Should Trump act like King David? (Answer: what a dumb question)

Is this what god wants?

RightWingWatch has a post today about Rick Wiles who is praying for the removal of H.R. McMaster from his position as national security advisor. Not a big deal. Just another day at the office for the Christian radio circuit. What made it more interesting was his solution: have McMaster sent to Afghanistan, in effect sending him to a battlefield, like King David sent Bathsheba's husband to war.

It is a little shocking to hear a Christian wingnut use this example, and I wonder if he has actually read the Bible story that he references here.

In case you don't know the story, here is a synopsis of 2 Samuel 11-12: King David saw Bathsheba and was attracted to her. He called for her, they slept together and she got pregnant. So, King David decides to have her husband Uriah sent to battle to die. But, and this is important, Yahweh was not pleased with David. In his anger, he sent a dude named Nathan to tell him a parable about a rich guy with a big flock who wanted the ewe of a poor man and say "Yo, Davey, you're the rich asshole who stole the poor man's ewe." (I'm paraphrasing slightly.) Further, Yahweh punishes David by killing the son he had with Bathsheba. Later though, they sleep together and she has a son, Solomon.

So yeah, not sure what Wiles thinks the story was about. I guess he thinks god loved David, so everything the blessed dude did was right.

For all the Christian blathering about how people need to read the shitty parts of the Bible in context and excuse slavery because it was really happy fun time indentured servitude, or, yeah, god committed genocide here and there, but look at the one man he saved, so he's really merciful, this takes the cake. You really gotta want to think this is the "good book" to justify a lot of the crap in it.

Yet, here is this person with a microphone and time to fill on a show with some kind of religiousy stories about how his preferred policy stances and grievances are justified with some Biblical backing and "god hates all the same people I do."

My two cents on the David-Bathsheba-Uriah love triangle is: This shows Yahweh's assholery. Why did god let all these innocent people die? Didn't he know what David was up to. I mean, David is talking about it to his people. He doesn't hide it and says "I want this Uriah dude out of the way and dead." (Slight paraphrase again.) Could Yahweh not prevent it? Further, how on earth is killing the child some kind of justice? I mean, I get he wanted to cause David suffering, but couldn't he have struck David with some illness or ailment? He also clearly didn't care about Bathsheba's feelings either. She mourned a husband (Uriah) and then went to be David's wife where she lost her child. She was a pawn in the whole story with no real power or choice. But hey, what's the suffering of one poor woman when we have to teach David a lesson?

This story is one of the reasons why the Bible is immoral. It is a terrible story where god allows or causes suffering when he could have prevented the whole thing.