Quite a few believing readers wrote to me saying that the Israeli soldier who destroyed a statue of Jesus in the Christian Lebanese village of Debel had done the right thing and should under no circumstances be punished. Their reasoning was that such statues are idols. More than that, biblical texts contain commands to destroy foreign altars and idols. So anyone who smashes a statue, the argument goes, is acting in the spirit of Scripture.
Biblically speaking, they may be right—but in our time, different standards apply. The destroyed Jesus statue in Lebanon triggered far more than a mere military incident. The episode exposes a deep conflict: what happens when biblical prohibitions against idols collide with the modern idea of religious freedom? Between ancient faith and contemporary values of liberty, an uncomfortable question emerges: where are the limits of what biblical commandments still mean in modern times, and how they can be lived out responsibly? What was forbidden in the Bible is permitted today?!
As someone who believes in the Bible, I can understand what was meant by the...
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