If God commands a Christian to do something, should he obey? How does a Christian determine that it is God commanding him to do something? What if God’s command runs contrary to the Christian’s personal moral code? Should the Christian obey, anyway?
According to the Bible, God is holy, a divine being that cannot sin or do anything contrary to his character. However, the Bible also reveals that God can and does do immoral things. Knowing this to be true, shouldn’t Christians worry when God commands them to do something immoral? God commanded Abraham to murder his son, Isaac, on an altar — an immoral act if there ever was one. What if God commanded you, dear Christian, to put your child on a BBQ grill and offer him up as a sacrifice to God? Would you do it? Some Christian apologists suggest that God never intended Abraham to kill Isaac, but when asked to provide evidence for their claim, none is forthcoming.
I listen to several atheist call-in shows that ask Christians to call in and provide evidence for the existence of God, or to defend God’s approval of slavery, or God’s command to commit genocide. The Bible is littered with immoral commands from God, yet countless Christians defend God by saying, If God commanded it, it’s moral. Who are we to call the righteous, holy God of the universe immoral? God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, Christians say when defending the name of God. This, of course, reveals the fact that religious faith can and does make an adherent less moral. I don’t know of an atheist who defends genocide, child sacrifice, or slavery. As a humanist, I believe we should want and desire the well-being of others; that we should support laws and policies that promote human flourishing. Does genocide, child sacrifice, and slavery promote the well-being of others and human flourishing? Of course not. Yet, when God commands such things, all of a sudden, Christians lose all sense of what’s best for themselves and others.
The good news is that most Christians do not obey God. As cafeteria Christians, they pick and choose which commands to obey. That’s why they oppose genocide, child sacrifice, and slavery. Sadly, some Christians think that they should obey God regardless of the morality of said command. In their minds, whatever God commands is moral. How could it be otherwise, these Christians say?
Often, obeying God without question leads to abominable behavior; behavior that can and does land people in jail. Since there is no empirical way to determine whether God is commanding something, Christians should be aware of the fact that God will not be testifying at their trial when they are arrested for committing crimes. That voice in their heads telling them to “obey” is their own, not God’s. How could they possibly know otherwise?
Explicitly following every command in the Bible will land you in jail, as will your thinking the voice in your head is God Almighty. Most Christians have heard the ditty: God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me. What a dangerous statement, one that leads to all sorts of immoral and criminal behavior.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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What some Christians do not comprehend is how to think, act, and feel, unless God tells them how. They are utterly dependent on God for a sense of morality, to the degree that they’ll contort themselves with pretzel logic to justify God’s actions. After all, if they cannot justify the violence and murder and genocide of the Bible, they are left confronting the frightening possibility that their moral compass has been painfully flawed the entire time. Without their faith, they cannot compute anything.