Christians cannot ignore the intersection of religion and violence, whether contemporary or ancient.
Have we missed something in our traditional readings? In Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? William Webb and Gordon Oeste address the ethics of reading biblical war texts.
In our own Scriptures, war Texts that appear to approve of genocidal killings and war rape--forcibly taking female captives for wives--raise hard questions about biblical ethics and the character of God.
Christians cannot ignore the intersection of religion and violence, whether contemporary or ancient