"And you know I'm strong and holy/I must do what I've been told"

Christian preacher: If God tells you to commit murder you should probably do it https://t.co/xSvnDpYr9l

— Raw Story (@RawStory) October 7, 2022

I was going to ignore this (really, I was) even after I read the Hemant Mehta post it's based on because the only correct pastoral answer to the question "What do you say about murderers who say God told you to do it" is "God didn't say that to them, they're looking for excuses for their behavior."

But then you get this little tidbit:

It was a reference to the biblical story of Abraham, who is told by God in Genesis 22 to kill his son Isaac as a sacrifice. At the last possible second, God says, “Just kidding!” and everyone has a good laugh. The moral of the story, some say, is that we’re supposed to obey God even when it doesn’t make sense because that’s the sort of obedience God demands. (Even though a more honest assessment would focus on the cruelty of God in that situation.)

That's Mehta introducing the transcript of the preacher's answer to the question.  I won't reproduce the whole answer, but here's the part I think Mehta is referring to:

But if God Himself actually tells you, and He’s like, “Hey, I am the ultimate governor of all of life, and I have judicially said that person is going to die, and I’m telling you to do it,” yeah.

Now, historically, as a Christian, do I expect this to happen? Not really.

Mehta actually highlights most of that, so I assume fairly, I think, it's what he's referring to.  But here's the first problem with his exegesis (and this is frankly standard textual analysis):  nowhere in his answer does Mike Winger (the preacher) come close to referencing any story from the Hebrew Scriptures.  This is all he says about "Biblical" references, and it comes late in his answer, and immediately after what I quoted above:

Biblically, does it happen? Do we have, like, is the Apostle Paul, like, every few years, he’s just, like, turns into Jason Bourne and he’s, like, “God told me to kill Simon the Sorcerer”? No. No, the worst thing the apostles have done was to tell someone you’re not part of our church anymore if you’re going to keep living in sin like that. You know, God takes care of them.

Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight, so we don’t fight to establish the Christianity… to establish the kingdom.” Like, this is “God told me not to.” In other words, I don’t, because God told me not to. 

So, Paul; and then Jesus.  No mention of Abraham or the akedeh (as the story is known to Jews today).  No reference to the Hebrew Scriptures whatsoever. So Mehta's just dropping that reference to Abraham and Isaac in so he can make snide remarks about it, on the way to disapproving of this pastor's answer (which I've already disapproved of; let's move on).  So let's take a moment to consider the problems of the akedeh:

22 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

15 And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Not exactly a story to which ascribing to God the "Just kidding!" rings very true.  It's a grim and hard story, and I'm not trying to excuse it or knock the edges off of it.  If you really want a deep reading of it, turn to the "Panegyric upon Abraham" in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. You may not feel any better about the story from Genesis, but it's a far better study of the story than Mehta's dismissive snark.

"Akedeh," by the way, is a transliteration from the Hebrew of the word for the ritual binding of an animal for sacrifice.  It emphasizes that, in this story, Abraham would have so bound Isaac, and Isaac would have known that it meant before the knife went up or he was placed on the altar.  Yeah, this story doesn't get excused away.

But it also isn't about committing murder because God told you to.  The story is not about "Go thou and do likewise."  The story is about Abraham's relationship to God (this is the great insight, ultimately, of Kierkegaard's panegyric).  It is not a story meant to be a moral or ethical or behavior exemplar to us.  It is a story meant to illustrate the greatness of Abraham in his relationship to, and trust (faith) in God.  It's no more one we are meant to emulate than we are meant to all become mystics or anchorites or saints.  Moses in his faithfulness gave Israel the law that was supposed to help it prosper and become a beacon to all the nations (Isaiah's "holy mountain").  The story of Moses doesn't mean we should all lead people on an Exodus and all give those people laws from God.  Abraham also greets three visitors at his tent, and serves them a feast.  It turns out the visitors are God, and the message they bring is that Abraham and Sarah will finally have the son Abraham later takes to Moriah to sacrifice; but while the story exemplifies the virtue of hospitality to strangers, it's never taken as a story teaching us God will give us a child in exchange.  

It's a favorite technique of atheists/critics to treat all Biblical stories as moral lessons, and then point out the cruelty of the story and so questionable nature of the lesson.  But it is, as ever, a question of interpretation; and such critics always insist their interpretation is the only one possible.  But it's proof-texting, as much as any fundamentalists draws out stories or verses to prove a point which they think cannot be argued.  Is the story of the akedeh a cruel one?  Yes, it is.  As my seminary professors liked to say about stories from the Hebrew Scriptures (where God plays a more prominent role than in the New Testament, where, when you get past Acts, it's all letters and lectures (yes, even Revelation): don't let God off the hook.  The ways of God are not human ways, and that doesn't mean humans are flawed, broken, and without cause to complain or seek justice.  Pointing out that humans just don't understand God doesn't make you a better human or mean you stand closer to God.  It could mean you are just substituting your preferences for God's, and claiming, rather like the murderers in the question, to act on God's direction.  But are you?

These things are settled, or resolved, or considered (ever read midrash?  Nothing is settled.  Ever read theology, Biblical studies, exegesis, Biblical or ecclesiastical history, even?  Nothing is EVER settled!  Every old heresy is new again, and never really ever goes away.), in community.  If one person, as this pastor does, tries to settle a thorny question, that answer is always subject to review, critique, even rejection, by others.  I may think my answer is sound, someone else may not, and someone other may convince me I'm wrong, or replace my answer within the community with theirs.  When I was a pastor, I did my best to answer questions like this (like how can the Psalmist say he/she was guilty in the womb?  Are children damned before birth?  How can God do that?) with answers to the person I was speaking to; not to the whole congregation, or the whole denomination, or all "right thinking" Christians (whoever they are).

An "honest assessment" of the akedeh may focus on the cruelty of God in that situation.  Or it may focus on the idea that God is not us, and what we desire is not always what God sees as wise.  It is better, over all, to focus on the wisdom of God, rather than on the dictates of God.  Most of what God "directs," in the Hebrew Scriptures or in the Gospels or letters, is offered as wisdom, not as an unshakeable command from "the ultimate governor of all life."  As I've said before, I don't think God plays that role in human history.  The Greek gods were capricious and resentful.  Zeus freely raped as many maidens as he could; and the gods played a very nasty trick on Oedipus.  They played about with being ultimate governors (what else is the Oracle at Delphi up to, after all?) Does the God of Abraham do anything remotely similar? The Exile was not God punishing Israel for failing to properly worship God.  It was the consequences of their failure to follow God's wisdom.  God did not damn them to Babylon; God left them to their decisions and the outcomes of those decisions.  And then God brought them back, to the point Cyrus, then ruler of Babylon, was seen as a man of God for releasing the Israelites and, in effect, doing God's work on earth.

Moving in mysterious ways, indeed.  Even unto the cruelty of the akedeh.  Which, significantly, God never required again.