This is a must read quote pertaining to the use of the Bible for oppression.  In it Indians in Latin America seek to “return the Bible” to John Paul II.  Anyone who seeks to defend passages like the conquest narratives should be required to read quotes like these from those whose oppressors have used these stories as a means of oppression:

John Paul II, we Andean and American Indians, have decided to take advantage of your visit to return to you your Bible, since in five centuries it has not given us love, peace, or justice.

Please take back your Bible and give it back to our oppressors, because they need its moral teachings more than we do. Ever since the arrival of Christopher Columbus a culture, a language, religion and values which belong to Europe have been imposed on Latin America by force.

The Bible came to us as part of the imposed colonial transformation. It was the ideological weapon of this colonialist assault. The Spanish sword which attacked and murdered the bodies of Indians by day and night became the cross which attacked the Indian soul. [Richard 1990a –  Cited in John Riches, The Bible: A Very Short Introduction [book on-line] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, accessed 3 September 2009), 87; available from Questia, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96369400; Internet.]