The Write Place

Over and over atheists make the “moral” argument against Christianity by throwing the conquest of Canaan at the Christian. The argument goes that God commanded genocide, genocide is immoral, therefore God does not exist. 

This is a non-sequitur as God commanding something of the sort is not proof he does not exist, but the default response then is that he is immoral. However their very premise is unproven and misleading.

In their argument there’s a lot of context missing.

God gave them grace

“16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.””

Genesis 15:16

Here were their sins that are conveniently left out of by the objectors.

1. They passed their children through fire (Child Sacrifice).

Deuteronomy 12:31
You must not worship the LORD your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

The Amorites are detailed here in particular, and this may have been practiced in Canaan also (YouTube). Watch it if you dare, but Amorite child sacrifice involved the dismemberment of children in worship of a serpent God. Tell me it doesn’t sound like a mockery of Genesis 3:14-15‘s promise for the seed of the woman to crush the serpent.

The Cult of Molech, heavily practiced in Canaan, involved the burning of infants alive upon a scorching hot altar. There was ritual of song, music, chanting to drown out the wails of the infant that developed over time. Oaths were made and promises for prosperity and eventually the idol was even mechanized. This roasting infant’s bearing God’s image is what God was judging, but there was more.

2.Sexual sin

Some of these our culture likes these days (homosexuality is listed) but for the moment our culture finds many on the list detestable as these include bestiality and incest.

The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

6 “‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.

7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.

9 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

10 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.

11 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

12 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.

13 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.

14 “‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

15 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

16 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

17 “‘Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

18 “‘Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

19 “‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

20 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

24 “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

Leviticus 18

In the ancient world, three elements of societies are seen as linked together, and you see them in Leviticus 18. This system colors the conquest, shaping the commands God gave to Israel. Its components are.

Land/cities
Gods (religion)
Peoples

The reason for God’s command to destroy the nations was to break the system so Israel wouldn’t follow after them for themselves. Due to the Canaanites sin the land was defiled, and the system needed to be destroyed. If the nations persisted, so would the cultures. If these continued, so would the idolatry and all the atrocities. If they remained, they would become a temptation to the children of Israel. God, being moral and reasonable says so himself.

This explains the annihilation command.

 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. ³³ They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Exodus 23:32-33

In fact, the warning to remove them lest they be a snare is repeated several times (Exodus 23:13, 23:32-34, 34:11-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, 12:30, 20:16-18).

They failed (Judges 1) and wouldn’t you know it.

You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered My children and delivered them up through the fire to idols.

Ezekiel 16:20-21

The command was apocalyptic in language; however, we have precedent that tells us other outcomes were possible. Some converted, including Jesus’s ancestor Rahab her story is in Joshua 2, and she appears in Jesus genealogy.

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Matthew 1:5

The objector often spouts a one-line gotcha they found on the internet, or intentionally leaves out the details of the conquest. The real issues rest with them.

How could a jus, holy and loving God, leave that level of sin in a society unpunished?

Where do any objectors get their morality from?

For an atheist we are all just wads of chemicals bouncing around an impersonal, wholly non-moral universe. They can’t make the moral case, but being in God’s image they testify to their knowledge of him by making moral judgments (Romans 2:14-16).

For an atheist there are no values just chemical reactions we call value and anything that happens is just the process of the universe/history. If you want morality and justice on any foundation that holds, you have to be a Christian.

Eastern religions like Buddhism or Hinduism just believe in Karma (what goes around comes around). This solves nothing for them either, the conclusion being the Canaanites all had it coming to them. So, what’s the objection?

The idea that genocide might be a bad thing is a Christian idea, since all mankind is made of one blood and bearing his image (Genesis 1:27, Genesis 3:20, Genesis 9:19, Acts 17:26), all nations are in the scope of salvation and have dignity (Matthew 28:19-20, Revelation 7:9) and all can have access to God, both examples create the idea of human rights. If you use the slaughter of the Canaanites as an objection, you are ignorant, but you are also indebted to Christianity and would make a good Christian.

What does that mean for us today as Christians? Aside from the solid answers to the objections, we see a lot about the depravity of sin. The human heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). The Penalty for sin is severe, and justifiably so.

The world outside of Christ is dangerous, so through the Gospel, conquer. Those snares still exist, they merely take on a modern facade. We sacrifice our children, we just do so while they are in the womb like “liberated/civilized” people. We justify further and further perversions in the name of “love” in an age where love has become impossible to find or even define. You, Christian, are called to be something different, and to spread the truth of the Gospel, turning this Canaan into a promised land and it’s Canaanites (which you once were) into the people of promise.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2