Johnny Depp’s current libel case reminds us how unpleasant it is when someone’s character and behaviour are misrepresented. Not many of us need a jury to decide the merits of our case; but most of us can remember a time when someone said something about us and we thought, ‘that’s just not me’.
Richard Dawkins dismisses the character of God as described in the Old Testament as ‘the most unpleasant character in all fiction’. Not holding anything he back he complains that God is ‘jealous, petty, unjust, unforgiving, vindictive, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and so he goes on’. That’s quite a hatchet job on anyone’s character!
It’s just a shame that he seems to have missed the bit where God reveals himself to Moses as: ‘Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.’
In the New Testament St Paul comes to the conclusion that Jesus was ‘the image of the invisible God’. Why? Well at least in part because Jesus was compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
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