Nebraska Pastor Reads Bible, Finds God is Good

1922

A Nebraska Pastor Tells of God

A good many years ago I decided God was good. This conclusion was reached from two sources: The teachings of Christ and my own personal experience. As I studied the teachings of Christ and my own personal fellowship with God I decided my God is good. That faith has grown with years and I believe it more strongly today than ever in my life.

When I read in the Bible any thing which reflects on the goodness of God I do not believe it. All scripture must be measured by the life and teachings of Christ. When I read that God killed all the people in the world except eight with a flood I say that does not sound like my God. When I read that God told the Hebrews to kill all the Canaanites and take their property I say my God is a missionary and seeks to save men not to kill them. Why should I believe that story coming out of the dim past painting God as a cruel tyrant any more than I should believe that God told the Germans to kill the Belgians and steal their property.

When I was pastor at David City and we were studying the conquest of Canaan a girl asked me was it right for the Hebrew soldiers to kill the women and children? I said no. Then another girl said why did God tell them to do it then? I said God never told them do it. The writer was mistaken. I have been asked many times why God hardened Pharaoh's heart ten times and then brought ten plagues upon the innocent people which caused unsold suffering. For twenty-five years T tried to fix it up but always failed to satisfy the people or myself until finally I had the courage to say God never did it. My God is good.

When I read that God commanded David to number Israel and he did it but God was angry with him and killed 70,000 innocent men plague I must defend God against that charge and answer he never did.

When I read that a few men peeked into the ark and that God killed 50,070 people of a child race for that offense, I say it could not be true. When I read that story about Korah, Dathan and Abiram when they told Moses and Aaron that God would speak to all the people and not only unto them and God was angry with these men and opened the earth and it swallowed them up with all their families, sent fire and burned 250 men up who had offered incense to him, then in his wrath smote the people with a plague that killed 14,700 of them before Aaron could appease God with a burning incense I say this story can not be true for my God is better than Aaron, Moses or any other man. I cannot believe that God killed 185,000 of the Assyrian army one night, that he told Joshua to hock the horses, that be told the Jews they could sell spoiled meat to the gentiles but not to the Jews, that he commanded that if a boy did not obey his parents he was to be killed, that if a man gathered sticks on the Sabbath to make a fire he was to be stoned to death, that if any one worshiped any other God he was to be killed; none of these things are like my Heavenly Father. It is no virtue for a man to believe these things which paint a bad God even though they are found in the Bible.

One passage in the Bible — "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was believed so many centuries that it is estimated 353,000 people were killed because people believed that was the law of God; our own American soil was stained with the blood of witches. The Judge and the preacher who said we do not believe in witches neither do we believe that is God's law were condemned as infidels and enemies of God. The passage is still in the Bible but we do not believe in witches nor the law that killed them. How did we get our Bible? First a religious folk that produced a religious literature; second a religious folk that selected the Bible from that literature. Now we have a religious folk that interprets the Bible. I must stand with Christ and his teachings and with my own personal experiences with God and all Scripture must be measured by this standard. In all the problems and questions in life which are constantly meeting us must be settled on the basis God is good and all other questions adjusted to that standard. I can only believe in a good God. I cannot love, admire, Devote myself, worship, follow, obey only a good God. All theories of life must make God good or else I cannot accept them. — J. D. M. BUCKNER, Pastor M. E. church — Aurora, Neb.

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 18, 1922, page B-13.

Note: This is a poorly-written article and I tinkered with it in very minor ways. But I left this sentence entirely intact, which seems to contradict his point: "When I read in the Bible any thing which reflects on the goodness of God I do not believe it." To clarify, according to an online dictionary, "reflects" can have the archaic definition of "to bend back." So he means anything in the Bible that contradicts his ideas of God's goodness he does not believe, something that reflects the opposite of his ideas.