ACCIDENTAL GODS

A thesis on how divinity and its varied incarnations have surprised cultures for hundreds of years.

In her debut, Subin, an essayist who studied the history of religion at Harvard Divinity School, takes readers five centuries deep into a survey of (mostly) men who were inadvertently lionized. She first explores a myriad of sanctifications, including figures in the Rastafarian movement of the 1930s and, of course, Christopher Columbus, who was adulated as a “celestial deity.” Especially illuminating is the author’s case study of how Gen. Douglas MacArthur unwittingly became deific throughout four distinct episodes in his military tenure. Subin surmises the military leader became “quadrisected, each quarter experiencing a different way to become fleetingly, precariously divine.” The author also considers French American anthropologist Nathaniel Tarn, who was sainted by conflicted villagers in the highlands of Guatemala in the 1950s. The book tours the “accidental godlings” formed from the glorified doctrines of religious leaders, politicians, dictators, and royal princes while citing numerous references on the ultimate consequences of divine exaltation or the dangers of enmeshing religion and politics. Subin examines how the appearance of fetish idols by European imperialists “integrated into some of the foremost theories of Western modernity” and legitimized conquest, while other forms of deification, particularly involving White authority figures, contributed to early forms of classism, sexism, and racism. In the concluding section, Subin addresses how the very idea of Whiteness became a divine prognosticator: “Race, the scholar-activists remind us, is not only a word but a sentence, of who can live and who will die.” Written in erudite, scholarly prose, Subin’s appreciation for these “gods” is a vibrantly narrated yet overlong text richly embellished with generous illustrations. The author’s exploration captures mortals throughout history who were feted, shaped myths about power and influence, and were startlingly exalted into godly status.

A colorful, exhaustive, occasionally exhausting contemplation of global history’s cavalcade of avatars.