In museum after museum and nation after nation, I see objects that tell of humanity’s obsession with war and and worship. Behind these two themes we see humanity’s never-ending attempt to destroy our relationship with our fellow man (that’s war) and to destroy our relationship with God (that’s worship).

This is my year of museums—of so many museums. If all goes according to plan, between January and December I will visit museums on every continent and in at least 15 different countries. In many of those places I will visit more than one. I’ve already been to so many that they are beginning to blur together in my memory and I’m having to dig out photos to distinguish them. But this remains clear: in almost every museum in almost every country there are two themes that remain constant: war and worship.

In museum after museum and nation after nation, I see objects that tell of humanity’s obsession with war and and worship. Behind these two themes we see humanity’s never-ending attempt to destroy our relationship with our fellow man (that’s war) and to destroy our relationship with God (that’s worship).

In Auckland, New Zealand, the most prominent museum holds great collections related to the Maori, the inhabitants of the islands who pre-dated the Europeans. There I saw the terrible clubs they used to smash the heads of their victims and the vicious knives they used to slash them. Much of the nation’s history is brutal and bloody. Nearby were glass cases filled with their gods, images carved from wood with leering eyes and demented faces. Together they told of the Maori obsession with war and worship—their determination to obliterate their fellow man and to defy the one true God.

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