LIE: Idolatry is rare, part 1

Lie:  Idolatry is rare.

Truth:  Idolatry is common.

When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, he meant for each commandment to serve as a foundation stone in the building of his people. No word was wasted. It was a revelation beyond anything men could have dreamed up and it began – at least to our ears – very strangely: “You shall have no other gods before me.” and then right on its heals, the second command: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” This second commandment conjures up images (!) of ancient robed figures bowing before huge stone statues. But does this still go on? Or is it an anachronism? Did God overemphasize the importance of idolatry? or is it a timeless and fundamental temptation?

Most Christians would say that modern-day idols do exist, but would find it difficult to connect it to the ancient practice and to the importance of the first and second commandment. Consequently, this muddle effectively renders any occurrence of idols or idol worship ‘rare.’ That, plus the fact that idolatry seems just plain weird and scary – why would an intelligent human being bow to a statue – adds to its mystery and apparent impenetrability.

So let’s connect the dots:

1  Why did apparently intelligent human beings bow before strange-looking statues?
2  What were they really doing and what could they possibly hope to gain by doing so?
3  What made such a practice so forbidden in God’s eyes? and finally and most importantly,
4  How does this practice continue today? – is it rare or common?

Let’s break these questions down one by one.

1  Why did ancient people worship idols?  Although the answer is really broader, the most basic answer is: to feel safe. They were trying to protect themselves from forces outside of their control which were arrayed around them and which they interpreted to be either for or against them. Forces like weather, other warring tribes, accident, disease, pestilence, infertility and more. They, much more than we who live in modern societies, felt their hardships and vulnerabilities much deeper, much more immediately. They conceived that the god or the gods who controlled these forces, whether they were good or evil or fickle, must be appeased, their apparent anger and irritations assuaged. And this they did mostly by sacrificing something dear to them.

2  What were they doing? It’s important to note that, as they bowed to the image, they knew that the image only represented the god – the so-called god was a spiritual entity behind the image. They were not so stupid, as is commonly thought, that the image itself was the god. That’s simply not true. Ancient people and by extension third-world peoples are much more familiar with the supernatural than first-world people, steeped as we are in our presumed materialistic sophistication.

The image allowed them to falsely imagine gaining the favor of the god and themselves managing the god, that is, if they said and did the right things, performed the right rituals, the right sacrifices, the right oblations, then they could consider themselves in the right and therefore safe. They had reduced God to a god, an aspect of the true and living God, to an image with a limited form. And consequently they had reduced life to following a script.

3  What made this practice so forbidden to God? Basically three things: (a) it’s a deluded attempt to reduce God to a manageable and limited function. The fragmentation of God into manageable chunks, into a pantheon, where each god (sun god, moon god, storm god, etc) wears a different hat, each with their own peculiarities – this blasphemes the true and living God. Israel worshiped Yahweh, but, for at least a good part of their history, they worshiped him as just one more god in the pantheon – perhaps even as the most important god. But this was unacceptable to him as the first commandment made clear: “You shall have no other gods before me.”  God is a jealous God who insists – for our own good – on our exclusive devotion.

It’s the grandest lie of all – the denial of and wholesale redefinition of who God is. That’s why God put it at the top of his list.

(b) Furthermore, idolatry was and still is forbidden because, this practice of idolatry, more than any other, has the power to deceive and enslave people. Can you imagine a lie any bigger or more irrational than, ‘I can manage God’ or ‘I can be (a) god.’? Yet that is precisely what idolatry promises. It promises that we can be our own god by reducing God to our size. And in the process of believing and practicing this deception, in the process of trying to become a god, we lose our humanity, our ability to think and feel and hear and see, and in the process become automatons, following a script written for us. Think: the reduction of life into a complex of taboos, rites, rituals and talismans.

(c) Finally, God forbid the making of images because he wanted to protect the preeminence of the spoken and written word. God chose to reveal himself primarily through the Word, not images or spectacles. This has profound implications for our lives today, especially since images have gained such prominence over words.

4  How does this practice continue today? This is the operative question and where the lie, ‘idolatry is rare,’ becomes exposed. We start by saying that we are human beings with the same nature, the same needs and the same hopes as those ancient, robed worshipers. We, like them, have families, homes; we need food, to be warm, to be safe and to keep our loved ones safe. And although we modern men and women have industries and systems like agriculture, construction, and healthcare that provide more protection from the harsh elements, we still are and feel vulnerable to many things; we feel vulnerable to the potential loss of these things.

How then do we define idolatry, that is, what is idol worship? Here’s my best stab at it:

Idolatry – awe and adoration of a person, object or idea from which we falsely imagine to derive pleasure, protection or well being. It is typically encapsulated and objectified in an image or gross characterization. It is a warped, all-important and indispensable obsession or fascination that we invest with power and that ultimately, if not destroyed, becomes self-destructive.

But what specifically are the idols that tempt us today? What form do they take and how do we actually worship them? For the answer to that, see part 2 where we take a look at some common examples.

See also the introduction to this category: Lies about sin.