IS THE NEW TESTAMENT EVIL?
By Norm R. Allen Jr.
Many Christians understand that the First or “Old” Testament in the Bible clearly condones slavery, patriarchy, homophobia, genocide — in fact, the worst crimes against humanity that we know of. For that reason, they claim that the Second or “New” Testament is far less problematic, considering that Christ seems to be much nicer than the angry God of the First Testament.
However, the Second Testament still condones slavery, patriarchy, homophobia and now, anti-Semitism. In Luke 12:47–48, slaves may be beaten “with many stripes” or “few stripes,” depending on whether they know their masters’ will and fulfill it. In 1 Timothy 6:1, slaves are commanded to “count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God be not blasphemed.”
Many apologists simply lie and claim that the Bible never condones slavery. Others simply try to rationalize it. In this regard, they have made much progress in recent years. Borrowing from Black historians, Christian apologists note that the Christian slave owners of the American South were far crueler than the slave owners among the so-called Chosen People and the early Christians.
This is true. However, the American slave owners were still Christians. Apologists seem to be saying that the theists long ago were practicing a kinder, gentler form of enslavement. In reality, as any self-respecting Black person knows, there is no such a thing as a good slave master. It is always wrong to own another human being as property, even if you are kinda nice about it. Of course, all of this Bible-sanctioned madness could have been avoided had God made his first commandment, “Thou shalt not own another human being as property.”
The evil of slavery brought forth many other evils such as racism, Jim Crow, apartheid, colonialism, neo-colonialism, lynching, hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, eugenics programs, and so on. All of the rationalizing in the world could never undo the damage that slavery and its offspring have done to the human race.
The Second Testament also condones patriarchy. In Ephesians 5:22, women are commanded to submit to their “own husbands, as unto the Lord.” Women are also commanded to keep quiet in the churches. None of this should be surprising. The earliest Christian societies were patriarchal to the core. How could their God be otherwise?
Where there is patriarchy and sexism, there will also be homophobia. The patriarchal writers of the Second Testament condemned sexual behavior between men, even though it did not go as far as the First Testament that commanded the death penalty for homosexual men and said of homosexuality, “it is abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22.) In any case, conservative and reactionary Christians all over the world have embraced the anti-homosexuality message of the Second Testament in their unholy crusades against LGBT+ rights.
Even today, many Christians view religious and secular Jews as Christ killers. In 1 Thessalonians 2:15–16, we learn that Jews killed Christ and persecuted Christians, that they do not please God, and that they will feel “the wrath.” This sentiment has led to numerous pogroms against Jews and widespread fear and hatred of Jews.
Finally, the Bible promotes the idea of Hell and eternal torment. As the scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins has pointed out, this is tantamount to child abuse. Indeed, children should not have this belief forced upon them by their parents or their ministers. Of course, many Christians, after realizing that this idea is not consistent with the idea of a perfectly loving God, have quietly retreated into annihilationism, or the idea that “sinners” will merely be peacefully put to eternal death and cut off from God and Heaven. Still, that does not change the fact that millions still believe in eternal torment. More importantly, there is no strong evidence to support the claim that the biblical writers were not fostering a belief in eternal torment for sinners.
I can sum up this article with a syllogism:
- Slavery, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and the fostering of a belief in Hell are evil.
- The New Testament condones slavery, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-Semitism and a belief in Hell.
- Therefore, the New Testament is evil.