anders said:
"no true Christian would ever say 'convert or die'". No, that would in the olden days have been what Muslims said. In the crusades, Christians just said "Die!"
The Bible is extremely violent. What about Ps. 137:9 "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." If all the world had been ruled by, for example, Buddhism, Taoism or Sikhism, it would have been a perfectly peaceful and tolerant world.
I know this is not the debate section, but enough is enough.
The Crusades, right or wrong, would have never been fought but for Muslim agression. It's just that simple. There is more than enough blame to go around. Heck, the Ottomons were still trying to invade Europe as recently as the late 1700s, when their armies were on the outskirts of Vienna.
The Bible is about sinners--from Genesis 3 through Revelation. Of course it is violent, and lustful, and oppressive, etc. Perhaps the greatest figure in Hebrew history, David, made some awful sins and was very violent. Why? The Old Testament reveals to man GOd's Law and in so doing shows how woefully poor man's behavior is in comparison to the Law. This shows man his great need for forgiveness through faith in Christ, as we surely could not earn salvation--we are so weak and sinful. The New Testament is the realization of that freely given gift of forgiveness in Christ, as he died to pay the debt for our violation of God's Law.
There is not one word in the New Testament in which we as Christians are ordered to kill our bretheren or non-believers--no Jihad. While people who are, or who just call themselves, Christians continue to make mistakes and to sin, nothing in the doctrine encourages killing one's fellow man--only showing love to them (admittedly sometimes tough love, as we are not called to tolerate sin, but to seek justice) and witnessing to them about the Gospel.
Psalm 137 is about the invasion of Israel and the killing and torment of Israel, all of which came about because they ignored God. The Edomites were the instrument of destruction, and the writer is in exile from Israel. The Edomites killed the Hebrew children by dashing their heads against the rocks, and the writer is hoping one day the Edomites will be repaid for that horror. Is it violent? Sure. Does it point to the need for salvation through grace for man's inhumanity to man? Absolutely. Does it encourage such behavior? Hardly.l
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, O LORD , what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Even when God commanded Israel to kill tribes or nations, of course, they deserved to die (as do we all), as we are all sinners. We deserve no mercy. God shows mercy to those he chooses--a gift. We all deserved exactly what the babies got, as we all have violated God's law, and the wages of sin are death. There is no endorsement in the Bible of such violence, only acknowlegment that sinful man is prone to such behavior and it is how sinful man "solves" his problems absent regeneration in the Holy Spirit.
