If you’ve seen the movie you know that King David was a mighty warrior, a great king, a great lover, and his great love was Bathsheba.

If you attended the Sunday School classes I did you also knew that David committed a great sin. He allowed himself to be seduced by a temptress.

The men and women of the Bible were a sorry lot. The women were wanton, the men helpless to a woman’s smile. Adam ate whatever Eve gave him to eat. Lot’s daughters got him drunk so that he was unable to avoid incest. Samson allowed Delilah to trim his hair. Hebrew bucks were seduced into idolatry by Moabite women. And King David was taffy when he saw Bathsheba.

There are a few details missing from that telling of the story. David had several wives. He also had concubines or sex slaves. When he was old and bed covers could not warm him a young virgin was placed in his bed to do so. None of that was adultery. David was king and could have any woman he wanted as long as she was not the property of another man. Bathsheba had a husband. Uriah was away at war and David’s seed took root in her. To cover his sin, David ordered Uriah to be brought to him and ordered Uriah to go home to his wife. 

Uriah was a soldier’s soldier. He was not an Israelite but a Hittite. He fought for King David and refused to go home to his wife’s bed and forget his brothers-in-arms sleeping in the field. Despite Uriah’s loyalty and professionalism his Commander-in Chief ordered his death so that he could marry Uriah’s widow.

I never heard that part of the story in Sunday School. David’s great sin was adultery. Murdering Uriah was collateral damage. And because of The Big Sin Bathsheba’s illicit baby died.

The Bible tells us traditional marriage is not between one man and one woman. Sex and marriage are cultural as well as moral, ethical, economic and religious issues. Muslims come closer to following biblical laws than Christians do. According to CNN, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul a marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year old man because the father was the legal guardian of the girl and the father had arranged the marriage. The husband pledged not to consummate the marriage until the girl reached puberty. 

That’s traditional marriage--arranged for private, political, economic or social reasons. In Nepal, we witnessed the betrothal of a 9-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. The girl would live with her family until she reached puberty. Mary was probably betrothed to Joseph before she reached puberty.

Rabbi Barry Block of San Antonio has said that the Jewish Bible cannot be used as a guide to sexual relationships. Men could have more than one wife and were to marry their brother’s widow even if they already had a wife or two. An unmarried man committed adultery only if he had sexual relations with a married woman. However, for a woman sexual relations with anyone other than a lawful husband was adultery and was punishable by death.

A woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus to be condemned. “Caught in the act” didn’t mean naked and in bed as it does now. It might mean being alone with a man who was not a relative. Recently an Islamic court found a woman guilty of adultery because she was sitting in a car talking to a man who was not her husband. The man was not guilty. Jesus said that one without sin was to throw the first stone at the adulteress. 

Jesus further clouded the definition of adultery by saying that anyone who divorced and remarried committed adultery, anyone who divorced his wife, except for adultery, caused her to commit adultery and anyone who married a divorced woman committed adultery. Look at Christian congregations and try to find someone who has not committed adultery by that definition. Then Jesus declared that anyone who looked at a woman to lust after her committed adultery in his heart, adding every male who has reached puberty except those oriented to their own gender.

Technically, homosexuals cannot commit adultery. For Christians, unmarried heterosexuals commit fornication not adultery. Church leaders don’t address whether oral and anal sex is fornication/adultery and many young people do not regard oral sex as “having sex.” Traditional Marriage American Style is serial marriages between a man and a woman with intermittent adjunct unions alongside or in between.

None of that is to excuse sexual immorality but to encourage parents, Sunday School teachers and church leaders to abandon the “missionary position” and honestly and directly approach human sexuality in a way that is adequate and appropriate to the culture in which young people live. Instead, we leave it to the government, primarily public schools, to do so. When allowed by parents and other lobbyists, public schools are more honest and forthright but perhaps not the best authority.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” is neither absolute nor unambiguous. Confusion reigns. Reagan’s adulterous relationship with Nancy Wilson resulted in his broken marriage and her illegitimate child but their subsequent marriage was celebrated. Clinton’s less-than-an-affair and less than what many consider “having sex” was an impeachable offense. Defining “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is as difficult as defining “Thou shalt not kill.” But in churches I have attended adultery is the greater sin, perhaps because few of the members have committed murder. 

“Thou shalt not kill” is sometimes interpreted as “thou shalt not murder” in order to justify vengeance, war, capital punishment. Nathan, the prophet, charged David with murdering Uriah although Uriah died in battle. Did Hitler murder 6 million Jews or were they collateral damage in his war for homeland security? Did Stalin murder 14 million Ukrainians or did they die of hunger to demonstrate the economic power of Communism? Reagan’s war of terror against Mayan Indians in Central America was declared an international crime by the International Criminal Court but few in American care or remember. When a village in Afghanistan was bombed killing 88 civilians including women and children but no terrorists the Pentagon stated that those people were dead because the US wanted them dead. Was that murder or collateral damage in our war to kill terror? When a wedding in Iraq was bombedkilling mostly women and children was that murder or collateral damage in our war to free the Iraqi people?

Although it is a closely guarded secret in the US, a leaked British memo revealed that Bush and Blair held an emergency meeting two months before Bush’s war on Iraq and both Bush and Blair agreed that WMD were not likely to be found in Iraq because UN inspectors failed to find any. Nevertheless, Bush said he was going to attack Iraq anyway and they needed to find a better lie to justify killing Iraqis. Failing to find a better pretext, they went to war with what both acknowledged was a lie.

According to a UN and Iraqi survey more than a million Iraqis have died and more than four million have become refugees in Bush’s war on Iraq. If those figures are accurate, that’s a greater genocide than Darfur. However, adultery by John Edwards who had no political office and was running for no office received far more condemnation by the media and the “Christian” right than murder by Bush. Perhaps that’s because if the deliberate death of innocents is murder then “Good Americans” who condone murder and torture are also guilty. Our excuse before God is that we don’t murder; we condone kicking down doors and shooting families inside their homes to liberate them. We don’t torture. We condone excruciating pain because we want evil people to betray their comrades, their country and their religion. Just as “Good Germans” did.

Some have argued for centuries whether Jesus was killed by religious authorities who wanted him dead or by Roman soldiers to whom one crucifixion was the same as another in their Pax Romana.

In our War of Global Terror, we want those who frighten us militarily, ideologically or religiously dead and death by hunger, disease or collateral damage is the same as any other death. If God killed Bathsheba’s baby because of David’s sin, what should we expect, those of us who believe in God?  

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