CS, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your chapter in ‘Show Them No Mercy’. The only thing that I think is missing in your presentation - or, at least, could be greatly expanded on - pertains to this whole area of ‘Scriptural authority’.

Coming from an anabaptist perspective, I wonder if a more appropriate way to respond to the concern that your view challenges ‘Scriptural authority’ is to say, “Damn, right!” Jesus is the only authority around here.

Furthermore, it’s only a wooden and overly ‘systematic’ approach to the Bible that presumes it - as a whole - presents God as violent or peaceful. Perhaps a more reverent and critical hermeneutic would see numerous threads, options, narratives and tracks through scripture. Some of these, it seems to me, actually interact with and critique each other. What is important to me, is not the authority of the Bible, but submitting to Jesus and following the track that he walks within.