War God in Wal*Mart

December 12, 2006

Scott at World O’ Crap points us to the anti-passive purple four ball vision of Christianity.

“Man is to aggressively dominate his environment, instead of allowing his environment to dominate him,” Chanski writes. “I am not to be a passive-purple four-ball! I am rather to be a stick-carrying player! In the spheres of my life, I must subdue and rule, and not permit myself to be subdued and ruled.”

See, this is what gives a lot of people fits. If you have actually read the Bible, this probably sounds like nonsense. For example:

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. [ Matthew 5:38-42, NIV ]

Also consider Jesus’ stirring, rousing defense strategy with his very life at stake:

Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. [ Matthew 21:11-14, NIV ]

Stories like this used to confuse me to no end until I worked out how polytheism plays itself out in the Christianity. It’s not uncommon for people to think of Christianity as polytheism in monotheistic disguise, but they generally try to map the Christian pantheon one-to-one with gods. In this view the trinity (YHWH, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus) are all individual gods. And Satan is also a god—albeit a malevolent one. This is the dead-simple way of doing it, but doesn’t help explain much about the contradictory nature of Christian experience.

A little more useful to us is the Gnostic cosmology which tended to see the the God of the Old Testament—the Creator God and the God of Law—as a negative force or malevolent God. In this cosmology, Jesus was an emissary from the benevolent God. He came not to save humanity from sin or its own corruption, but the influence of the despot God—his crucifixion having the Kenobi effect of making him a stronger force.

Most, if not all, of the logical inconsistencies of fundamentalist theologies evaporate once you start thinking of the fundamentalist gods in polytheistic terms. A polytheistic view of gods sees gods as powerful, but not omnipotent; knowledgeable, but not omniscient; and by no means omnipresent. In short, they are not perfect. They are mutable, they can be mean-spirited, and they can have needs that they look to humans to fulfill.

And they can lie. A god can pose as another god, tricking someone into worshiping it in the name of another deity, something the purported monotheism of Christianity helps mask. A monotheistic person might say “God spoke to me, and since he spoke to me He must be God, and therefore I must do what he says.” Whereas a polytheistic individual might be more inclined to figure out which god he or she is talking to.

The fundamentalists relish conflict. Encourage it where there is precious little ( War on Christmas anyone?). Militarize their worship. Prepare their children for battle and seek wars of conquest for religious purposes.

I think it’s clear that the God of Martin Luther King, Jr.—for that matter, the God of Jesus—is quite different from Chanski’s hyper-masculine anti-passive-purple-four-ball God. Their visions of God are not just different, or even merely incompatible. They are opposed. And whatever God Chanski is worshiping, I sincerely doubt that it is the god of Christ.

Photo: SF Pride March 06 by Pie Girl

Posted in Religion, War God