Themes From Chapter One of "A History of God"

I chose to elaborate on two of Karen Armstrong’s themes from the first chapter of A History of God as I felt they were both very strong ideas. The first explains how cultural differences between North Africa and Europe during the Romantic Period affected white society’s failure to realize that Islam indeed worshipped the same deity. The second explains how Delacroix’s audience desired the imagery in the painting because people were, during this time, losing their concept of God.

Armstrong explains the three forms God takes throughout the three monotheistic religions. She describes Him as being one and the same for each faith, perceived as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Many people in Delacroix’s time did not understand that this concept (roughly) spanned over Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, thus leading many to believe that Islam (the farthest removed from the three) was a completely different, almost pagan, religion. Arab Horseman Being Attacked By A Lion is not a religious painting, but Christianity’s influence on white society’s thinking is clearly seen here. During the mid-1800s the west colonized many foreign places (i.e. India, the Philippines), introducing Christianity among other cultural influences. Christianity was now the widest-spreading, fastest-growing faith and it came from the most powerful continent; this led many Europeans to consider it the most superior one. To Christian Europe the radically different Muslim way of worship and lifestyle was seen as undomesticated. The Islamic view of God was perceived by the west as a completely different entity, when (according to Armstrong) it is in fact the same deity. Imagery depicting vicious battles between men in turbans and wild animals was extremely popul...

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...ing the Bible doesn’t provide. As society began to favor fact over faith, Europeans especially allowed religion to dominate their lives less and less. Arab Horseman Being Attacked by a Lion shows our ideological shift from religious themes to purely human ones.

Delacroix’s society was dominated by very Christian values. People were restricted to the many mores of their social classes and used escapism– namely, art that showed exotic scenes of adventure in far-off places¬– to satisfy their human wants that were ignored in their daily lives. Arab Horseman Being Attacked By A Lion comes from these values, as it shows how people did not yet understand that the three monotheistic religions were worshiping the same deity. It also shows the point at which we began to move away from religious-based art in order to satisfy and celebrate human emotions, needs, and desires.