God as Abusive Parent
By Eric Pepke
When I first read the Bible, I was struck by how closely the
behavior of the Bible-god resembled the behavior of an abusive
parent, and also by how closely the behavior of his followers
resembled that of abused children. The whole notion of sin
boils down to, "I'm responsible when Daddy hurts me, because I
must have done something wrong to make him mad. I'm bad, but
Daddy is good, and he loves me. I'm so, so unworthy."
Further, this is the only interpretation of the Bible-god that I
have run across which is totally consistent between the Old and
New Testaments. The OT-god is brutish and destructive and
angry. The NT-god is basically self-punishing, although bits of
the old nastiness come through. Both of the behavior sets are
found in abusive personalities.
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