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"Beware of the man whose God is in the skies."
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903
Anyone reading the Old Testament knows that Yahweh, God of those claiming Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as their forefathers, was essentially a sky-god. It's possible to trace the evolution of the understanding of this once-local, tribal deity into the one universal Lord and Father of humanity in the pages of the Bible. But, vestiges of this self-described "jealous god" who can brook no rivals and is savage in his treatment of those who "go whoring after other gods" remained throughout the New Testament period and still cling to Judaism, Christianity and Islam today.
Indeed, author Jonathan Kirsch, blames the monotheistic religions which originally were birthed by devotion to Yahweh for much of the intervening history's violence. In his book God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism (Viking Press), Kirsch argues persuasively that had Constantine not espoused Christianity and officially institutionalized it in the place of the Pagan polytheistic religions and cults some 1,700 years of world history might have turned out much more peacefully.
His thesis is that the idea of only one God tends to go hand-in-glove with a rigid demand for exclusivity and intolerance of others holding different creeds. Certainly, as touched on here recently in a commentary on Joshua's allegedly ruthless campaign against the Canaanites, the Bible is filled with the blood and gore of those who followed the fertility and other cults so familiar in the ancient world of the Near East. The history of the Christian Church from its very beginning has always been one associated with crusades of varying degrees of savagery against those who happened to disagree.
However, polytheism — a commitment to religious pluralism — while not wholly divorced from violence either, nevertheless is much more laissez-faire in its approach and attitudes to other faiths, according to Kirsch. The difference between violent polytheists and violent monotheists, he believes, is that the former kill to gain political control while the latter do so to gain theological dominance.
In other words, monotheism leads to a desire to control both public behaviour and private thoughts while polytheism, when resorting to violence, seeks control over the public sphere only.
Reported in an article in the Toronto Star last June 13, "Monotheism blamed for history's bloodshed," Kirsch said that critics accuse him of being "uninformed" and "anti-faith" but he stoutly asserts that he is a "Jewish monotheist" who recites the Sh'ma (Judaism's creedal version of monotheistic orthodoxy) but who believes at the same time that there are "many ways that people perceive the one, true God." In other words, he is a conditional monotheist.
Clearly, despite some contradictions in his book, Kirsch has opened an important debate at this moment when there is (at times irresponsible) open talk of a clash of civilizations or even of religious wars.
Monotheism, devoutly and uncritically adopted, has spawned some of the most terrible deeds of the past. I strongly believe that today Christian leaders need to do some very hard reflection on the charges Kirsch is making. For example, is there no evangelical thinker who is troubled by the fact that 69 per cent of conservative Christians in the United States today favour the war in Iraq — more than 10 percentage points higher than the U.S. adult population as a whole?
According to Stand For Israel, a recent spin-off of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, their recent survey showed that almost two-thirds of evangelical Christians support Israeli actions against "Palestinian terrorism" compared with only 54 per cent of the general population. The point here is not to comment on the political aspects of these stories but to note the apparent correlation between strong monotheistic beliefs and ready acceptance of violence as a way to meet problems with others. Similar statistics can be found regarding American attitudes towards capital punishment.
There are some difficulties with Kirsch's analysis. It seems self-evident that there is but one Oversoul, Divine Mind, or Mysterious Absolute as the source and ground of all aspects of being. This is monotheism. But, it also seems self-evident that there are not only many different ways of understanding this Ultimacy — nobody can claim to possess the Sole Truth — but also that there truly are many levels of divinity or lesser powers.
It's wrong, for example, to refer to Hinduism as polytheistic when in fact most Hindu theologians would agree with Kirsch that ultimately God is one. The lesser deities are really special powers of nature or of the spiritual world whose representations help the worshipper express the inexpressible.
Monotheism and polytheism can be compatible when it is realized that all monotheism has some of polytheism within it (angels, saints and even the doctrine of the Trinity suggests that) and all polytheism, when pushed, affirms the unity of God. What's more, one day we shall all be as gods in "the house of God."
Tom Harpur is a theologian whose
focus is on cosmic spirituality. His website is: http://www.tom harpur.com
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