Powerful images and vengeful gods

On the National Mall in 2008, I had a conversation with a Hare Krishna that went something like this:

Me: I already have gods.
Woman: Oh, who do you worship?
Me: I'm a devotee of Apollôn.
Woman: Oh. Well, if you look at the Bhagavad Gita, we have a Sun God, too. My son really loves Greek Mythology. The sun god is one of his favorites.
Me: That's nice, but Apollôn isn’t really a god of the sun. He’s the god of plagues and of healing and oracles and music.
Woman: Oh.

There’s a reason why plagues came first to my mind. The image of Apollôn from the Iliad is one of the earliest written depictions of my god, and in most of my devotion, the image of him as the force that pours arrows from the sky comes first to mind.

There’s a term that I thought up when reading something about Dionysos, the dagger in the ivy, to describe the darker parts of that god — the part after he has entwined you in his ecstatic being before the kid gloves come off and your entire self’s identity is naked before god.

When Apollôn and I first developed our relationship, I listened to a lot of classical music. Especially when hearing Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, I was overcome by mild synesthesia (for lack of a better term): the notes the violin made were sharp like daggers and they glittered in the hard winter light. Apollôn — just like all of the other gods — has a cutting edge. His aspects Hekatos (Shooter from Afar) and the Archer most resonate with me after his aspect as Sôter (Savior) and as Alexikakos (Averter of Harm).

The Arrow-Pourer defends those who follow him and those who make sacrifice to him. While re-reading Fritz Graf’s Apollo, a passage in his description of Homeric Apollôn completely drove this home. The initial role of Apollôn as the bringer of plagues on behalf of his wronged priest “reflects Apollo’s prominence throughout the Iliad” (Graf, 2009, pp. 10). Graf continues, describing how Apollôn protects the Trojan fighters and the city to the best of his ability (“ability” here meaning that, like the other gods, Apollôn is bound by the laws of the Moirai who shape all mortals’ destinies).

We can call Apollôn our protector and our savior, but there is always something he is saving us from — and to the other side, Apollôn is a force to be reckoned with.

Rick Perry’s prayer rally brought this aspect of Apollôn to mind because of the way the clips I have seen discuss the Christian god. I hear so much talk of him as a “personal god” that people have to accept into their hearts, along with the sacrifice of his only son, but these people understand very little about gods. Those of us who reject monotheism understand that the divine is multiple and that many deities can have intimate relationships with their devotees. Closing oneself off to the expressivity and multiplicity of the divine forces in our world throws the Christians’ eggs all in one basket, so to speak.

The most troubling thing about the Response is a clip from Mike Bickle, during which he provides an ugly, albeit typically Christian statement:

In the name of tolerance, even in the name of love, we are redefining love that's not on god’s terms. Jesus is god. There is no other god besides Jesus: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! All the world religions — they can say what they say. There is no other god besides Jesus. There is no other standard of truth. Jesus alone is the standard of truth. He defines morality. He defines marriage. He defines life. He defines righteousness. And in our allegiance to him, we say what he said: It’s time to come out in the open. It’s time to go public. Regardless of what it costs us, we love you, Jesus! The only god!

A lot of the violent rhetoric and devotion they use made me feel fortunate to follow a god who does not demand, as in the case of monotheistic religions, that all other gods be wiped from the face of the planet. As Jordan D. Paper writes in The Deities are Many, from the Christian and Islamic perspectives,

polytheists are not considered immoral and dangerous so much as inferior human beings, replaced in the evolution of humans by superior Christian Caucasians, similar to the replacement in Europe of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens. In summary, to admit that one is a polytheist is to damn oneself in the eyes of other members of Western cultures” (Paper, 2005, Kindle edition).

We are used to this kind of rhetoric. But just because we’re used to it doesn’t make it right. Our gods exist, arguably moreso than the strange agglomeration of deities the Christians call their god, and we shouldn’t be ashamed to say that having many gods has arguably been more culturally normative throughout written history than having only one. As an aside, I would also like to note that we also have our moral codes, such as the Delphic Maxims for us Hellenists, that were written in stone long before their myths.

The Makares have always existed, along with the spirits of the land, sea, and sky. Apollôn will still shoot his arrows and protect his devotees long after this world and our sun have dissipated into the interstellar medium, leaving behind only a small white dwarf as testament to the great species that once lived here. YHVH is too tied down to one place — one holy world, one holy city, one holy people — and this, if he even does exist, makes him just as destructible as the other spirits of our world that will disappear. It is granted that there are gods, but the rest of us are as impermanent as smoke.