In Exodus 15 we’re confronted with God in terms that may make our city squirm – the Mighty Warrior who drowns the army of Egypt.
I wonder how different our sensibilities would be if we read this in a different cultural setting? I’m reading Philip Jenkin’s The Next Christendom which describes Global Christianity. In it he points out how most of the world’s displaced and exiled peoples are Christians in sub-Saharan Africa. When they read Exodus and hear of an evil despot who wants them dead they rejoice that God saves his oppressed people. They gladly worship the mighty warrior who promises justice for his people.
Our sanitized western reading is in danger of domesticating the Mighty Warrior God who saves his people from an African despot.