Experimental Theology

It’s the same Christological reading of the Old Testament used by the church fathers as well. The moral problems thrown up by the violence in the Old Testament are not new. It perplexed the early Christians as well. See Marcion himself as an example here. So all the modern hand wringing about the violence in the Old Testament among progressive Christians isn’t a new thing. The church has been thinking about this for a long time.

But the big difference here is that the church fathers believed in the Devil and modern progressive Christians, by and large, do not. The church fathers were able to stay in moral contact with the Old Testament because they read that violence as mistaken, yes, but also containing a spiritual, allegorical truth, that the Kingdom of God is in a battle with the spiritual forces of darkness.