The Scripture study started off with Genesis 18:20-32. In this poignant episode the Lord God
has heard terrible things about two cities on the plain. If the reports of
corruption, greed, murder, rape and brutality are true... the Lord God has
decided to destroy them. He informs Abraham of this... and Abraham is slightly
peturbed at this. He takes the role of a defense lawyer and argues the case for
showing mercy, on the basis that there may a few righteous folk living in the
cities... does this mean that the innocent are as culpable as the corrupt?
Abraham is bold in confronting the Supreme Creator of the universe in this
manner... but expresses his reasoning with subtlety and wins the case; in a
city populated and submerged in corruption - even as few as ten people with
faith will save it from destruction. Thus Abraham's nephew Lot, his wife and
daughters are saved (and perhaps a few more that are not included in the text).
Then of course the Lord God rained destruction on the cities. And there isn't a
Hollywood ending... with Lot's daughters taking advantage of their father in a
very curios manner.
According to most Bible scholars
this was all at least 2,800 years ago (if such an event happened at all).
However, I put it into a modern context and introduced a moral question: In the
Vietnam war a certain village was indiscriminately bombed killing all the
people on the basis that it sheltered enemy combatants. When an Air-Force
commander was asked to justify this by a journalist he responded by saying 'We
destroyed the village in order to save it." I presented this to veterans
of Vietnam and other conflicts. Ultimately they also have become the victims of
the actions which they performed in such circumstances as the carpet bombing of
cities and villages. Orders were sent down from high above... ultimately
political men who have not only assumed the power of God Almighty in terms of
wrath and destruction - but also denying mercy and compassion.
There is a very deep moral
question here. A question of conscience... can we justifiably obliterate an
entire city based purely on the view that collectively they constitute the
'enemy' ? We may not be able to do that without also destroying our own sense
of humanity... our soul. And, that may be precisely why many. many men are
still living the Vietnam nightmare... still trying to understand what
happened... and trying to regain their lives.
The Copyright to Contradictions,
Gross Factual Errors and Plain Plagiarism Reserved: David John Drew, 2013.
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