The old adage “Man is wolf to man” was gruesomely punctuated last week by terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere. It is especially disturbing when such beastliness is performed in the name of religion. Of course Christians are right to condemn such attacks, but we have to address our own credibility problem on this issue. When nonbelievers look in from outside, they don’t distinguish between the Islamic call to Jihad, and the Crusades.

Logically, most “Christian” violence can be dealt with fairly easily by noting that the perpetrators were failing to live up to the tenets of their own faith. The prescription for this is better faith, not less faith.

A harder issue, and one which has come up for me recently in discussions with fellow Christians, is the violence that appears to be sanctioned in the Old Testament.

We have addressed this in our Q and A section: “Christians believe that God is good, and yet why did God order the slaughter of all Canaanites? Isn’t that a contradiction? Isn’t killing the Canaanites a violation of God’s own Law in the Ten Commandments?”