Living With The Gods by Neil MacGregor (Allen Lane, London, 2018). Hbk. 512 pages. £16.98. Living With The Gods is beautifully written, with 471 pictures, which the presenter in the original Radio series skilfully built for listeners’ imagination; listening to the podcast while reading the book is a moving multi-sensory experience.
Living With The Gods is beautifully written, with 471 pictures, which the presenter in the original Radio series skilfully built for listeners’ imagination; listening to the podcast while reading the book is a moving multi-sensory experience.
In an introduction added for the book, MacGregor writes that ‘in the present age, after decades of unprecedented prosperity, the religious participant has given way to the ever more atomised consumer’; but a set of beliefs and assumptions has proved necessary for every known society. Religions have a vital rôle in building human identity. ‘Belief is back,’ he writes.
Part 1 introduces us to the Lion Man, a mammoth tusk 40 000 years old carved with great skill by a craftsman aware of the creative power of imagination.
In a later chapter in Part 1, San Bushmen of South Africa, a tribe that has lived for 70 000 years with its rock-art, explain how their pictures enhance the tribe’s self-image through the shaman spirit world.
The next chapter develops the theme of fire from early cave-dwellers through the Hindu god Shiva, Moses’ burning bush, Vesta representing the city of Rome in the first century AD, Ahura Mazda and Zoroastrian Fire–altars, and the First World War (‘Keep the home fires burning’, ‘La Flamme de la Nation’): symbols of unity for the communities which used them. ‘The Return of the Light’ takes us to Newgrange in Ireland, built 5 000 years ago, which still gives a dazzling experience of the sun at the Winter Solstice. ‘Waters of Life and Death’ brings together crossing the Red Sea, Christian Baptism, the Zamzam spring of the Islamic Hajj, and the holy Ganges waters at Varanasi. Jawaharlal Nehru is quoted: ‘The Ganga, the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her victories and her defeats…’ Part 2: Living Together explores death, birth, tradition, prayer and song. In Part 3: Theatres of Faith we visit houses of God, offerings, sacrifice, pilgrimage and festivals. Egypt, Alaska, China, Colombia, Japan, Russia, Australia and many more societies are featured, and a wide range of ages. Part 4: The Power of Images explores sculpture, art and story. In this part’s last chapter ‘Rejecting the Image, Revering the Word’ Afifi al-Akiti of the Oxford Centre of Islamic studies explores interpreting the Qur’an.
In Part 5 One God or Many the strengths and weaknesses of monotheism are explored. We go to Mumbai where a Roman Catholic Church, a mosque, a Hanuman temple, a Zoroastrian fire temple, a synagogue, a Jain sanctuary and a Buddhist temple are within 200 yards of each other; but also to Ayodhya where Hindu and Muslim kill each other over a mosque at Ram’s supposed birthplace. Amartya Sen says: ‘We should not take the richness of Indian literature – poetry with stories in it – as history. The Ram story is part of Indian culture, not just Hindu culture.
In Part 6: Powers Earthly and Divine A C Grayling argues the case against god: ‘Faith makes people kill other people. I think one would always want to challenge it with reason.’ But MacGregor comments: ‘In France and Russia, when God was abolished, there was no longer even an abstract restraint on state power, and murder followed in the name of reason.’ He believes that religion is vital to community building because we live not by reason alone, but by compassion and imagination as well.
The book ends with a chapter entitled ‘Living with Each Other’, featuring the Thangka Mandala (Tibetan Buddhist), the Kumbh Mela (a city for 20 million people is built and washed away annually on a sandbank in the Ganges), the Cross in St Paul’s Cathedral commemorating 312 refugees drowned at Lampedusa, and the Virgin Mary spreading her protective cloak on all humanity.
The series explores supremely well religious faith as a series of human creations over 40,000 years. It inspired me with thoughts of the next 40,000. Will we, with the power of our science and technology, continue to destroy our fellow evolutionary lifeforms, or can we recover some of our fellowship with the spirits of life and place, so as to offer fruits of the human imagination for the future of the Universe?
The original Radio 4 series is now available as podcasts.
David Paterson is a founder member of SOF and recent Trustee.