Say what you will about the Greek, Roman and Nordic gods but you have to concede that they are far from having had their day. We pay tribute to them every time we mention January and March, Wednesday and Thursday. We just can’t get away from them or shake them out of our vocabulary. Venus and Eros occupy strongholds in our thinking about sex. We name our children and our flowers after Greek gods – Irene and Iris. We go to the gods for medical terms – panacea and morphine. We rely on the gods as we label our chums as jovial or martial. We go to the gods for the names of elements – mercury and uranium. We even entrust our maps to one of them – atlas.
If we can agree that the ancient gods continue to have a major place in our vocabulary, we are not necessarily saying that they influence the way we think. But, given an unfamiliar word, we find possibilities opening. Words are tools for thinking. New ways of understanding emerge. New horizons beckon. A word can unlock a whole cache of treasures, new aspects of truth. Greek and Roman polytheism proved highly effective in setting up stories. We were – and are – enthralled.
Daring people in Victoria’s day brought wrath down upon themselves by suggesting that the default Christian position of Christian England was less than enthralling. It had feet of clay. Swinburne and Henley thought in terms of ‘whatever gods may be’. We have to consider whether such a slogan – one that that avoids an uncomfortable choice – may be merely deferring serious thought.
The Christian faith opts for a vulnerable option. It offers revelatory texts. Enthralling or not, their significance can be argued over. Zeus, Poseidon, Venus and the rest are a blockbuster cast but we approach them tongue-in-cheek. Christian monotheism deserves something more than frivolous indulgence.
INCOMPATIBLE?
Dr Gwynne himself, though a religious man, was also a thoroughly practical man of the world, and he regarded with no favourable eye the tenets of anyone who looked on the two things as incompatible.’ – Anthony Trollope
‘What you worship but do not know – this is what I now proclaim.’ – St Paul, speaking to the leading men of Athens (Acts 17.23).
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