Lately, my wife and I have added ‘Mankind’s Search for God’ into our family study. Published in 1990. It was a good read for me when it came out, but I also wondered what was the point. Whereas the book tells of an huge population shift, many times I’ve told people that, at its time of release, one came across only three groups of people in the U.S.—white, black, and Hispanic. Maybe in huge cities there were other populations, and one could always find the odd duck out of the water, but in the mid-sized city that was mine, all but 99% were of those three groups.

Turned out the book was just ahead of its time. Within ten years, the trickle of cultures/nationalities/religions began. Now it is a torrent, as people hop from sinking nations onto ones that are sinking more slowly. The brothers in the big cities were already seeing it back in 1990.

It is a reference work, really, and yet there are printed questions, as though it was designed for congregation study that never came. Quite a bit different from any other study book. Best remembered is the chapters comparing and contrasting all the large religions. But there are also chapters as to how the theory of evolution modified the search for God itself.

”During the 19th century, however, the picture began to change. The theory of evolution was sweeping through intellectual circles. That, along with the advent of scientific inquiry, caused many to question established systems, including religion. Recognizing the limitations of looking for clues within existing religion, some scholars turned to the remains of early civilizations or to the remote corners of the world where people still lived in primitive societies. They tried to apply to these the methods of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and so forth, hoping to discover a clue as to how religion began and why.” p23

The book names a few of these scholars. Tylor, Marett, Frazer, Freud has a paragraph apiece, with a few details as to the theories they proposed. At last, all are dismissed with the observation of paragraph 15:

“Numerous other theories that are attempts to explain the origin of religion could be cited. Most of them, however, have been forgotten, and none of them have really stood out as more credible or acceptable than the others. Why? Simply because there was never any historical evidence or proof that these theories were true. They were purely products of some investigator’s imagination or conjecture, soon to be replaced by the next one that came along.”

Then, an appeal to another book (World Religions—From Ancient History to the Present), which says: “In the past too many theorists were concerned not simply to describe or explain religion but to explain it away, feeling that if the early forms were shown to be based upon illusions then the later and higher religions might be undermined.” (Italics mine)

Thing is, we normally have zero interest in such things. If it is not a Bible topic itself, we don’t touch it. The book is an aberration from all else we print. All these names have popped up in background reading to maybe incorporate in my current work-in-progress, but I was real surprised to see it here, even in truncated form. Probably in the end, someone decided that it really does nothing for the building up of faith (other than provide a contrast), so for that reason it never made it into congregation study. Or maybe, it was never meant to, but in that case, why the study questions?

******  The bookstore