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Sun Worship
Wednesday March 29, 2006
The coming of Daylight Saving Time this
weekend makes the days seem longer. I want to head outside, to soak up as much
sunshine as I can.
It's a peculiarly northern obsession.
If you travel to the tropics, you'll find pale-skinned northern tourists
frying in the sun wearing as little as possible but sunscreen while local people
hold their picnics in the shade.
In his book The Pagan Christ, author Tom Harpur suggests that all
religions obtained their original notions of divinity from the sun. Consciously
or unconsciously, they recognized that without the warmth and light of the sun's
nuclear furnace, there would be no life on this earth.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun god, Ra. The sun also figured
importantly in Mesopotamian civilization, among the Aztecs and Incas, in
Indo-Iranian Mithraism, in Japan…
But most religions soon moved beyond sun worship, and visualized a
superior deity whom even the sun obeyed. In the magnificent poem that opens the
biblical book of Genesis, Jewish theologians imagined a divinity who created not
just the sun but the whole universe.
But ancient concepts persisted. Psalm 19 compares God metaphorically
with the sun. Psalm 104 is even more specific: “You cover yourself with light.”
Still shaping perceptions
I can't – offhand –
think of any world religions that still worship the sun. But I wonder if their
daily experience of the sun continues to shape their ideas of God.
In the north, for instance, the sun is changeable. It rises higher or
lower through the seasons; it is often hidden behind cloud.
Similarly, northern churches seem more likely than tropical churches to
explore the absence of God, the loss of an ongoing relationship with God, the
angst of wondering who we are and why we're here.
The annual cycle of seasons in the north suggests recurring opportunity.
Maybe next year, even if this year's harvest fails. We have confidence that
warmth will return, even after a bitter winter. That seems to me to parallel our
affirmations about a forgiving God who loves unconditionally, and will never
abandon us totally.
If we lived in the deserts of the Middle East, we might have different
perceptions. Because the sun there is unforgiving. It judges the foolish and the
foolhardy harshly. It can be ruthless. It is unchanging and inescapable…
Burning hot
Is that, perhaps, why
Islam stresses rigid obedience? And why, according to some scholars, the
dominant theme of Judaism is righteousness – both as conformity to the Law, and
as avoidance of God's displeasure?
Does the burning of the sun incline the southern U.S. states to form a
conservative Bible belt, while the northern states and Canada are more likely to
be liberal, both politically and theologically?
I don't really know. The only faith with which I can claim any
familiarity is the north European version of Christianity.
Regardless, I'm glad the sun is returning, after having turned its face
away from me through most of the winter. My gratitude overflows.
Copyright © by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
To send comments on this column, email
Jim Taylor
directly. You can also receive Jim's column by email. Contact him at
jimt@quixotic.ca
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