Posted on 03/04/2004 5:52:59 AM PST by MegaSilver
century ago, a man named Grant Allen wrote a book called "The evolution of the idea of God." G.K.Chesterton reviewed it by noting, "It would have been more interesting if God had written about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen." Armstrong's book is fascinating at times, but she was hindered in her story by three encumbrances: first, she did not appear to be looking for God, but running from Him. Second, what she wrote was a history of purely human ideas and ideologies, from a Christian perspective, a history of idolatry. Her book is like looking at the moon under the assumption that the light itself is native to the moon. Third and most damningly, Armstrong has ignored all the actual evidence that God is not merely an idea, but a person who acts in history. (Such as the universe itself, the prophets, and miracles.)
One aspect of that evidence which most people are unaware of, and that relates to the theme of this book, is the fact that monotheism is not solely a "western" concept. This is, perhaps, the great cover-up of comparative religion. One finds an awareness of the Creator even in countries where all the institutional and pedagogical institutions have been hostile to Him for hundreds of years, and the native religions appear to have no use for him, such as here in Japan. This is just as the Bible predicts: as Paul said, in our hearts, we know God is and that we are not Him, though we suppress that knowledge. The history of organized religion, east and west, is largely a history of men and women running from God. Armstrong's book is in a sense a kind of well-written and gosippy history of that flight, which is why it earned an extra star from me.
I would like to suggest four books which give an aspect of the "history of God" Armstrong and her fellows routinely ignore: how the God of the Bible reveals Himself to non-Christian cultures. The first is Chesterton's Everlasting Man. The second is Eternity in Their Hearts, by Don Richardson, which in my opinion may be the most eye-opening book on religion published this century. The third is a book I wrote after reading Richardson's theories, and finding out that, in China at least, they rang true: True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture. I would also recommend that book God wrote on the evolution of the idea of Karen Armstrong, especially the first half of Romans.
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