Horrendous moral behavior also found in “The Word”

Like Rae Piepho (letter to the editor, Nov. 19), I too have a heavy heart for those helpless boys who were allegedly sexually abused by a well-known Penn State coach. I’m angry and confused that no one seemed to care, as every decent person should be.

I don’t understand, however, how turning away from “God’s Word” ties into this darkness or any other morally despicable act, as Ms. Piepho seems to imply. Many of the most morally responsible, genuinely caring people I know aren’t believers in the Bible at all.

Ironically, after years of painfully struggling with the Evangelical Christian faith of my childhood indoctrination, it was, in part, my desire to lead as morally responsible a life as I could that led me away from “God’s Word.”

God’s Word instructs us to kill disobedient sons (Ex. 21:15, 17; Deut. 21:18-21), kill those who work on the Sabbath (Ex. 35:2), kill non-virginal brides (Deut. 22:20, 22), kill homosexuals (Lev. 20:13), and kill adulterers (Lev. 20:10).

God, for a time, demanded animal and human sacrifices. According to Judges 11:29-39, God helped Jephthah with a great slaughter of Ammonites, and Jephthah in turn, honoring a promise to God, burned his daughter to death—a horror story by which the whole Penn State debacle pales.

Abraham was commended for offering to murder his son Isaac at God’s request. Lot was favored by God despite offering his daughters to be gang-raped. King David was one of God’s favorites even though he had a man killed so he could have that man’s wife. And let’s not forget God’s slaughter of Egyptian babies.

The Bible says, “The Word of God stands forever,” and Christ said of Old Testament law, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law…I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matt 5:11)

Of course there are good teachings in the Christian Bible as well. (Let he who is without fault cast the first stone, for example.) But these teachings don’t erase the clearly horrendous moral behavior also found in “The Word.”

I sincerely want and strive for a more peaceful world. I want people of all religious faiths as well as people of no religious faith at all to accept and respect each another as they are, and to respect our planet. I want to see every decent person be treated with the same dignity all decent people deserve regardless of faith, sexual orientation, race, religion, and gender.

I just can’t seem to find much support for these heartfelt moral aspirations in God’s Word.

David Eklof

Duluth, MN