should also note well that such a realization on our part must face squarely the notion that the Christian Bible itself presents such a moral trajectory, which means not everything written there is equally ultimate. I realize that other Christians explain the problem of OT morality differently. For example: the slaughter of the Canaanites is not a moral problem, but a preview of God’s judgment on sinful humanity. It is a demonstration of what all humanity deserves, an acting out on God’s part of what the fate of all would be were it not for his grace.
Everyone will have to decide what model best explains the phenomena. As for me, the “preview of God’s judgment” explanation creates more problems than it solves, and the “moral trajectory” explanation seems to be precisely what I see the NT doing. Jesus “completes” Israel’s story, to be sure, but part of that completion is to go beyond the OT, to break new ground that would leave both Jew and Gentile shaking their heads.
For some this way of thinking may pose quite a theological burden, since it requires an adjustment in thinking about the nature of the Bible. For me, however, this approach is a natural and straightforward way of addressing the problem, and exposes the truncated observations of NA.
