American Pantheism
There seem to be two ways of perceiving the path to god, one more often spoken of and the other less known. One–there are many up the mountain and they all lead to the same God. Even if these paths are in fact in opposition to each other. Two–each path leads to a different gods, with many of these different gods coincidentally sharing the same name. It has been said that Buddha, Jesus and Allah are all names for the same God. This is of course false. But there is another danger in different people thinking they are worshiping the same god because they are using the same name.
I have been reading Rodney Stark’s Cities of God, where he traces the urban roots of Christianity. Stark points out how religions spread differently when they are simply polytheistic religious being introduced into an existing world of other competing deities. The spreading of a new faith does not require missionaries, in the early Christian sense, it simply needs to be carried “’in the baggage of strangers’”, simply put, a new deity could be introduced through the inclusion of a new idol. I began to think about how different things are today in America where we are not surrounded by a pantheon, but what I soon realized is that for intents and purposes we do live in a pantheistic society.
There is no shortage of new gods, yet because of this Christ-haunted era where faith is seen, by many, as a weakness, these new gods are no longer carved out of wood, but are forged in men’s imaginations. The main difference being these new gods are seen, by their makers, as being the one true authentic representation of God. Furthermore these new gods can only be experienced in individual interactions and cannot not be assessed or even validated by anyone other than their maker.
Its seems that many Americans are practicing a version of pantheism under the guise of monotheism. Or put more bluntly: it seems that there has come into existence a bastard amalgamation of Christian Monotheism with a nebulous pantheism.
Rodney Stark notes that one of the characteristics of the polytheism present in the Roman and Greek world was a scripture-less faith. Greek and Roman religions “’had not written works which established their tenets and doctrines, or provided explanation of their rituals or moral prescriptions for their adherents.’”
I say “nebulous pantheism” because most people today would not say that they worship Zeus or Mars, rather they worship “God” not the God revealed in the Bible though many would say thats who they have in mind. Thats the problem, the “god” that many people are today worship are similar to Zeus or Mars in the fact that none of them, not Zeus, Mars, or “god”, have written doctrines. I mean by this that faith in the god that many people perceive in their mind is like faith in Zeus or Mars, in that it brings the same scripture-less approach to life. “god” has not spoke with any real authority, he or she has not given a set way of coming into or staying in good standing with him. So like the priests of Zeus many today acts as the hight priest of the god of their noggin and in affect tell themselves what pleases god and was displeases god.