Marmorstein: The dangers of that old-time religion
According to the book of Exodus, the Ten Commandments came about in part because of Moses’ desperate desire to see God as clearly as he could. It’s possible that Moses, who was just about to preside over the building of a great center of worship (the Tabernacle), wanted to know how God should be depicted.
That wasn’t possible. “No man shall see my face and live,” God tells him, “But you will see what can be seen of me.”
A bit later, hidden in the cleft of a rock, Moses gets the vision he had asked for. What he sees, though is very different from the anthropomorphic and animal-formed divine images he had seen growing up in Egypt. Instead, Moses “sees” mercy, goodness, truth, and justice: things that can’t be turned into physical images.
Religious historians associate Moses and the Hebrew prophets in general with what they call ethical monotheism. Monotheism is only a statement of quantity: the belief that there is exactly one god. Ethical monotheism includes something more: the idea that the true worship of god is inextricably bound to a universal moral code.
This close connection between morality and religion is something we now take for granted. Before the time of Moses, though, religion tended to focus on something very different. Worship was all about fertility, wealth, military success, and influencing the forces of nature. The moral character of the worshipper meant little or nothing, and while a god might punish those who swore falsely by his/her name, divine favor could easily be won even by those whose behavior toward others was monstrous.
And, sometimes, monstrous behavior was thought especially likely to assure the favor of the gods. The recipe for success? Step one: place child in the arms of the image of Moloch. Step two: heat the image red hot. If the child screams, drown the screams with drumbeats until the screaming stops. Repeat as needed to assure wealth or whatever blessing from Moloch you particularly want.
Mosaic religion called for something very different. Want God’s blessings for you and your society? Keep the Sabbath. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t bear false witness. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t covet. And worship one God only: accept no substitutes.
But the self-restraint entailed in Mosaic law is no fun, and it’s no wonder that the people of Israel so often turned away from God to worship Baal and Ashtaroth. It’s also no wonder that they so often turned the worship of God himself into a more self-serving faith. They found dancing naked around a Golden Calf a lot more fun than the self-examination called for on the Day of Atonement.
The Hebrew prophets had to warn their people continually not to drift away from what God really wanted:
“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
“Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God.”
“Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”
There’s an odd idea in American political debates today that ideas that stem from religious roots are somehow illegitimate, that they shouldn’t be a consideration when it comes to legislation, executive procedures, or (especially) court decisions. The truth, though, is that all world-views are based on religious assumptions, and that every governmental decision will favor one “religious” view or another.
But what religious view will prevail? Some would suppose the choice is between “evangelical” Christianity and the Christianity of the “mainline” churches.
I don’t think that’s the real dividing line, though. Those who do a lot of pulpit supply know that the same messages that work for an evangelical congregation work equally well in a mainline church.
The really irreconcilable difference is between a religious view that regards justice, mercy, and the protection of the weak as paramount and a view that gives first place to wealth, power, and pleasure, and would be happy to see us all dancing naked around the Golden Calf or sacrificing our children to Moloch.
Art Marmorstein, Aberdeen, is a professor of history at Northern State University.
This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Marmorstein: The dangers of that old-time religion
