The failure of monotheism

Monotheism, the great divinity experiment that progressed from the Jews to the Christians to the Muslims, has failed us.

I love Judaism.  I love the intellectualism; the Jewish culture (at least the Americo-European version with which I am familiar), but as a major contender for the monotheism title (and the originator of that contention) Judaism hasn’t done so well.  Let’s face it; unless you are Jewish, the God of the Old Testament is not someone you want to hang out with very much. 

Even if you are Jewish, for some reason he doesn’t like foreskins or bacon, and who can really comprehend that?  More importantly, he seems completely tranquil about slaughtering massive numbers of human beings.  The moral rectitude of the OT God is… questionable at best.  What do the Jews think?  From everything I can tell, Jews in general are paving the way in rejecting the literal belief in their faith tradition.  How many Jews now literally believe in their grumpy god?

Let me point out that fundamentally, Christianity has a highly tenuous relationship with monotheism.  The first centuries of Christianity were fraught with argument over how to define the relationship between God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost.  Although the Trinitarian camp eventually won, the debate was fierce.  But Trinitarianism is a poor excuse for monotheism (note the prefix: tri).

Included, too, in the Christian mess of godness is the mythical figure of Satan, who under any honest interpretation looks like just another polytheistic addition to the mix.  All personal presentation of Satan in the bible does it in a mythological, polytheistic way.  Satan may not be the top god, but he certainly is in the pantheon.

That leaves Muslims…. Muslims are winning the competition in terms of sheer numbers but all of the problems that plague Yahweh, plague Allah.  As a socially progressive god you could get behind, Allah is problematic.

In fact, as Robert Wright points out in his fantastic book, The Evolution of God, all three of the major monotheistic faith traditions (including the pacifist-in-name-only-Christians) frequently suffer lapses of moral tolerance and start slaughtering each other with reckless abandon. (He also writes about when they don’t, and the book is WONDERFUL; so go read it.)

I’m going to come out and say it because it needs to be said:  Mormons are NOT monotheists.

Mormons believe in separate corporeal God Father and God Son along with a concrete concession of a Mother in Heaven.  And despite the curious suggestion that we don’t teach or emphasize it, the crown jewel of Mormon theology is that mankind is God in embryo, working to “grow up”.

Feminist Mormon thinkers are one of the three bains of Boyd Packer’s existence; enemies of the Church (the other two being gays and intellectuals… how he manages to live in Salt Lake City, I will never figure out).  I could be reaching here, but maybe that’s because the institutional church is a corrupt, hetero-patriarchy of groupthink.

Feminist Mormons are calling (and have been calling) for the recognition of Heavenly Mother to take her rightful place next to Heavenly Father.  Listening to them speak on the subject is delightful (I had that great good fortune yesterday at the Sunstone Symposium; I have to admit I have a bit of a brain crush on Holly Welker).

In the heavens are parents single?

No, the thought makes reason stare,

Truth is reason, truth eternal tells me I’ve a mother there.

I am beginning to realize (and I am sure I will realize much more) that the loss of the divine feminine is the great tragedy of the rise of monotheism.  When we were all happily polytheistic, there was plenty of feminine influence in the pantheon, and I am asserting the world was a better place for it.   

I am led to conclude that the failure of monotheism in teaching a consistently moral morality could be impishly titled: MANotheism.  These gods are excessively manly; and not in a good way. 

Monotheism is the (dis)embodiment of male power dominance, and all of the problems you would expect in the absence of female influence, are reflected in that tradition.  Male (monotheistic) gods have made a mess of things.

I don’t know how to discuss this further.  I’m trying to think my way through it.  But my concluding thesis for now is this:

 

1. Because it is essentially a reflection of the concurrent historical rise of agro-society (and the male values that have been overly emphasized in that development), monotheistic tradition is largely emblematic of the worst of human nature.
2. Monotheistic tradition is the ultimate way to permanently disempower and marginalize women, and therefore must be addressed if lasting progress is to be made in re-enfranchizing half of the human race.
3. There are really only two options to fix that: dismiss divinity entirely from our lives, or re-embrace polytheism via the divine feminine.

If we need a relationship with divinity at all, we need a relationship with our Mother God.