Am I going to defend something that we would all pretty well consider to be a moral travesty?
Well, no. Of course not. What I am doing is bringing attention to a series that I did back in 2021 wherein I interacted with Randal Rauser’s book Jesus Loves Canaanites. As I wrote in the introduction to that series,
History is replete with mass killings. Each of these instances have set out a variety of claims for its own justification. Some of those were argued for national security, some for ethnic purity, and some for just apparent meanness. And this post isn’t setting out to defend each of those alleged justifications.
However, it is incumbent upon the one preparing to judge—much less presume to condemn—the actions of the past upon what basis they would do so.
Probably no one would dare completely exonerate every participant in such actions whether or not such actions could be justified. Indeed there seems to be a reluctance to even consider that such a possibility could exist as we—speaking of modern society—seem to have decided that any killing of another human cannot be meaningfully justified.
But, whether or not we can actually follow the logic of the argument being set forth in such defenses, we must recognize our own tendencies to attempt to justify our own actions in the past. Interestingly we would pardon ourselves for such if we were to find ourselves in the same shoes.
So, take time to walk back through this series.
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