The evangelical Christians who run New Life magazine probably consider themselves a highly moral group of people. After all, they spend much of their time fulminating against abortion rights, gay and lesbian rights, feminists, ‘evolutionists’, supporters of voluntary euthanasia and similar miscreants. Surely they themselves are ‘right with God’.

As with a number of conservative Christian journals, you can tell a lot about the core beliefs of the publishers and editors by reading the children’s pages. Here, the organisation’s basic ideas are distilled to their essence, untrammelled by the bodyguard of … I was going to say ‘nuances’, but let’s say ‘lies’ instead … that accompany similar articles written for adult consumption.

New Life’s ‘Hotshots’ children’s page is provided by the Scripture Union (for kids ‘8 and up’) and their offering for 1 Mar. 2007 was a little story entitled ‘A mean man’. Two children are discussing a parable of Jesus that they have just read:

‘That was a good story about the man who owed 50 million silver coins’, said Reuben. ‘I like the ending anyway. That was so cool of the king to say he didn’t have to pay!’

‘That’s not really the end of the story’, said Kate. ‘Let’s read it.’

Matthew 18:28-35:

‘As the official [whose debt had just been forgiven by the king] was leaving …’

OK, time out for a moment. ‘Official’, eh? How come my ancient copy of the King James Version (KJV) says ’servant’, while a number of versions I found on the Web say ’slave’? I’m telling you, folks, you have to watch these guys like hawks. Back to Jesus’ parable:

… he happened to meet another official, who owed him a hundred silver coins. So he grabbed the man by the throat. He started choking him and said, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ The man got down on his knees and began begging [for time to pay] … But the first official refused to have pity. Instead, he went and had the other official put in jail until he could pay what he owed.

Some other ‘officials’ find out what has happened and report the matter to the king.

The king called the first official back in and said, ‘You’re an evil man! When you begged for mercy, I said you did not have to pay back a cent. Don’t you think you should show pity to someone else, as I did to you?

Now things come to the crunch.

The king was so angry that he ordered the official to be tortured until he could pay back everything he owed.

And then Jesus concludes:

That is how my Father in heaven will treat you, if you don’t forgive each of my followers with all your heart.

Now, there are a number of intriguing things about this story, sometimes called the Parable of the Unjust Steward. (In the Bible, this story comes right after the much better-known tale in which Jesus tells Peter that you should forgive people ’seventy times seven’ - something which, in the parable, God himself seems disinclined to do!) I think the Hotshots story helps explain why some Christians are constantly rabbiting on about the absolute necessity of forgiving those who sin against you. Anyone who took this little anecdote to heart would be scared stiff of doing anything else! In other words, Christians who say they ‘forgive’ you are actually in the business of quietly saving their own skin.

But, to return to my theme, what about the effect on the children reading this impossibly confused fable, its effect made even more destructive by the fact that it purports to promote a genuine virtue i.e. that of mercy?

At the end of the passage from Matthew, children are asked the following question:

Think carefully about this Bible reading. What do you learn about God from this story?

Well, first I learnt that God approves of, and apparently practises torture. There seems no doubt that ‘torture’ is a correct translation. The KJV (beloved of evangelicals) says ‘tormentors’, which is pretty close, while the Revised Standard Version hedges its bets with ‘jailers’ in the main text, but with a notation saying, ‘In Greek: “torturers”‘.

Secondly, I learnt that God administers disproportionately severe punishments. I don’t forgive somebody wholeheartedly? He has me tortured, possibly forever. It follows that he is an unjust deity.

Thirdly, I’m going to worry for the rest of my life about whether I’ve forgiven ‘with all my heart’ those who have wronged me. Even if they’re not God’s ‘followers’ when they trespass against me, they might be converted at any time and then I’ll be up the creek. How will I ever know whether I’ve successfully despatched every little trace of resentment to God’s satisfaction?

Seriously, what sort of a story is this to tell to young children? And what sort of people would spread it far and wide on the children’s page of their magazine?

Filed in: Biblical criticism, Evangelicals