Henotheism

Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 31-33, Psalm 106:1-23.

I may have touched on this word before, but I will revisit it now. Did you know that Israelites were not monotheists...at least not at first? They were henotheists, that is, they believed in many gods but that theirs was the most powerful (or the only one who was creator, or the only "true" god, or possibly other things to make their god separate) and that every nation had their own god and that all these gods were fighting and you knew who was the best by who won (this appears quite a bit in today's reading). Many Jews moved away from this tradition, as is indicated elsewhere in scripture*. There are a lot of Christians today who are not monotheists, but still henotheists.

Here is a quick test for you to tell which you are: who do the Muslims worship? If your answer is "God," then you may be a monotheist. If your answer is "Their God Allah," you are a henotheist. There is quite a significant difference there.

Nikki and I entered into this conversation a few weeks ago and she asked about my perspective about Muslims. I stood by the Nicene Creed that we confess frequently in worship: "We believe in ONE God." Now, we are all in the habit of making common things into gods (money, sex, power) but for those who stand in the long tradition of Christianity there can only be ONE God. Why the difference in denominations and religions around the world? My humble (and possibly way off base) assumption is that tricky thing called "revelation." In other words, how God has revealed Godself, and how we have interpreted that. We hold that the greatest of the revelations of God in the person we call Jesus. Muslims do not, hence, we believe very different things, even though almost every one of our Old Testament scriptural stories are in their scripture as well. This does not mean we believe in different Gods.

I will invite you to think about it this way: If we truly believe that God is beyond all comprehension, then how is it that we know everything there is to know about God?




* - this is a very crude and short treatment of monotheism in Judaism, reading through a few chapters in I&II Kings and I&II Chronicles does reveal the people's tendency to gravitate between many gods and one God for worship, which is firmly established during the reign of Josiah.