Author: Ira Rifkin
Publication: The Star
Date: June 13, 2004
URL: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1086949562408&call_pageid=991479973472&col=991929131147
Polytheism embraces pluralism, author
says Politics motivated Constantine's faith
Religious differences fuel many
of the world's violent conflicts, detractors and supporters of organized
faith often lament in unison. Author Jonathan Kirsch would put a finer
point on the charge. He blames the leading monotheistic religions - Judaism,
Christianity and Islam - for much of history's bloodshed. The reason, he
maintains, is monotheism's traditional claim to exclusive possession of
absolute truth. Too bad Julian the Apostate, the Roman Empire's last pagan
emperor, died young in battle, says Kirsch, author of God Against The Gods:
The History Of The War Between Monotheism And Polytheism (Viking). Had
Julian lived longer, he might have succeeded in reinstating classical Greco-Roman
polytheism, which was marginalized when Emperor Constantine the Great institutionalized
Christianity's ascendancy - and world history might have turned out more
benign.
"Julian is one of the great `what
ifs?' of history," said Kirsch, an intellectual property lawyer. "Human
history is the history of our evolution toward greater individual liberty.
I have the nagging feeling that, at least in the West, we might have gotten
there faster and in a more direct way had Julian lived." Polytheism, the
belief that there can be more than one god, was the ancient world's dominant
religious system. Today it survives chiefly in Hinduism, in tribal traditions,
in Afro-Caribbean faiths, and in Wicca and other neo-pagan movements that
are growing in North America and Western Europe. Greco-Roman polytheism
reached its philosophical peak in Neo-Platonism, which emphasized ethical
behaviour and the existence of a unifying transcendent reality.
Polytheism's core value, Kirsch
writes, is theological pluralism, a stark contrast to traditional monotheism's
penchant for insisting that the "One God" demands theological conformity.
And religious freedom, the 54-year-old Kirsch said in a telephone interview,
paves the way for public differences of opinion on other topics as well.
In his book, Kirsch begins the story
of monotheism's rise with Akthenaton, the 14th century B.C. Egyptian pharaoh
and proto-monotheist. (Kirsch skips the biblical prophets Abraham and Moses,
whose historical reality he rejects as unproven.)
Not until the reign of King Josiah,
the 7th century B.C. ruler of the Jewish kingdom of Judah, did the biblical
Israelites fully elevate their chief god, Yahweh, to the status of the
"One God."
"Judaism as a faith of strict monotheism
can be said to begin with King Josiah," said Kirsch.
Kirsch devotes the greater part
of his book to the reigns of Constantine, who embraced Christianity and
made it Rome's official faith in the 4th century, and Julian the Apostate,
Constantine's nephew who briefly restored polytheism to its traditional
place in the Roman pantheon for one last time.
Christian writers emphasize Constantine's
faith conversion as the root of his Christianity. Kirsch emphasizes Constantine's
political motivations. He writes 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, Kirsch continues, Constantine
convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 - out of which Christian tradition
says came the faith's central statement of doctrine, the Nicene Creed -
more out of a desire to impose control over an increasingly unwieldy church
than out of concern for theological clarity in pursuit of spiritual truths.
Julian - who came to full power
in 360, following Constantine's death and after some years of nasty internecine
intrigue - was a pagan counter-revolutionary who restored religious legitimacy
to classical Greco-Roman polytheism. However, Kirsch emphasizes, Julian
did not try to eradicate monotheism as Rome's Christian rulers had sought
for polytheism. Julian instead sought to place polytheism and Christianity
on equal footing. "That's what's most appealing about polytheism - its
openness to accommodating the faiths of others," said Kirsch.
Kirsch may have a sweet spot for
polytheism, but he fully acknowledges that polytheists, including pre-Christian
Romans, can be as brutish as fervent monotheists (his term for fanatical
fundamentalists). The only difference between violent polytheists and violent
monotheists is that the former kill to gain political control and the latter
kill to assert theological dominance.
The difference is subtle, said Kirsch,
but important. Polytheists sought control over the public sphere alone;
monotheists sought control over private thoughts as well.
Kirsch noted that traditional monotheists
generally dismiss his writing as uninformed and anti-faith. Yet he insists
that he is a "Jewish monotheist." "I recite the Sh'ma (Judaism's creedal
statement of monotheistic orthodoxy), but I also entertain the idea that
there are many ways that people perceive the one, true God. My beliefs
are not threatened by dissenting views."
Kirsch recounted a Buddhist aphorism
to sum up his religious beliefs: "One moon, many pools. Many pools, one
moon." The point, he explained, is that light from a single source can
be reflected in many ways.
