Question #4

Considering, the story of Hagar and Sarah: In the Genesis version, there is a lot of difficult complexity - for instance, God sends Hagar back into bondage then tells Abraham to listen to Sarah and cast Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Then, Paul does a REALLY horrible retelling of this story in Galatians. He makes a point we all like - that faith trumps the law - but he does it in a way that has resulted in much Inter-religious strife, gender oppression, etc. Why do all of these horrible things seem sanctioned by, or even motivated by, God?