The Evolution of God: From Polytheism to Monotheism

The above diagram is an attempt to illustrate Wright’s account of

the evolution of the Judaeo-Christian God from ancient

Canaanite polytheism. |  click to enlarge

The EVOLUTION OF GOD:

from Polytheism to Monotheism

article link

by Nathan Fifield

May 2, 2022

[editorial additions or reformatting are mine - re slater]

The Bible is usually read as a grand narrative from creation to apocalypse. This straight-forward reading presents some paradoxes. For example, the Biblical God commands wrathful genocides alongside loving forgiveness. At times He demands uncompromising nationalism and at other times He promotes generous universalism.

For centuries, armies of apologists have been busy justifying these paradoxes, anxious to clear up doubts that could arise about the divine origins of Bible. Robert Wright’s monumental book The Evolution of God gives a much simpler explanation for God’s schizophrenic nature: the God of the Bible is actually an amalgamation of different Canaanite gods. According to Wright the Bible is a selectively edited compilation of sacred middle eastern texts and traditions forged together into a cohesive narrative

i) by Jewish scholars during the Babylonian captivity (697 BC) and then

ii) added to by Christian fathers in the 3rd century AD. It was only during the Babylonian captivity that true monotheism emerged.

amazon link

Book Blurb (June 2009)

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony. Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.

In Wright’s narrative, the Jews were actually much less genocidal than the Biblical narrative suggests they were. In the Old Testament, God is a wrathful champion of an ISIS-like nation cruising from victory to victory as long as they were loyal to Him. However Wright suggests that Israel was actually a loose coalition of polytheistic tribes fighting off gigantic empires surrounding them. Within this pressure cooker Israelites faced impossible decisions: whether to accept humiliating vassalage at the hands of oppressive empires or to stand bravely against them. Not everyone can relate to the genocidal Jews in the literal Biblical account. But everyone can relate to Wright’s narrative of a nation afflicted and beset by unresolvable dilemmas. Under these circumstances it’s easy to see how some of the more troubling views about God emerged. Israelis were always the “little guys,” but they were inspired by stories that made them and their God out to be just as great or greater than the ruthless empires they were forced to take on.

The above diagram is an attempt to illustrate Wright’s account of the evolution of the Judaeo-Christian God from ancient Canaanite polytheism. It is meant to be a kind of family tree with the ancestral gods depicted at the bottom and evolving over time to form the Holy Trinity at the top. Wright is quick to point out that this narrative is not universally accepted, especially among the religiously devout. Nevertheless it utilizes some of the more mainstream theories about the development of Judaeo-Christianity from the historical and archaeological perspective. And nothing in this account precludes belief in the divine origins of the Bible. In fact the emergence of monotheism from polytheism represents a kind of miracle in and of itself. The Jews were uniquely important in the history of the world and not because of dramatic miracles like the crossing of the Red Sea. They were, in a much more important sense, divinely inspired.

Canaan as a Syncretic Pressure Cooker

Wright argues that Judaeo-Christian monotheism evolved from Canaanite polytheism through a process called syncretism (wherein two or more gods combine to form a new god). Much of Wright’s book analyzes how and why this happened. My illustration attempts to show how the empires surrounding Canaan acted as a kind of imperial pressure cooker leading to new deity combinations not unlike the pressures inside a nuclear reactor which force individual particles to combine to form new ones.

The Ancient Canaanite Trinity:
Ywh (the flame), Baal (the husband), El (the father)

There were many deities in ancient Canaan, but three of them are central to the evolution of monotheism: Ywh, Baal, and El:

Ywh (also Yhwh or Yahweh) was originally a warrior god with transcendent attributes. He enters the archeological record as a deity of the Shasu people, a religious minority persecuted in Egypt who later settled in Southern Canaan (the possible origin of the Exodus story). I’ve illustrated Ywh as an upside down triangle in an attempt to show that he represents the transcendence of heaven coming down into the human heart as a “still small voice” or a “fire in the bones.” Elsewhere in the Bible Ywh takes the form of a burning bush or fire from heaven. I’ve therefore given Ywh the subtitle “the flame.”

Baal was a popular storm god who brought rain to farmers and fertility to families. Like Ywh, I’ve illustrated Baal as an upside down triangle because he is also a sky god who comes down from heaven. Baal is also the Hebrew name for “husband,” and in a sense the god Baal was the archetypal husband: protector, provider, and inseminator of the land. (See analysis of Psalm 29)

El was

• i) the head god in a large pantheon of sons, daughters and wives, and
• ii) a popular god in Northern Canaan, He was
• iii) a nomadic deity who dwelt in a tent or tabernacle, and
• iv) displayed the kind of patriarchal leadership that was emulated by kings and chieftains.

I’ve illustrated him as a right-side-up triangle to emphasize the fact that he acts within a hierarchy. (El is also the generic term for “god” in Hebrew, so it is sometimes confusing distinguishing between El Shaddai, the proper name for this god, Eloheim, the name for El’s pantheon, and el, the name used for god generically.)

The Archetypes Father, Husband, and Flame

Although Wright doesn’t go into this, I want to highlight the archetypal connotations of this ancient Canaanite trinity. The archetypes Father, Husband, and Flame are remarkably similar to the Catholic trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:

El, the Father, and God the Father, [are] both the crown [ of] the hierarchies of their respective theologies. The “Son” in Catholic theology is often described as a husband or bridegroom, an archetype similar to the “husband” Baal. The Holy Ghost also has remarkable similarities to the Biblical depictions of Ywh as a flame of fire or a still small voice. While there may not be a direct link between these ancient deities and the development of the Catholic trinity, monotheistic conceptions of God seem to reflect many of the ancient polytheistic archetypes.

[re slater - the ancient biblical text had incorporated these imageries into itself which the later developing early church placed drafted into it's Nicean Creed in 325 AD and formally adopted in 381 AD at the Council of Constantinople irrespective of resulting "philosophic" arguments for and against the Trinity.]

Origins

• The belief in the Trinity emerged around 33-34 AD, shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• The term "Trinity" was first used by Tertullian, a church father who lived from around 160–225 AD.
• The New Testament passages that associate the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit include Matthew 28:19, which states "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit".

Influences

• The Trinity doctrine has Pagan Egyptian-Semitic (Canaanite) roots, dating back to at least two centuries BC.
• The Neoplatonist Plotinus' triad of the One, Intellect, and Soul may have also influenced the Trinity.

Development

• The Trinity doctrine was brought into Christianity by the incipient, as-yet-unformed, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church Councils before the Great Schism of 1054 AD between Roman and Orthodox Faiths.
• The Trinity doctrine was central to many early Christian baptisms.

THE FIRST SYNCRETIC EVENT

Northern Ywh Worshippers + Southern El Worshippers

as Anit-Egypt Syncretic and Synchronising Alliances

There were two major syncretic events in ancient Canaan that were central to the formation of monotheism. One was a 9th century BC anti-Egyptian alliance between Ywh worshipers in the south and El worshipers in the north. This alliance may have been the origin of the covenant rites of Israelite worship wherein various tribes of Canaanites gathered together around important shrines to swear allegiance to El and appeal for his protection from their aggressive imperial neighbors. An anti-Egyptian alliance would make sense from the perspective of the Shasu, who had been persecuted by the Egyptians before. In this alliance El retains his position as the top god and Ywh becomes one of his sons (see Mark S. Smith analysis of Psalm 82 in Origins of Biblical Monotheism). El’s importance in Canaan was reduced after the Northern Kingdoms were carried away captive by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, the so called “lost ten tribes.”

The Shasu were Semitic-speaking, pastoral nomads from the Southern Levant, known to the ancient Egyptians as "nomads" or "Bedouin" who lived in the region to the east of Egypt, from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age.

re slater - Here's a more detailed explanation from AI....

Who they were:

The Shasu were a group of semi-nomadic people, possibly Bedouin, who lived by raising livestock and were known from Egyptian texts, wall reliefs, and monuments dating from the 18th Dynasty (circa 1550–1295 B.C.E.) through the Third Intermediate Period (circa 1069–747 B.C.E.).

Where they lived:

They inhabited the Southern Levant, an area to the east of Egypt, including regions like the Jezreel Valley, Ashkelon, Transjordan, and the Sinai.

How they were viewed by Egyptians:

The Egyptians viewed the Shasu as "nomads" or "Bedouin", and they were often portrayed as brigands or mercenaries.

Possible meaning of the term "Shasu":

The term "Shasu" is thought to be related to the Egyptian verb "to wander" or the Semitic word "to plunder," but the exact origin is uncertain.

"Shasu of Yahweh":

There are references in Egyptian texts to "the land of the Shasu of Yahweh," which are the oldest references found in any ancient texts to the God Yahweh outside of the Old Testament.

THE SECOND SYNCRETIC EVENT

The Israelite nations and the Phoenician Empire, 7th Century

The second major syncretic event occurred during a 7th century BC alliance between the Israelite nations and the Phoenician Empire. According to Wright this event influenced the merger of Baal and Ywh which happened not through cooperation but through competition. The Bible gives a dramatic account of this competition in 1 Kings which tells the story of a conflict between the Israelite King Ahab, his Queen Jezebel and the Prophet Elijah. Jezebel was a Phoenician princess loyal to Baal, and her marriage to the Israelite Ahab represented an important alliance with Phoenicia that would help fend off threats from the aggressive Assyrian Empire. This gave political clout to worshipers of Baal and marginalized those loyal to Ywh. The worshipers of Ywh refused to go down without a fight. Their prophets decried the alliance and attempted to demonstrate that not only was Ywh a better god than Baal, he could also best Baal at his own game: bring rain in times of drought and stave off an Assyrian onslaught without the help of the Phoenicians. This conflict is depicted in the famous contest between the priests of Baal and Elijah. While this story was written long after it had supposedly occurred, it is nevertheless a remarkable illustration of the political situation at the time. Ywh upped his game, taking on the attributes of Baal in addition to his own so that he could be touted as a legitimate substitute for those who were partial to Baal and his generative powers.

Josiah

If there is any figure that comes closest to embodying the ugly Biblical violence celebrated in the Book of Joshua and elsewhere it is the Jewish king Josiah (641–610 BCE), who slaughtered the priests of other gods and enforced the complete domination of the cult of Ywh. While his reforms didn’t survive his reign, his accomplishments were celebrated by later Jewish scholars during the Babylonian captivity who recast him as a reformer reinstating an ancient monotheism laid down by the legendary prophets Moses and Abraham.

THE THIRD SYNCRETIC EVENT

The Babylonian Captivity and a New Monotheism

The Babylonian captivity is the most important event in the creation of Jewish monotheism:

During the captivity Jewish scholars compiled and edited what would become today’s Old Testament. Traditions associated with each of the three gods (Ywh, Baal, and El) were combined into a cohesive narrative and the three gods became one: a new, all powerful deity who wasn’t just better than the gods of other nations but was in fact the only God in existence.

Exactly how this happened is the subject of much controversy but the most well known theory is called the documentary hypothesis. While many of the details of the documentary hypothesis are disputed, historians generally agree that there were various factions among the exiled Jews, each loyal to different traditions and conceptions of God. Their contributions resulted in a Biblical God who is quite diverse, at times nationalistic and at times internationalist, both pro-ritual and anti-ritual, both interventionist and non-interventionist, etc.

WIKIPEDIA DIAGRAMS

re slater - JPED is an older theory which has been displaced by similar contemporary theories more in line with this article here:

Wikipedia diagrams of 20th century documentary hypothesis:

J - Yahwist (10th–9th century BCE)[1][2]

E - Elohist (9th century BCE)[1]

Dtr1 - Early (7th century BCE) Deuteronomist historian

Dtr2 - Later (6th century BCE) Deuteronomist historian

P* - Priestly (6th–5th century BCE)[3][2]

D† - Deuteronomist

R - Redactor

DH - Deuteronomistic history (books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings)

Complicating the picture is the fact that Babylon was overtaken by the Persian Empire during the period of the captivity. The Persians allowed the Jews return to their homeland, but not without pressing the Jews to adopt a more globalist outlook. The Persians granted their people local control throughout the empire but wouldn’t tolerate belligerence. The so called “priestly source” of the documentary hypothesis was likely a pro-Persian faction among the Jews, one that emphasized the international, universal aspects of God as opposed to the nationalist Ywh. The priestly source uses El, not Ywh as God’s name and narrates stories from Elohist tradition like the story of Abraham.

In my chart I attempt to illustrate the Elohist emphasis during the captivity by enlarging the right-side-up triangle of El and merging it with Ywh’s upside-down triangle to create a new “star of David.”

THE FOURTH SYNCRETIC EVENT

The Evolution of Christianity

Jesus was a messianic Jew crucified by the Romans. However it wasn’t obvious to his followers what his death and resurrection was supposed to mean. There were many early versions of Christianity and they had widely divergent views. Robert Wright examines three main branches: Ebionite Christianity, Marcionism, and Pauline Christianity.

The Ebionites denied that Jesus was divine in any way. He was a messiah for the Jewish people and Christians were to continue to obey the Jewish laws of the Old Testament. Thus for Ebionite Christians, Jewish conceptions of God stayed intact.

Marcionism on the other hand held that Jesus had been sent by the true God and that he had defeated the evil god of the Old Testament. Therefore, the entire Jewish conception of God was to be done away with.

Somewhere in between the extremes of Marcionism and Ebionite Christianity is Pauline Christianity. A Jew himself, Paul believed that:

Jesus was the fulfillment of old Jewish law but that he did not overthrow the Jewish God.

Rather, Jesus was in some sense the God of both the Old and New Testament. This was a conception that would later evolve into the [pre-] Catholic Trinity.

Wright gives an extensive analysis as to why Pauline Christianity succeeded where other versions failed. Here is a brief summary:

"Christian missionaries relied initially on converts from the Jewish diaspora (which had occurred due to the collapse of the Alexandrian empire.) Jews scattered around the Hellenistic world were well regarded by the Greeks (who had also been scattered around the Mediterranean by the collapse of the Alexandrian empire). In fact many Greeks wanted to become Jews themselves although they balked at all the formal rules involved, particularly circumcision.Christianity was an attractive alternative. However Ebionite Christianity was too harsh and demanding, too much like existing Judaism. And Marcionism treated the Jews with contempt. In the end, Pauline Christianity represented a more ideal balance between Greek and Jewish culture.The newly baptized Greeks proclaimed that Jesus was “Socrates for the masses” and celebrated the God of both Old and New Testament as a single, universal Logos (stoicism) or One (neo-platonism)."

Wright’s thesis is informed by game theory and its notions of zero-sum and non-zero sum thinking. Both Marcionism and Ebionite Christianity were zero-sum religions. They either excluded the Jews or excluded the Gentiles. Pauline Christianity on the other hand was a non-zero sum phenomenon that allowed Greeks and Jews to come together in a way that enhanced the cultures and prospects of both groups.

Wright’s book goes on to discuss the development of Islam and skips over the development of the Catholic Trinity. At the top of my illustration however I’ve added a ven diagram with stocism and neo-platonism intersecting with Pauline Christianity. In my view, the Holy Trinity emerges from the combination of these three philosophical and religious traditions. This emergence was formalized by the great 4th and 5th century theologian St. Augustine. It’s a complicated topic I intend to cover more deeply in future posts. For this analysis I’ll only note that the Catholic conception of God was perhaps the greatest non-zero sum accomplishment of the human race up to that point. As Philosopher John Vervaeke points out, St. Augustine took the best philosophy (neoplatonic), the best theology (Christian), and the best psychology (stoic) of his day and melded it into a cohesive worldview so powerful that it would endure for over a thousand years, eventually giving birth to the modern world.

The Chosen: Seasons 1-2 + Review

Christian America's Must-See TV Show

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/06/the-chosen-jesus-tv-show/619306/

Take it from a Christian and a critic: "The Chosen" is as well made and entertaining as many network dramas. But its relative invisibility to secular audiences is no surprise.

by Chris DeVille

Vidangel Studios

JUNE 27, 2021

Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET on June 28, 2021.

Have you heard about the hit Jesus TV show? The one that launched with a more than $10 million crowdfunding drive? And that streams for free from its own app, where the view counter has surpassed 194 million as of this writing? And that is honestly much better than I expected?

By the standards of independent media, The Chosen is a success. On Easter Sunday, 750,000 people tuned in to live-stream the Season 2 premiere; for comparison, the first episode of HBO’s Mare of Easttown attracted 1 million viewers that same month. Yet The Chosen—which presents the life of Jesus Christ and his disciples as a multi-season drama with imaginative character backstories and interpersonal conflicts—has been a largely underground phenomenon. Until its appearance on NBC’s Peacock earlier this year, The Chosen wasn’t on a major cable network or TV streaming service. Most mainstream publications have not reviewed it, though scattered reports mention its crowdfunding drives (in sum, the largest ever for a media project). You could pay close attention to the television industry and not know The Chosen exists. That’s because the show’s success so far has arrived not in spite of its insularity, but because of it.

Even many Christians are skeptical of faith-based entertainment. The Chosen’s showrunner, Dallas Jenkins, when I spoke with him recently, compared the people who spread the word about his show to the story of Christ’s disciple Philip telling his friend Nathanael that the messiah is from the backwater town of Nazareth. (“Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael famously replied.) So can a biblical series made by a production company from the founders of VidAngel—a service that allowed viewers to filter out nudity, profanity, and graphic violence from TV and movies, then was sold after a multimillion-dollar copyright-infringement lawsuit—actually be worth watching?

Take it from a critic and a Christian with an aversion to Christian entertainment: The show is good. I’d stop short of calling The Chosen a prestige drama, but it looks and feels downright secular. Despite a wonky accent here and there, the acting is as strong as you’d see on a mainstream network series such as Friday Night Lights or This Is Us. A tracking shot lasting more than 13 minutes opened one recent episode—a typical technique for a filmmaker to flex their skills. The storytelling even inspired me to comply with the show’s promotional hashtag and (ugh) #BingeJesus.

The Chosen has caught on with Christians in part because of scarcity. Faith-based streaming services such as PureFlix overflow with solemn dramatizations of Bible stories, though finding one with much depth or entertainment value is rare. Meanwhile, subversive Hollywood takes such as Noah or The Last Temptation of Christ turn off Christians who prize the authority of scripture. The more straightforward 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ was by far the highest-grossing Christian film of all time, and the last one to make a dent in secular pop culture. Yet it was hyper-focused on the last few hours of Jesus’s life, and its fixation on the gory details of his crucifixion was no one’s idea of fun.

The Chosen’s Jonathan Roumie plays Jesus as someone you’d actually like to hang out with, projecting divine gravity accented with easygoing warmth. He cracks jokes; he dances at parties. “What The Chosen has done well is give us kind of a robust portrait of a highly relatable Jesus that moves beyond some of the holier-than-thou, untouchable, unapproachable portraits of Jesus in the past,” says Terence Berry, the COO of the Wedgwood Circle, an investment group that finances faith-based media. (A Wedgwood member backed Silence—Martin Scorsese’s sparse and serious 2016 movie starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson as 17th-century Jesuit missionaries.)

Rather than merely reciting Jesus’s greatest hits, Jenkins and his writers linger with characters in their daily lives—marital and professional conflicts, financial struggles, campfire gatherings. When the audience sees climactic moments from the Gospels, such as Jesus’s miraculous healing of a leper, the events register as disruptions of the status quo.

Although The Chosen stays faithful to the broad trajectory of the Christian Bible, it also creates some speculative backstories. Scripture mentions Jesus exorcising a demon from Mary Magdalene as almost a passing detail; The Chosen centers it in a tale that explains her subsequent devotion to Christ. Jews who collected taxes for Rome were considered traitors, so the show’s writers depict Matthew the tax collector as on the autism spectrum, reasoning that a social outcast might gravitate toward a profitable but thankless job. The account of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding might be well known, but in the show, the miracle also saves the bride’s working-class parents from embarrassing the groom’s wealthy father.

The goal, Jenkins told me, was to come up with plausible scenarios that still jibe with the holy book. “We’re not trying to contradict the Bible,” he said. “We’re just trying to build a show around the Bible and tell stories that we think are compelling.” As a viewer who grew up attending church and has made studying scripture a central part of my adult life, I’ve found this approach consistently rewarding. Watching The Chosen is no substitute for reading the Bible—a disclaimer at the start of Season 1 even says “viewers are encouraged to read the Gospel.” But by putting another layer of human perspective between its viewers and its source material, The Chosen performs some of the functions of a good Bible teacher, providing cultural context for ancient events and probing viewers to empathize with the characters.

Some viewers are less enthusiastic. “Every day, I’m told that I’m blaspheming or that I’m a heretic or that I’m violating the Bible,” Jenkins said. But the show’s success suggests that there’s a market for faith-based content that takes creative liberties while maintaining a reverence for scripture. Christianity’s foundational claims naturally center on Jesus: Was he just a singularly wise man or the son of God? What did he accomplish by dying on the cross? Did he actually rise from the dead? Christians who take a literal view of the Bible’s events surely appreciate that The Chosen aligns with their beliefs on these questions. The Chosen does not offer natural explanations for Christ’s miracles, present him as a misunderstood martyr, or imply that he was gay or married. Although the show is still seasons away from the crucifixion, Jesus is already hinting that he is on Earth for a greater purpose—an allusion to his future death as a sacrifice for human sin. As long as Jenkins maintains orthodoxy on key points such as these, the show’s fan base seems likely to give him leeway to color around the margins of his Bible.

The Chosen, whose first season aired in 2019, is now raising money for its third season of a planned seven. Its popularity with a preexisting Christian audience is assured. But it hasn’t appeared to connect with many of the nonreligious. A tension between outreach and insularity has long persisted within the faith-based entertainment industry. Typically, biblical stories don’t permeate the secular mainstream without a star such as Charlton Heston or Mel Gibson attached, and modern American culture has never been less Christian than it is now. Yet Christian musical artists of all genres have been selling out arenas for decades, including Amy Grant, Lecrae, and NEEDTOBREATHE. Theaters see a steady flow of Christian films both confrontational (God’s Not Dead) and inspirational (Heaven Is for Real). Left Behind, the rapture-themed book series co-created by Jenkins’s father, Jerry, sold more than 80 million copies. The religious-media ecosystem encompasses cartoons, video games, and talk shows. Historically, it is also largely self-contained. “There was a creation of an entire subculture that produced its own versions of things and its own stations, and really was talking to itself,” says Michael Wear, who ran faith outreach for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and worked as a consultant for TV projects such as The Bible. “And now I think this next generation of Christian communicators [is] trying to break out of that.”

Jenkins doesn’t seem that concerned about whether non-Christians see his series. Besides Season 1 of The Chosen getting added to Peacock this spring, the show already streams on YouTube and Facebook, making it more and more accessible for the nonreligious. But the slew of faith-based cable networks that have begun syndicating the show within the past year—BYUtv, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, UPtv—more accurately reflect its promotional efforts. Jenkins acknowledges that most of the feedback he gets is from the Christians whom the show is heavily marketed to, and specialized trailers are designed to appeal to various denominations. His focus remains making episodes for his dedicated patrons, who are in some cases literally invested, thanks to the equity-crowdfunding provision of the JOBS Act, which allows financial backers to own a stake in the projects they support. The Chosen could pursue a production deal with Netflix, where executives are hungry for target-marketed programming and offer creative freedom, Wear says. Or it could follow the established web-series-to-legacy-cable path of shows such as Broad City and High Maintenance, says Craig Detweiler, the president of the Wedgwood Circle. Yet Jenkins’s hesitation to do this so far is easy to understand: The financial and creative autonomy of a self-funded hit, where all your production costs are paid for up front, is tremendous.

Jenkins can live outside the traditional media landscape by exclusively serving his existing fans—just like the writers and live-streamers on platforms such as Substack and Patreon do. Berry, from the Wedgwood Circle, points out that The Wingfeather Saga, a series of youth fantasy novels by the Christian musician Andrew Peterson, is now being adapted into a cartoon TV series after a $5 million equity-crowdfunding drive through The Chosen’s production company, Angel Studios. As much as he’s eager to see whether The Chosen can cross over to secular viewers, he’s equally if not more curious about whether its crowdfunded success can be repeated by other faith-based programs.

What’s happened with The Chosen represents what Mark Sayers, the senior leader of Red Church in Melbourne and a co-host of the Christian podcast This Cultural Moment, says is a shift toward a more “networked culture.” Today, a show doesn’t have to reach Breaking Bad levels of ubiquity to make an impact; it simply has to reach specific communities through personal connections. The Chosen will expand its footprint not by reaching secular audiences, but by finding Christians in every city with reliable internet. “People in Australia are watching,” Sayers says. “There’s huge Christian markets who speak English in places like Nigeria and beyond.”

This might sound counterintuitive: Evangelicalism is theoretically premised on spreading the “good news” about Jesus to as many nonbelievers as possible. Sayers thinks that The Chosen could be effective for starting spiritual conversations with skeptical friends, and I’m sure that some Christians have used the show that way. Still, for the most part, the series seems to be finding its fans among the converted. A secular audience might not have heard of The Chosen, simply because it was never who the show was trying to speak to. If The Chosen represents the next phase of Christian television, that future might include crisp production and nuanced storytelling. But it also seems familiarly destined to remain lodged within one of popular media’s oldest echo chambers.

Chris DeVille is a journalist based in Ohio.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 1 & 2

Mar 30, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 3 & 4

Mar 31, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 5 & 6

Apr 1, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 7 & 8

Apr 2, 2021

The Chosen Global Live Event: Season Two Premiere

Apr 4, 2021

The Chosen Global Live Event: Season Two, Episode 2 and 3

Apr 13, 2021

The Chosen Season 2 Episode 4

Jul 16, 2021

With apologies either search on YouTube, go to "The Chosen" Cable Channel

or search on NBC "Peacock" Network for the remaining episodes of Season 2

and any future episodes to come. This is a free production with no fees. - re slater

Do Muslims, Jews, and Christians Worship the Same God? (Two Articles)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/12/here-we-go-again-an-evangelical-controversy-over-whether-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god/

by Roger Olson

December 17, 2015

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? It’s not as simple a question as it appears and therefore no simple, straightforward answer should be given. The question itself begs analysis—before any answer can be given. I worry that people who jump to answer “yes” may be motivated more by political correctness and/or fear of persecution (of Muslims) than by clear thinking about the theological differences between Islam and Christianity. I also worry that people who jump to answer “no” may be motivated more by Christian fundamentalism and/or fear of terrorists than by clear thinking about the historical-theological roots of Islam in Jewish and Christian monotheism.

So, let’s analyze the question “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?”

First, both Christianity and Islam are diverse religions. Do all Christians worship the same God? What all is being included in “Christians” in the question? What all is being included in “Muslims” in the question? Which Muslims? Which Christians? I know enough about the diversity of Islam to wonder if they all worship the same God. And I seriously doubt that all who claim to be Christians worship the same God. Does a liberal Christian who denies the deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity worship the same God as an orthodox Christian who affirms them?

Second, the question could be interpreted as asking whether Muslims and Christians are thinking of God sufficiently alike to be worshiping the same God. Then my answer would tend to be “no”—they are not worshiping the same God. For orthodox Christianity “God” includes Jesus which is heresy if not blasphemy to most orthodox Muslims.

Third, the question could be interpreted as asking whether God accepts sincere Muslim worship of Allah as worship of himself. That is a very different question from whether Muslims and Christians are thinking sufficiently alike about God to be worshiping the same God. That latter question (discussed in the paragraph above) is an epistemological question with a more or less empirically (or at least sociologically and philosophically) determined answer. That is not to say equally astute scholars won’t disagree; it is only to say it can be researched. The question whether God accepts Muslim worship of Allah as worship of himself is very different and much more difficult to answer because answering it presumes knowing the mind of God.

Of course, some Christians will answer “no”—God does not accept worship of Allah as worship of himself—based on Jesus’s saying in John 14:6 that no one comes to the Father except through him. But, a problem with that, as I have pointed out before here, is that most of the same people who quote that verse to claim that God never accepts non-Christian worship as worship of himself admit that even when Jesus said it (sometime around 33 AD) there were Jews whose worship of God without Jesus was accepted by God as true worship of him. The question then becomes when God “cut off” all worship not centered around Jesus? When Jesus died on the cross? Then did the cross “unsave” thousands, if not millions, of Jews and God-fearing gentiles? Did God suddenly turn a deaf ear to them just because they did not know of Jesus? (Most Jews and gentile God-fearers lived outside of Palestine during Jesus’s earthly life, death and resurrection.) To say that God “grandfathered them in,” as one fundamentalist pastor said, is absurd. What about their sons and daughters who also never heard of Jesus before dying? When did God stop accepting worship by people with Abrahamic faith in God’s promises? So simply quoting John 14:6 does not settle the question whether God has ever accepted worship that does not include faith in Jesus Christ as worship of himself.

I do not think we can answer the question of what worship God accepts as worship of himself with any degree of certainty. To be sure, there are some “worships” that we can say with certainty God does not accept as worship of himself (such as worship of Satan). I admit that I am uncomfortable even with C. S. Lewis’s scenario of God accepting Emeth’s worship of Tash as worship of himself in The Chronicles of Narnia. That’s partly, however, because of the way Tash is described in the stories. Still, and nevertheless, I do not think we can say with assurance that God does not accept any Muslim’s worship of Allah as worship of himself.

On the other hand, I tend to think the theological differences between Allah in orthodox Islam (both Shia and Sunni versions to say nothing of Amadiyyah) and orthodox Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) are strong enough to doubt that, in most cases, Muslims and Christians are thinking of the same God when they worship Yahweh and Allah.

Having said that, however, let me also say that, as a Christian theologian, my main concern is whether all Christians are thinking of the same God when they worship. But that’s a subject for another post.

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ADDENDUM

Amazon link

Book Description

Often the differences between the three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - seem more obvious than their commonalities, leading to the question "Do we worship the same God?" Can the answer be "yes" without denying our differences?

This volume brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophers and theologians together to answer this question, offering rare insight into how representatives of each religion view the other monotheistic faiths. Each of their contributions uniquely approaches the primary question from a philosophical perspective that is informed by the practice of worship and prayer. Concepts covered include "sameness" and "oneness," the nature of God, epistemology, and the Trinity. Do We Worship the Same God? models serious-minded, honest, and respectful inter-religious dialogue and gives us new ways to address an ongoing question.

* * * * * * * * * *

Do Christians Worship

a Different God than the Jews?

by R.E. Slater

December 20, 2015

Miroslav Volf says that the Jews will answer "yes" while Christians will answer "no." That according to the Jewish man or woman their God is the God of the Old Testament Yahweh but does not include the Jesus of the New Testament. But to the Christian man or woman Jesus' God was that of the Old Testament as well who incarnated Himself through the personage of Jesus to finish/complete/begin the final work of salvation He must do "within the world" and not simply "outside of the world."

But what about the Muslim man or woman? Do they worship the same God as the Jew or the Christian? To some, Muslims and Jews worship the same God but not Muslims and Christians. That the Muslim and the Jew are blood brothers (Esau and Jacob) separated by geography at first and then by worship later.

However, what's missing from this debate is not how we identify with God, but how God identifies with us. Jesus says His disciples are known by their "love for one another" and when thinking about the "enlarged brotherhood" of God's disciples should we not then include this statement as a further description to the "spiritual brotherhood" of God which binds men and women? Men and women who worship a monotheistic God?

In answer, it really depends on which religious persuasion you come from. Pervasively, all Muslims, Jews, and Christians can recognize this statement but on another level it breaks down into its many religious parts according to that religious group's persuasions of who their God is or isn't. One group might show conservative intolerance whereas another group, say liberals, might misunderstand diversity for sameness.

Another way to re-parse this statement is to say that Muslims and Jews worship God incorrectly (from the Christian perspective) but you cannot say Muslims, Jews, and Christians aren't all worshipping the same God. It's the Abrahamic God. That's historical fact. You could critique each group's perception of how to worship the same God correctly - how that each religion approaches God with a different set of doctrines and dogmas - but is this God the same God or not?

Assuredly, some Christians will say this God is not the God who revealed Himself in Jesus. That He must be worshipped as the apostles of Christ taught. That Jesus is the gateway to God. Than there are other faith groups, like the Muslim and Jew, who will say we do not recognize this great prophet of God, Jesus, whom He sent to us. But we do recognize the God whom Jesus served and prayed to who is the same God who we worship and serve.

However, is this enough for God? Which presupposes we understand God's mind or would limit His grace to only those who enter into His temples through Jesus, the pinnacle of the Christian faith? Or, as others might say, God doesn't care about your religious tribe as much as He does your heart. That circumstantially, a person may be bound to be a Muslim or a Jew and unable to come to Jesus based upon experiences, backgrounds, traditions, or events.

And yet, in a larger way, in a way that is large enough for the Almighty God of the universe to admit diverse faiths into His fellowship, can this God be in some sense the same God a non-Christian believer might be able to worship? One who acknowledges the difference between good and evil? Who submits to live a life of grace, mercy, and forgiveness towards his or her's enemies? Who subscribes to the knowledge that there is one God over all who rules both by day and by night? Who wishes to live peaceably with all men?

Is this kind of God good enough to be worshipped as the same God of all Muslims, Jews, and Christians? Can it be so simply a matter of the heart's attitude towards one another and how we might live with one another? That the God of all grace is this same God of grace all His follows wish to honor by living their lives according to these grace-filled convictions no matter their religion (or morality)? Men and women who bear a conscience pricked by the convictions of service, sacrifice, and solidarity with all other men and women who bear this same Cross? The Cross of their faith, their God, their heart's convictions to live rightly with one another?

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Another question to ask is that while this question is warranted for whether Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God can this be so with Jews and Christians? Jews and Christians share a mutual revelation and tradition. The Jews worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as do Christians. But the Jews do not recognize the fullness of the God they worship as Christians do who recognize Jesus as God's fulfillment of His promises.

Furthermore, time (history) is part of the issue, namely the Jews stop worshipping the God of promises-fulfilled when it was shown to be through Jesus. More poignantly, the Muslim's view of God is not revealed through the same means as the God of the Bible whom Christians worship and is thus a different God altogether, which in the vernacular sense of religion is true. Each faith has its differences with the other based upon tradition, time, culture, or theology.

But let us return to the original question, "Do Christians worship a different God than the Jews?" Volf says that Orthodox Jews have made that argument about Christians, but not all Jews would make this same distinction. And if anything is clear from the New Testament literature it is that Christians worship the same God as the Jews. That, the New Testament in itself is an apologia for precisely why the "God of the Christian" is the same "God of the Old Testament" and "God of the orthodox Jew."

Then there is Jesus' speech to the Pharisaical Jew (Jewish orthodoxy hadn't formed yet) of hardness to the God of the Old Testament, let alone to the God revealed in Christ Jesus. Jesus says to them,

John 8.39-47 (ESV) [sic, Jeremiah 29]

39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing the works your father did.”

They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”

42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

Jesus said these things to those who believed that they more correctly worshipped Yaweh of the Old Testament (the OT is part of Christianity's bible and later collated with their New Testament in Jesus) than He did. Succinctly, Jesus queries that "If they worshipped God, they would find and believe in Him because "He and God are one." To which statement the Pharisees scoffed and rejected Jesus' incarnate presence of the divine God before them refusing to recognize their God come as Jesus and were rebuked by Jesus for their unbelief.

Importantly, Christian missionaries report frequently when witnessing of Jesus to both Muslim and Jew that those men and women who are genuinely seeking God will find Jesus because they do worship the "same/real" God of the Old Testament or Koran. That this God is revealing Himself to them in a variety of ways - some by dreams and visions, some by the simple witness of service and labors of love. Which is why Christians must go and speak of who Jesus is so the Muslim or Jewish man or woman may know who they are worshipping. Many have visions of Jesus because they truly worship God of the Bible. That is why they discover Jesus and become Christian, leaving the Muslim or Jewish God behind.

And lastly, the question for Volf is not whether we all agree on the nature of God, or believe that other non-Christian religious men and women can be saved by some other means, or that we are of the same religious faith, but whether the object of our worship, God, is the same God that is the object of each other's worship. So much of the New Testament is written to say that the God of the Old Testament is the same God that is revealed in Jesus. Jews disagree with Christians as to whether Jesus is the Messiah or whether Jesus is God incarnate, but that does not change the fact that the God we worship is the Yahweh of the Jewish Scriptures and possibly the Allah of the Koran, if - full of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and service to those around them.

R.E. Slater

December 20, 2015


Book Description
Amazon link

In this award winning, four-session small group Bible study, Carl Medearis, an international expert in the field of Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations, provides background info on Islam and tools for sharing Christ with their Muslim neighbors.

Muslims, Christians and Jesus, is the recipient of the prestigious Outreach Magazine Resources of the Year for 2012.

According to Medearis, how Americans respond to Islam and how Christians think of Muslims could be one of the most significant issues of our time. Throughout the study, Medearis helps you understand the basics of Islam, the difference between “moderate” Muslims and radical terrorists, the Muslim view of Jesus, and how we should interact with our Muslim neighbors, friends, and coworkers.

From the Ground Zero mosque to whether we believe in the same God, Medearis also addresses key questions and responses to the current Muslim/Christian tensions facing our society.

This Participant Guide features video notes, group discussion questions, informative sidebars and quotes, and ideas for personal application. It’s designed to be used with the Muslims, Christians and Jesus DVD (sold separately).

Sessions include:

1. What is Islam? Exploring Our Fears
2. Understanding What Muslims Believe
3. Jesus: The Bridge to Muslims
4. Building Bridges through Relationship 
5. Bonus session: 10 Myths about Muslims

* * * * * * * * * *

SUPPLEMENTAL SECTION

February 10, 2016

Adinliu Ch - What do you think about the article? Do you believe we Christian worship same god of Muslim?

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Russ Slater - Actually I wrote the second part in it. Depending on how specific you make the question a Christian could answer both yes and no. The first article by Roger Olson shares the more narrow meaning. What I then try to explain is the wider possibilities of this conundrum by throwing the Jewish consideration into the question.

So here's a few approaches... "yes" the Muslim (M), Jew (J), and Christian (C) worship the same God if it is the God of Abraham (Yahweh). But if we ask if they worship Jesus as the NT incarnation of God, then "no" to both the M and the J.

From an inter-faith dialogue - which wishes to pursue the broadest form of the answer in hopes of creating a kind of unity - then "yes". Each religion ( M, J, C) has the idea of a ruling, Sovereign God who wishes peace, goodwill, and love for both friend and enemy. But because Islam is a lot like Protestant Christianity (partitioned into its many sectarian beliefs), there can be as many "no's" to this question as yes's".

From a systematic theological perspective if one considers God to be able to consume hell for all His enemies upon His Holy personage, then "yes", every sinner - no matter how heinous the sin - will be saved (or, redeemed)... if not in this life than somewhere in death (depending on the kind of hell one's religion imagines). Meaning that the soul's transfer from "death" to "eternal life" might be immediate, or longish (in a purgatorial way), or never. This view is known as universalism. It envisions the possibility of redemption for lost souls who have died unredeemed.

My former pastor, Rob Bell, carried this belief. However, myself, I believe that though Jesus paid for all sin, sin must still carry both a penalty, a sentence, and a payment. But unlike the Catholic purgatorial view of a possible redemption (which is similar to universalism and is more probably the origin for universalism), or the Baptist view of eternal torment in hell, I like the annihilation view. In it, hell begins in this life as much as heaven does, when we commit sin or chose to submit to God and gain a "spirit-filled life". If choosing to refuse God, the difficulty of escaping sin grows stronger-and-stronger making it nearly impossible to leave evil's reign in an individual as both heart and soul become further-and-further removed from God and enmeshed in sin. Regardless of the degree of sin, in all cases the only way out is through Jesus. So that, at death, eternity for that unremitting soul may be either short or long.... That is, the dead soul continues on the path of death until finally extinguished into nothingness. So that in effect, the soul simply passes away from all memory or reality in its dimishment to its relationship with (1) the Creator-Redeemer God, (2) to God's image within itself, (3) to others, and (4) to the external world (thus, there are 4 relational bonds that are dissolved either one by one, or altogether, immediately. But importantly, this process begins in life rather than in death, while in death the soul is either slowly, or immediately, annihilated in its own kind of personal hell. If the longish view than at every step God gives that dead soul a chance to repent. If the shortist view (which I prefer), that soul's consequences are sealed and any chance of redemption is nullified because of its disobedience to God while living. Though theoretically this view might allow redemption after death, its construction places full accountability in this life, not the next.

In review, there are then 4 basic views of hell - (1) one that might be overcome by Jesus' redemption (the universalist view), (2) by sufficient retraining and learning in death (purgatory), (3) none at all as the soul is consumed in hell forever (the Baptist view), or (4) consumed in this life for its sin with physical death completing a life's end (annihilation) as it is hardened and seared, unable to repent, confess, or obey God through Jesus. I might add, though they many be personal reasons a believer or disbeliever prefers one or the other view, or none at all, we must acknowledge that in whatever view, or in all views, God has given humanity the greatest amount of opportunity to repent and be saved; to reform and do good; to change from one's evil life to a life full of bounty and healing nourishment to others. That God gives us His Spirit to help us to these "Cross" points; that He moves time and event in a way that He doesn't interfere with it but allows our greatest amount of illumination and enlightenment; that He brings into our lives opportunities for reform - sickness, suffering, death of a loved one, personal hardship, godly people, etc and etc. (Please note, all these examples come from God's creation in its present state of life and death, and not directly from God Himself. I do not wish to accuse God as One who brings evil into our lives, but One who is present with us when evil comes into our life).

The reason I entertain annihilation is because I think sin needs to be accounted for in this life, not later when it has no affect upon the living. Furthermore, it makes obedience to God in this life to be immediately important and relevant, by rewarding the obedient soul by helping conquer sin's heavy, deceptive chains of bondage. Also, rather than making Jesus a convenient escape route from dastardly, horrific deeds, it shows the immediate quagmire that sin really is. That sin and evil are to be eschewed in all areas of life and at all times. But for the obedient one to Jesus there is found a fuller, deeper walk into the promises of heaven into this life now. It makes doing the right thing important now rather than living an uneventful life spiritually while "waiting for heaven to arrive" at death. As such, actively living the Spirit-filled life may cause immediate spiritual resolutions and consequences in the world so that God's kingdom may "become" - both here and now in this present life - rather than waiting for it to "become" later when its no longer impactful upon living souls.

Thus I lean towards annihilation beginning in this life; can allow for a purgatorial or universalistic theoretical view but don't like how either system avoids the immediacy of obedience to God or its redemptive impact in this life now; and reject any version of a monstrous hell (the Baptist view) because my God loves at all times and will not torture souls in an endless future. So that, if hell exists in the after-life than not all things have been submitted to Him so He may be "All in All." So I tend to see hell in this life but not the next; whereas I see heaven beginning in this life and extending into the next for the redeemed one.

And finally, I am told, but have not confirmed, that Islam does not believe in sin (which I think they mean by this "original sin") but do believe in some kind of heaven and hell. Thus, the Islamic faith may consider a human birth free of sin but full of potentiality for evil or good. Whereas the Jews do teach original sin as Christianity does. But they emphasize the potentiality of a new life much more than Christianity would in its view of "total depravity". Myself, I like the Jewish view more and the Reformed/Calvinistic/Baptist view far less. Why? Because one must acknowledge the image of God in a life that is filled with potentiality, goodness, and light. I would rather emphasize the positive than the negative, without denying sin's imprint on us in someway, somehow... whether imputed, learned, or acquired (if constructed in "psycho-analytical" terms). And so, here is another similarity and/or difference between Muslims, Jews, and Christians when discussing "heaven," "hell," or "sin" v. "goodness".

So my apologies for the long answer. I tend to think in elaborate matrices or layers of complexity. Thus I write to help distill to Christians the many possible outcomes of their faith. A faith which must be here, now, and as much as godly -minded as possible. If our faith doesn't result in pragmatic ways of living than it is a waste of time, energy, and life. Which, I suppose, could be yet another point of contact between the M, J, and C.

As always it is good to hear from you. Blessings always. - res, February 10, 2015

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Adinliu Ch - Well said, it would be nice if you update this article in a brief way. Thanks for the interesting discussion.