Glendale City
Church Being Taught Error
The idea that God
is unjust, while gradually learning by trial and mistake to be a little more
just, is a blasphemous statement. Yet it is a primary theme of a new book by
a non-Adventist writer.
The Genesis of
Justice is written by Alan
M. Dershowitz (O.J. Simpson’s lawyer), a Jew who says he does not believe
in God. The inside cover of this 288-page, soft-cover, 5½ x 8½ book
includes lavish praise by various rabbis and the very secular New
York Times.
The book is
assigned reading and discussion, week by week, during Mitch Hensen’s
Sabbath School class at the Glendale City Seventh-day Adventist Church, the
largest adult Sabbath School class. He seems extremely anxious to teach its
"deep truths." Many people in the church carefully study a small
portion of the book each week.
When a copy of the
book was given to Velino Salazar, the Southern California Conference
Secretary, he seemed not a bit concerned about the astounding Glendale
weekly study project. Unfortunately, the conference has done nothing to stop
it.
If you type
"Alan Dershowitz" into a search engine, you will find that he
claims to be an agnostic; that is, he says he does not know whether there is
any God!
Yet Glendale City
Church is drinking in his book, week after week. At the rate they are going,
it will probably require close to two months to go through the 14 chapters.
Then, under the guidance of their pastor, Mitch Hensen, they will be ready
to start on something else that will move them even closer to outright
atheism.
Mitch has found
this book, which ridicules the God of Genesis 19, to be an excellent help in
his ongoing efforts to make homosexuality acceptable.
Here are some
sample quotations:
"The New
Testament and the Koran teach justice largely through examples of the
perfection of God, Jesus, and Mohammed. Christian or Muslim parents can hand
their children the New Testament or the Koran and feel confident they will
learn by example how to live a just and noble life . . The Koran describes
his life as exemplary and Mohammed himself as "of great moral
character." If you pattern your behavior after Jesus or Mohammed, you
will be a just person.
"In sharp
contrast, the characters in the Jewish Bible [referring to the entire Old
Testament]—even its heroes—are all flawed human beings . . This
tradition of human imperfection begins at the beginning, in Genesis. Even
the God of Genesis can be seen as an imperfect God, neither omniscient,
omnipotent, nor even always good. He "repents" the creation of
man, promises not to flood the world again, and even allows Abraham to
lecture Him about injustice . . What lessons in justice are we to learn from
the patriarch Abraham’s attempted murder of both [sic.] his sons? Or from
God’s genocide against Noah’s contemporaries and Lot’s
townsfolk?"—pp. 1-2.
"To read
Genesis, even as a ten-year-old, is to question God’s idea of justice.
What child could avoid wondering how Adam and Eve could fairly be punished
for disobeying God’s commandment not to eat from the ‘Tree of the
Knowing of Good and Evil.’ "—p.
3.
After caviling
through several other Bible incidents, Dershowitz expresses pride at the
fact that, even as a child, he was expressing doubts about the Bible at the
Jewish schools he attended, Dershowitz says his childhood comments would
upset his teachers. There is room here to only touch the surface of what
Glendale City Church is being taught each week by their pastor; but here are
a few more quotes from a very quick paging through of the book:
"My own
favorite interpretation of God’s failure to carry out His first threat
[that Adam and Eve would die] is that God Himself was still learning about
justice and injustice."—p.
40.
"Even the God
of Genesis lacks a singular nature. He is a petulant, vengeful, demanding,
and petty God, as well as a forgiving, merciful, life-affirming, and even
repentant God."—p.
204.
"In the
beginning, all ‘law’ is ad hoc [something invented at the time, soon to
be changed]. It involves random orders and threats from the powerful to the
powerless. God’s first command, not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge,
lacks apparent reason and defies human nature. Sanctions are inconsistent
and unpredictable . .
"Inconsistency
and unpredictability also characterized the punishment of Cain for killing
his brother, Abel. This is in the nature of ad hoc punishment; it is
determined not by a preexisting code of laws, but rather by an evolving yet
incomplete sense of justice . . Not surprisingly, therefore, God—the
source of justice in Genesis—overreacts to His underpunishment of Adam,
Eve, and Cain by destroying the entire world."—pp.
205-206.
What is the source
of this overflowing hatred of God? If you type "gay marriage" into
the search engine, you will find that Dershowitz is a constitutional legal
expert, urgently promoting gay marriages. Perhaps that is the answer to
Dershowitz’ vile loathing of God. Dershowitz fills two angry chapters
lamenting the fact that God killed those nice people in Sodom. Later in the
book, he returns to his concern for the "victims" in Sodom:
"God was too lenient on Cain, too harsh on the victims of the Flood and
the brimstone."—p.
253.
Dershowitz says,
"I don’t know whether or not there is a hereafter—no one
does."—p. 242.
This blasphemy
continues throughout most of the page; indeed, throughout most of the book.
Dershowitz especially vents his rage against the law of God. I guarantee
that you cannot turn to a single page in this book without being horrified.
It contains the most desolating hail of atheism I have ever read in my life.
Yet, week after week, it is being taught to 25-50 adults in one of our
largest churches in southern California, without a murmur of protest from
the conference office.
God’s people need to write the
Southern California Conference about this: 818-546-8400.
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