Category Archives: Religion

October 19, 2025 · 1:00 am

Mercy, Justice, and the God of the Old Testament, Part 2

“Padre Eterno (The Eternal Father)” by Giovanni Bellini (1500-1505), Civic Museums of Pesaro, Italy, Source https://www.pesaromusei.it, (PD)

WARNING:  Graphic Images

The relationship abuse victims have with God is, as they say, complicated.  Since we see God through the filter of our own experience (a lens which can be distorted), victims both of childhood abuse and domestic violence tend to view Him as harsh and punitive [1]. 

Though God does not cause evil, we may well blame Him for our pain.  There are those who have rejected Him because of that. 

In considering the nature of God, however, we must not overlook the fact that He is forgiving.  That idea may seem at odds with the picture of God presented in the Old Testament.  But it is central to God’s character.

Forgiveness

Out of His great love, God created a world in which His children are given freedom to sin.  They are not, in other words, required to love Him.  The Old Testament tells the story of how Israel repeatedly abandoned God, repented, and was forgiven.  

“But You are God, Ready to pardon, Gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, Abundant in kindness, And did not forsake them” (Neh. 9: 17).

The Book of Hosea brings this down to a personal level.  The prophet is instructed by God to take a wife who is a harlot.  She betrays him with other men.  Yet he takes her back and treats her kindly.

Many, of course, point to the people God instructed the Israelites to kill.  These critics conclude God must be an angry and heartless god.  But God’s motives should be considered.  This is where His justice comes in.

A.  Egyptians

The ancient Egyptians worshiped a vast number of gods, i.e. demons (1 Cor. 10: 20), estimated to be over 2000 [8].  During the 400 years the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, they served as witnesses to the Egyptians concerning the one true God.  God then gave the Egyptians 10 more chances (the biblical plagues) to turn away from idols.  They chose not to do that.

B.  Canaanites

The Canaanites (among them the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the people of Ai) were involved in practices abominable to God, including child sacrifice and sexual immorality. 

  • Children were burned alive to the Canaanite god (demon) Molech to ensure their parents’ prosperity [2A].  Music was used to drown out the pitiful screams.
  • The Canaanite goddess (demon) Ashtoreth (known as Ishtar in Mesopotamia, and Astarte in Phoenicia) had male and female prostitutes who performed erotically, and engaged sexually with worshipers [2B]. 
  • Gender-bending was one of Ashtoreth’s characteristics [2C][3].  So parades in honor of the goddess (demon) not only featured temple prostitutes, but lesbians, homosexuals, and transvestites (sexual orientations and gender identity not in accord with God’s intention for humanity) [2D][4].  
  • The goddess (demon) Ashtoreth was, also, deeply involved with magic, the occult, and the casting of spells (practices abhorrent to God) [2E][5]. 
  • Mind altering substances like opium, cannabis, and the blue water lily are thought to have been used in worship [2F][6].

Idolatry is not harmless.  It corrupts the heart [7].

Canaanite children who were not sacrificed themselves would have been brought up in this depraved culture, and have followed in their parents’ footsteps.  Such indoctrination could, itself, be considered a form of child abuse.

The Canaanites were given ample time to repent, as an earlier Scriptural reference to the sin of the Amorites (another Canaanite group) not yet being “full” (Gen. 15: 16) implies. Like the Egyptians, they chose not to do that.

God wanted to prevent the Israelites from adopting similar idolatrous practices (Lev. 20: 1-8; Deut. 18: 9-11), and He wanted to protect their children (Lev. 18: 21). 

C.  Ninevites (Assyrians)

The Assyrians in Ninevah (notorious for violent and terroristic tactics like torture, dismemberment, and decapitation) repented after hearing the word of God from the prophet Jonah, and God stayed His hand of judgment [9].  God then explained to Jonah that His forgiveness was motivated by love even for these wicked people (Jonah 4: 10-11). Continue reading →

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October 12, 2025 · 1:00 am

Mercy, Justice, and The God of the Old Testament, Part 1

“Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Ten Commandments” by Gebhard Fugel (c. 1900), Source https://freechristimages.com/bible-stories/ten-commandments.html, (PD)

While it may be surprising to find the Old Testament discussed on a blog about abuse, spirituality and abuse are closely entwined. 

Satan attempts to use the abuse we suffered as a weapon to destroy victims’ faith.  Many of us do lose our faith as a result, seeing God as harsh and cruel, if we continue to believe in Him at all.

Even those who were never victimized may have difficulty reconciling the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament.  God, of course, has never changed.

Because of this confusion, it is worth examining God’s true nature.

Mercy and Justice

God described Himself to Moses in this way:

“And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation'” (Ex. 34: 6-7).

God is, therefore, both merciful and just.  These two qualities are in tension with one another in human beings.  Not so with God.

  • The Hebrew word translated as “mercy” or “merciful” is associated with the love of a mother, with compassion from the very womb [1A]. 
  • Graciousness refers to undeserved favor or grace [1B].
  • Longsuffering refers to patience with our mistakes and sins [1C]. Indeed, God is not only willing to forgive our sins, but desires to take them upon Himself [1D].

The phrase “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children” will have special resonance for abuse victims, since it conveys the idea of generational sin or abuse.   Children are not punished by God for the sins of their parents [2].  Patterns of sin often, however, continue from one generation to the next. Continue reading →

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October 5, 2025 · 1:00 am

Shame and Our Response to Trauma

Public shaming: “For being born somewhere else” by Francisco Goya (1810-1811), part of a series about victims of the Inquisition, Museo del Prado (Accession No. D04052), Madrid Spain, (PD)

Many of us who suffered through childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and/or neglect carry a great deal of shame.  This is, in part, because we feel on some level that we deserved the abuse; in part, because of our reaction to it.

There are numerous articles explaining that the abuse was the fault of our abuser; that we were wholly innocent victims.  We may accept that, at least intellectually.  There are fewer articles, however, addressing our response.  So the shame lingers.

An Impossible Standard

As adults, we look back and hold ourselves to an impossible standard.  Whatever our response may have been as children, we feel it was insufficient.  We should have known enough to avoid the situation.  Somehow, we should have gained control, found a way out.

  • We should have screamed, never mind that we were so confused, stunned, or terrified we could not speak and did not think anyone would help us.
  • We should have run, never mind that there was no means of escape.
  • We should have fought back, never mind that the abuser was more than three times our size and had the power either to end our lives or abandon us.
  • We should have told someone, never mind that we had no way to describe what was going on, that are loved ones were threatened, that we were actually concerned for the abuser, and/or that we did not expect to be believed.
  • We should have left home, never mind that we were too young to live on our own, had no ability to support ourselves and nowhere to go.

We should have ____ .  You fill in the blank.

Limitations

None of this self-criticism takes into account two vital things: 

  • First, that we were children with limited means, if any, of confronting such evil.
  • Second, that the human body is only engineered for a limited number of responses to trauma. Those are fight, flight, freeze, and surrender [1].

Continue reading →

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September 28, 2025 · 1:00 am

Passage to Marseille

“Passage to Marseille” film poster, Copyright believed owned by Warner Bros. which produced and distributed the film, Source=http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/DVDReviews25/passage_to_marseille.htm |Portion=All |Low_resolution=Yes |Purpose=Used i

There is an old Humphrey Bogart movie called Passage to Marseille. Set in WWII, the film was released in 1944, when the outcome of the war was still in doubt.  France, at the time, was still under the Vichy government which had collaborated with the Nazis.

The character Bogie plays – a journalist imprisoned for opposing the Nazis, who later becomes an airman fighting them – dies at the end.  But a moving letter written to his young son is read beside his grave.  This is the letter.

“My dear son, today you are five years old, and your father has never seen you.  But someday, in a better world, he will.  I write you of that day. 

Together we walk, hand in hand.  We walk, and we look.  Some of the things we see are wonderful, and some are terrible.  On a green stretch of ground are 10,000 graves, and you feel hatred welling up in your heart.  This was.  But it will never be again. 

The world has been cured since your father treated that terrible abscess on it with iron and fire.  And there were millions of healers who worked with him to make sure there would be no recurrence.  That deadly conflict was waged to decide your future. 

Your friends did not spare themselves, and were ruthless to your foes.  You are the heir of what your father and your friends won for you with their blood.  From their hands you have received the flag of happiness and freedom. 

My son, be the standard bearer of the great age they have made possible.  It would be too tragic if the men of good will should ever be lax or fail again to build a world where youth may love without fear, and where parents may grow old with their children who are men who will be worthy of each other’s faith. 

Take care of your mother, Jean.  I hold you in my arms.  I kiss you both.  May God keep you and love you, as I do.  Good night and au revoir, til our work is finished.  And until I see you remember this:  France lives.  Vive la France!”

We are supposed to have built that better world.  But the sin nature of mankind never changes.  Darkness is again rising.  And evil takes many forms.

For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must not give up the fight.  It may not require iron and fire of us.  While we have breath, however, we must strive with all our might to teach them right from wrong, and truth from lies.  Flawed as we all are.

Only when Christ returns will the work be finished.

—

[1]  Wikipedia, “Passage to Marseille”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_to_Marseille. 

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September 21, 2025 · 1:00 am

Theybies

Image in Public Domain as work prepared by an officer or employee of the US Govt.

There is a tragic new parenting trend:  parents who raise their children without identifying the children’s gender, even to the children [1][2]. 

Such parents view gender as entirely fluid, divorced from biological sex, and something a child should choose later in life.  They use the gender-neutral pronouns “they/them” when referring to their children; use gender-neutral clothing for their children; and buy their children gender-neutral toys.

There are multiple videos on YouTube praising this approach.  Brands, in fact, are marketing to this trend [3].

Undoubtedly, these parents believe they have their children’s best interests at heart.  Many view the “assignment” of a child’s gender at birth (the terminology now applied to identifying a child by his or her biological sex) as presumptuous. 

They want to offer their children the broadest possible range of opportunities in life (something gender linked to biological sex is seen as restricting). Continue reading →

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August 31, 2025 · 1:00 am

Skin Suit

“Female Nude in a Landscape” by Hans Heyerdahl (1857 -1913), Location/Source National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Accession No. NG.M.03536), Oslo, Norway (PD)

WARNING: Graphic Images

This skin suit that surrounds me, more wrinkled now than any “lawyer suit” I ever owned, is no longer smooth, no longer supple.  It is marred by scars and stretch marks, like the tributaries of some ancient river; has been visited by varicosities, by callouses, hives, rashes, and eruptions too often to count.

But once this skin knew the joy of raindrops.  Once it knew the fever that passion evokes.

This skin suit that envelopes me has been bruised, pierced, incised, and sutured; has been burned by the sun to a poison apple red.

This skin has been stroked and patted, been tenderly groomed, oh so tenderly violated, again and again and again and again – each cell silently screaming in protest, recoiling in horror.

This skin suit of mine has served as a witness to all the best and worst aspects of my life, to the weakness and the strength, the failures and the triumphs; has lain prostrate with pain, overcome by grief, yet risen to see the glory of a new dawn, and lived to praise God for His deliverance.

“And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God…” (Job 19: 26).

Originally posted 3/5/17

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August 24, 2025 · 1:00 am

Depravity II

File:Cooling Off - 7583784354.jpg

Source https://www.flickr.com, Image Author Bob Haarmans (CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic)

WARNING:  Graphic Images

Depravity has risen to a new high.

Psychologist Christopher Ryan, the author of Sex at Dawn proposes that human beings are sexual omnivores, designed and entitled to have sex with anyone, at any time, in any way, anywhere [1][2].  In fact, there are those who advocate sex with children and with animals [3][4].

There is no guilt, no shame associated with this.  Morality is an illusion.  There should be no artificial restrictions placed on human behavior.  

After all, human beings are just animals, themselves, only slightly more evolved than apes.  Unrealistic expectations that they exhibit loyalty, trustworthiness, and commitment are the real reason relationships fail.  According to Ryan, at any rate.  

Unfortunately, Ryan is not alone in his belief [5].  Well known celebrities and influencers are taking up the cause.  These individuals are being hailed for their courage in “changing the conversation” [6].

A Sordid Lie

That we are sexual omnivores is a sordid lie about human nature, a rationalization for sin. Continue reading →

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August 17, 2025 · 1:00 am

Rom-Coms

“In Rapture” by Franciszek Zmurko (c. 1900), National Museum in Warsaw (Accession No. MP 3946), Source/Author cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/pl/zbiory/453259, (PD)

“Rose Castorini:  Listen, Johnny.  There’s a question I want to ask.  I want you to tell me the truth, if you can.  Why do men chase women?

Johnny Cammareri:  Well, there’s the Bible story.  God.  God took a rib from Adam and made Eve.  Now, maybe men chase women because they want the rib back.  When God took the rib, He left a big hole there, a place where there used to be something.  And the women have that.  Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn’t complete as a man without a woman.”

—Moonstruck

Many of us enjoy romantic comedies or rom-coms as they are called.  Moonstruck happens to be a favorite of mine.  Boy meets girl.  Boy loses girl.  Boy gets girl.  And they both live happily ever after.

Trite as many rom-com plots are, they contain a kernel of truth about the importance and the power of love.  At some level we all recognize that.  It is the reason we find the boy’s pursuit of the girl engaging.

Sadly, as survivors of childhood abuse, we may settle for unresponsive partners or avoid relationships entirely.  We may not, therefore, have known the sweetness of courtship.  Or perhaps courtship was followed by the horrors of domestic violence. 

How much more meaningful then is God’s pursuit of us?  That pursuit began in the Garden, when sin first separated man from God.

“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3: 9).

Continue reading →

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August 10, 2025 · 1:00 am

In the Company of the Elite

Jeffrey Epstein mugshot (2013), Source https://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/CallImage?imgID=1665905 (PD as work product of the State of Florida)

The scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced former financier and convicted sex offender, has broadened to include a large number of powerful and well-known individuals [1].  Epstein (who trafficked young girls with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell) regularly kept company with politicians, filmmakers, journalists, scientists, comedians, intellectuals, and royalty.

We may be shocked to learn these names, and appalled at the behavior exhibited.  We should not be surprised that the so called “elite” suffer from the very same sin nature common to all mankind.  Wealth may disguise that fact; power may effectively keep secrets from the public.  But the stain remains.

Undoubtedly, there are varying degrees of guilt.  Some will claim they never knew what went on.  Others will claim they knew, but did not participate.  Still others will simply deny everything.

God knows the whole story, whether we ever will or not.

—

[1]  The Guardian, “Epstein scandal broadens as trove of letters from famous figures published” by Anna Betts, 8/5/25, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/jeffrey-epstein-letters-photos.

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August 3, 2025 · 1:00 am

Nudify Apps and the Road to Destruction

Actress/Director Scarlett Johansson, Source https://www.flickr.com/photos/15512543@N04/2185543324/, Author John Harrison at https://www.flickr.com/photos/15512543@N04/, Permission Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

A new word has entered our vocabulary.  To “nudify” is to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create deepfake images which appear to show the individuals depicted as naked [1]. Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson have been among those famously victimized.

Thousands of nudify apps exist to accomplish this, and have rapidly gained popularity [2][3].  Many work only on images of women.  And, as might be expected, many use social media for marketing purposes.

Thus far, victims have typically been school girls who posted innocent photos of themselves online [4].  However, anyone of any age can use these apps to convert harmless online images into what appear to be embarrassing photos and videos of children, teens, teachers, parents, police officers, pastors, or others in the nude. 

Once the nude images have been created, they can circulate on all the digital platforms commonly used for messaging today. 

Impact

Such images are often used as revenge porn with a deliberate intent of humiliating and degrading the individual pictured.  Whatever the intent, the impact on victims is overwhelmingly negative.  Not only embarrassment, but anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation can result. Continue reading →

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