The Violence of God and the War on Terror Jeremy Young Darton, Longman and Todd, 217pp, £12.95 ISBN 0232526664
Approaching the Bible as the case notes for a family in therapy, Jeremy Young identifies God as the abusive husband of Israel, “a narcissistic character who requires constant adoration, or else he flies into a rage” (Young’s italics). An “abusive cycle” begins, as God commands his chosen people to conquer and destroy the Canaanites. It’s the first case of a Judaeo-Christian people committing atrocities in God’s name, and a forerunner to events from the Crusades to the invasion of Iraq.
Young’s central point – that all three major monotheistic religions use the “chosen people theology” to justify violence, and that “Christianity is at least as capable as Islam of promoting violence” (Young’s italics again) – is both interesting and valid, if not earth-shatteringly original. But even if you accept his psychological portrait of God, let alone the value of psychoanalysing a deity in the first place, it adds nothing to the central argument. On top of this, Young’s writing style is singularly irritating, using italics whenever he wants to really hammer a point home. His only truly innovative addition to the debate, the model of God as an abusive husband, is little more than a gimmick to justify the book’s soundbite title.
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