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Is Less Really More?
Ira Rifkin
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In the Western hierarchy of sacred thought, monotheism will always beat out polytheism, hands down. Transferring belief in the divine from the Many to the One in recognition of the mysterious unity binding life�s rich diversity was the qualitative insight in religious development -- right? Writer Jonathan Kirsch, ever the iconoclast, would demur -- Abrahamic monotheism�s global demographic and cultural dominance notwithstanding.
Monotheism, the prolific Kirsch maintains in his new work, "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism," has as its core value a narcissistic intolerance of dissent. One God means one way. Theological differences spawn threatening heterodoxies, and are to be opposed, violently if necessary. Even ethi-cal monotheism shares this intolerant and, in Kirsch�s view, ultimately self-destructive trait.
In contrast, polytheism�s core value is theological pluralism, he writes. Accept the notion of multiple gods, of the possibility of diversity on the spiritual path, and what follows is a proclivity for accepting human differences in general and -- critically -- public differences of opinion. Nor is polytheism necessarily lowbrow and unconcerned with higher ethics, as monotheists would have us believe. What about Neo-Platonism�s talk of the soul, mystical union and virtue? Kirsch asks. What about Hinduism�s emphasis on cause and effect amid its talk of the godhead�s millions of mani-festations? I add.
Given the abominable record of bloodletting that rigorous monotheists -- Kirsch�s term for fundamentalist fanatics -- have amassed over the past millennia, might the world not be better off had Julian the Apostate, the Roman Empire�s last pagan emperor, not died young in battle? That question is at the heart of Kirsch�s book, and is well worth considering in this age of holy terrorism.
"God Against the Gods," the latest in Kirsch�s string of popular, Biblically themed books ("The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible";
"King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel"), is an intriguing read for non-specialists whose theology tends toward the liberal. But beneath this book�s easy digestibility lurk some nagging and largely unaddressed questions, such as: Why is it that polytheists -- including pre-Christian Romans, not to mention virtually every polytheistic culture with access to weaponry -- have shown themselves to be as ruthless and bloodthirsty as monotheists? And, given that more than 50 percent of the world�s population identifies with a monotheistic faith (with another 20 percent or so claiming no religious tradition or professing atheism, and the rest generally adhering to various polytheistic or non-theistic alternatives), could so many people really be misdirected about the consequences of their worship?
Job tells us that the answer to the first question is simply beyond human understanding. Kirsch, the humanist, attributes it to some devilish quirk of human nature that reacts violently to the differences among us. As for question two, certainly they could. Human history is replete with examples of massive and long-lasting ignorance on issues of extraordinary importance, including the conviction that an opinion held strongly is by definition correct.
But Kirsch does not focus on why monotheism appears to have been victorious in the war his subtitle says exists. His concern, rather, is how it emerged on top. This is a book of history, and, to a degree, of presumed history. It is not a polemic, although Kirsch -- who maintains a full-time intellectual-property law practice in Los Angeles in addition to a prodigious schedule as author and book critic -- displays a fondness for what he calls polytheism�s "open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice."
Kirsch considers himself "a Jewish monotheist," as he put it during a telephone conversation. His sympathy for polytheism stems from his thoroughly modern commitment to religious liberty. Its appeal comes from the latitude it allows in picking beliefs, a view his personal monotheism does not disallow for others.
Kirsch rejects Abraham�s historicity and leaves the traditional father of monotheism out of his book, except as he appears in a Biblical reference or two. Instead, the largely self-taught Kirsch begins monotheism�s rise with Akhenaton, the 14th-century BCE Egyptian pharaoh and proto-monotheist, from whom, the author postulates, drawing on Sigmund Freud�s "Moses and Monotheism" and other sources, Israelite tribesmen likely picked up the idea of one overriding deity.
Speaking of Moses, whose historicity is also dismissed, Kirsch notes that despite the reverence shown him, Moses� Biblical success in instilling monotheism in his fellow Israelites was less than complete. Yahweh, the chief Israelite god, was not the only Israelite God until the reign of King Josiah, the 7th-century BCE ruler of Judah, whose monotheistic zealotry led him to burn the bones of idol-worshiping priests on the altars of their gods, before destroying the altars themselves.
Monotheism's early progression, from Josiah to the advent of Christianity and its building conflict with Roman polytheism, consumes roughly the book�s first half. The remainder of "God Against the Gods" is devoted to the climactic reigns of Emperors Constantine the Great, who embraced Christianity and made it Rome�s official faith in the 4th century CE, and Julian the Apostate, his nephew, who briefly restored polytheism to its traditional place in the Roman pantheon for one last time.
Christian apologists emphasize Constantine�s faith conversion as the root of his embrace of Christianity. Kirsch emphasizes Constantine�s political motivations, suggesting that Constantine�s "preference for monotheism over polytheism reflected his own ambition to achieve the same absolute power on earth that the Christian god was believed to exercise in heaven." Likewise, notes Kirsch, Constantine�s convening of Christian bishops at Nicaea to establish a semblance of orthodoxy was more about the emperor�s preference for corporate order and fear of political chaos arising out of individual conscience than it was about any desire to arrive at spiritual truths.
The result of Constantine�s self-centered decisions was the institutionalizing of monotheism�s Darwinian instinct: the right of powerful state authorities to dictate not only public action, but also private belief. From this radical religiosity, the world has yet to recover, says Kirsch.
In contrast, Julian, who came to full power in 360 CE, following Constantine�s death and after some years of nasty internecine intrigue on the part of his sons and others, is presented by Kirsch as a virtual breath of fresh air. Julian was a pagan counterrevolutionary who restored religious legitimacy to classical Greco-Roman polytheism. But, though pagan -- meaning non-Christian -- Julian did not set out to eradicate monotheism, in the way that Rome�s Christian rulers had moved against polytheism. Rather, he acted only to equalize the gods� official status, writes Kirsch.
Julian, however, turned out to be the last of a breed. After him came the deluge, at least for Western polytheism. Yet polytheism persists, undoubtedly in Hinduism, arguably its greatest and certainly its most complicated expression. It also survives beneath the Christian and Muslim veneers slapped on tribal gods by former colonial subjects in Africa and Asia to please their rulers.
In the West, as Kirsch notes in his book�s concluding pages, polytheism is enjoying a resurgence of sorts, thanks at least in part, I�d say, to the failure of the Abrahamic faiths to deliver the spiritual goods for increasing numbers of Jews, Christians and Muslims. This resurgence is evident in New Age syncretism, in the heightened profile of Wicca -- a modern recasting of pre-Christian, largely Celtic beliefs -- and other neo-pagan paths in Western Europe and North America, and in the creation of institutions such as the New Seminary in New York, whose executive director is Rabbi Roger Ross, and which, as its website notes, ordains "ministers, priests, rabbis, Buddhist monks and nuns, just to name a few."
Given all this, and the likelihood of continued terrorism in the name of the One God, Kirsch may have timed his book�s arrival perfectly.
Ira Rifkin, a Washington correspondent for The Jerusalem Report, is the author of "Spiritual Perspectives on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Cultural Upheaval" (SkyLight Paths).
God against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism / By Jonathan Kirsch. Viking: 352 pp.; $25.95
May 3, 2004
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