How do you teach God's genocide to children?
Take for example Deuteronomy 20 where Yahweh outlines the guidelines by which Israel is to go to war with her neighbors. God's directions begin with the cities of the more distant nations. When Israel marches on these cities they should first receive an offer of peace (v. 10) followed by enforced slavery to the Israelites (v. 11).
Given that we instruct our children in the horrors of slavery, this text immediately raises some difficulties. Why does God subject people to slavery?
But then it gets worse, for if the city refuses to surrender to the Israelites, all the men are to be slaughtered (v. 13), a practice condemned by the Third Geneva Convention and universally renounced by civilized nations today. Needless to say, the taking of women, children, and livestock as plunder (v. 14) is also universally rejected. How can we explain God's directions here to our children?
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