Is It Time to Stop Reading the Psalms of David?

The Dilemma of Embracing a Polygamist, Rapist, and Murderer

Brian Tubbs
4 min readJul 25, 2023
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

What does it say about people of faith today — people who claim to love God and embrace compassion and justice — that they read, meditate upon, and even memorize the writings of a violent, polygamist ruler who committed such moral offenses as adultery, murder, and abuse of power?

This article was inspired by an excellent piece by Dan Foster at Backyard Church, a popular publication here on Medium. Dan presents a battle between mind and heart over the complicated, messy legacy of Hillsong Church — on the one hand, a church with lots of scandalous skeletons in its closet, and on the other hand, one that has produced incredible music.

His piece (and I encourage you to read it) got me thinking — not just about Christian music from flawed artists but also about Scripture from flawed human beings.

In fact, the entire Bible is a compilation of writings from men who were flawed — some of them majorly so. And yet…

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