Subversive Scriptures: Romans 9:10-21

10Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by him who calls she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

Let's recap: before Jacob and Esau were born, before they had a chance to sin, God declared that he hated Esau, and loved Jacob. In the case of the Pharaoh that refused to allow Moses to leave Egypt, God actively 'harden[ed] those whom he want[ed] to harden' so that Pharaoh would spoil Moses's plans, and then punished the whole of Egypt each time Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave. Pharaoh's sole purpose, actually, was to exist so that Egypt might be punished for his folly. All so that God's glory could be shown to the Israelites. The firstborn son of every Egyptian house died because of Pharaoh's decision not to let the Israelites leave his country, and here God claims that the decision was a result of God hardening Pharaoh's heart.

Ironically, this scripture fits amiably with the hawkish stances on war that many Christian denominations have taken. Who cares about collateral casualties so long as the glory of God is shown to his people? As long as the chosen ones are all right, there's no need to keep track of Iraqi casualties.

Any way you take it, Paul's writing here has difficult implications for the Christian faith. Is god the kind of God that would actually create a person solely for the purpose of punishing a nation for that person's decisions? Would he actively harden Pharaoh's heart against Moses, then take out his wrath on the children of a nation? Read literally, the answer here is yes.

Read more charitably, one might say that Paul was simply pointing out that God knew the result of Pharaoh's confrontation with Moses before the confrontation occurred. It would on this reading be all right for God to say that he has loved Jacob and hated Esau before they were born, because God knew in advance which he would love and which he would hate.

I think that this is a rather disingenuous reading, because it ignored the bits about God 'loving whom he would love and hardening whom he would harden'. Those are fairly active statements, not statements of God's knowledge, but statements of God's direct action.

Another disturbing implication of this passage is to point out that God doesn't actually love everyone. God is not an all-charitable being. God knows in advance whether you will be one of his people, and if you are not, then you can become collateral damage for the sake of his people. If you are not among the chosen, then in fact God does not love and value you, but may hate you (and has even before you were born!). The Bible has numerous examples of what has happened to civilizations or cities or people that God has hated. Most of them end bloodily.

I am not claiming that these interpretations are the correct ones. I am, however, pointing out that they are not unreasonable extrapolations. It's all there in the text, in a little passage that no one really talks much about. I've never seen a pastor preach on it. Frankly, I think most pastors are either unaware of it or are ignoring it because of the implications. This isn't the theology that a pastor would want a church full of prospective Christians to hear.

It contradicts a lot of modern soundbytes, and several major doctrines of various modern denominations. This is subversive scripture at its best.