{"id":32376,"date":"2013-10-13T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=32376"},"modified":"2013-10-12T13:18:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T21:18:43","slug":"comparing-god-with-hitler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/comparing-god-with-hitler\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparing God with Hitler"},"content":{"rendered":"

I talk weekly with people who are pretty antagonistic toward Christianity. One of them recently sent me this picture:<\/p>\n

\"God<\/p>\n

It is interesting because I am still in the middle of a long series on how to understand the flood in light of Jesus Christ, and the flood is exactly what this image talks about when comparing God with Hitler.<\/p>\n

So how would you respond to this image?<\/p>\n

Most Christians would say something like this: \u00a0“Well, God is God and so He can do what He wants. Hitler wasn’t God, and so it was wrong for him.”<\/p>\n

I reject that answer. If God can behave like Hitler, but it’s okay because He’s God, I don’t think God deserves our worship.<\/p>\n

My conviction, however, is that God is not like Hitler; God is like Jesus Christ. We must read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus, and see that Jesus shows us what God is truly like, even though much of the Old Testament portrays something quite different. When God looks violent in the Old Testament, it is not because He\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>violent, but because He is taking the sins of the world upon Himself, just as Jesus did on the cross.<\/p>\n

This is a challenging proposal, and I am trying to write a book to defend it (When God Pled Guilty<\/em><\/a>). But the further I go, the harder the book becomes. That is why you have been seeing fewer and fewer posts on it. I cannot decide whether to push ahead or just give up in defeat.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts on what I should do? How do you understand the violence of God in the Bible? Also, how would you respond to that image above?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend recently sent me a picture that compares God with Hitler. Is the comparison fair? If the theology of some Christians is correct, then I think the comparison is fair. But I don’t think that this way of portraying God is accurate. God is not like Hitler; God is like Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1294,1576,1282,1523,1213],"class_list":{"0":"post-32376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"tag-flood","8":"tag-hitler","9":"tag-violence","10":"tag-violence-of-god","11":"tag-when-god-pled-guilty","12":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nComparing God with Hitler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A friend recently sent me a picture that compares God with Hitler. 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