LIE: Idolatry is rare, part 2

Lie:  Idolatry is rare.

Truth: Idolatry is very common.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. – I John 5:21

In part 1, we learned how idolatry works and what makes it so insidious. In this part we’ll look at what idols actually look like and ask the question, what are the idols that tempt us today? What form do they take and how do we actually worship them?

But before we do that, let’s rehearse the definition of idolatry from part 1:

Idolatry – awe or adoration of a person, object or idea from which we falsely imagine to derive pleasure, protection or well being. 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.

Idols come in many forms, from the puny to the mammoth, from the physical to the mental to the emotional, from the obvious to the almost imperceptible. Here’s a list of the kinds of idols that we face today and some examples of them. A couple of disclaimers here: (1) This is not a complete list and some idols do not fit neatly into one type; (2) Just because something is listed here (for example, ‘money’ or ’Hollywood personalities’) does not mean that that thing is an idol everywhere, always to everyone.

Idol type	Examples
covetousness	‘I must have a Tesla like Jim.’
manufactured idols	Hollywood personalities, graphic advertisements, pornography
conceptual idols	money, technology, government
self-idols	mirror image
fetishes	feet
taboos	politically-incorrect speech
rites/rituals/scripts	routines that we ‘must’ perform
sigils	logos
institutional	Nazi Third Reich
architectural	domes, obelisks
sentimental	good ol’ days, kitsch
medical	physician in white lab coat, vaccine

Now let’s take some common examples; this list is by no means exhaustive.

Your house – Images of ideal homes are everywhere, for example, in magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, House Beautiful, Adore (!), Country Living. Doing a quick search for ‘home magazines’ I counted no less than 50 titles. But magazines are not the only source; think TV shows like HGTV’s Divine Design, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Style Network’s Dress My Nest and many more. That’s not even scratching the surface of the number of places you find professionally-produced images of home exteriors and interiors: big box stores, ‘coffee table’ books, furniture stores and more. These are glamour shots, captured and produced with sophistication and subtlety designed to provoke insecurity, desire and envy in practically anyone. We leaf through pages of Architectural Digest magazine, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and literally in awe. By contrast your pedestrian three-bedroom, two-bath looks too small, old and plain.

Your body – Images of scantily-clad and bare-chested bodies litter magazine racks, books, TV ads, infomercials, billboards, and websites. We can hardly escape these images – they are practically everywhere we look. These bodies are flawless, exaggerated, glamorized and burnished; often they’re photoshopped to achieve this look because no real humans look quite so perfect. Yes, sex sells, but it’s more than sex – it’s a lifeless image that draws us in and that represents our secret hopes. We know that it’s just an image, yet the longer we look, the harder it is to look away. Quietly, even subconsciously we say to ourselves, ‘Oh, if I could only look like that. . . .’  We imagine and project ourselves into that body or that celebrity or that car or that house. When that becomes our vision of satisfaction, our dream, our salvation, we are worshiping an idol.

Your money – Symbols of wealth litter our landscapes: cars, clothes, computers and every kind of shiny, new, sophisticated gadgetry surrounds us. In America and the western world we live within a constellation of materiality and media, print, web, audio and video, to the point that our entire environment transforms into an alien, plastic, steel and glass landscape.

We easily forget the alien nature of our cities and suburbs. We’ve grown accustomed to them and forget the beauty and wildness of the real world – fields and forests, hills and valleys, towns and villages, people and neighbors in the markets and shops. Such is dismissed as quaint and outdated or only seen in postcards and kitsch, which, in turn becomes a sentimental idolatry: the idealized past, yearning for salvation in a mythic ‘good-ole-days.’

This world of material wealth that represents money can subtly influence us and if we’re not vigilant, will transform and mold us into its image – a cold, hard, unthinking, unfeeling, snobbish automaton. Life becomes a matter of consumption of things to the point we become another ‘thing.’

And if we persist in worshiping these idols, our lives will start looking more like them. We become what we behold. Listen to the psalmist:

But our God is in heaven;
He does whatever He pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but they do not speak;
Eyes they have, but they do not see;
They have ears, but they do not hear;
Noses they have, but they do not smell;
They have hands, but they do not handle;
Feet they have, but they do not walk;
Nor do they mutter through their throat.
Those who make them are like them;
So is everyone who trusts in them.  — Psalm 115:3–8

Idols are not rare. Far from it, they are everywhere.

Do ‘real idols’ exist?

Practically anything can be an idol if it inspires the idolatry described above. But are idols only subjectively ‘created’ by our mind? In other words, could there be such a thing as an objective, modern-day idol? That is, are there some objects that are inherently idols whether we recognize them as such or not, whether they inspire idolatry in everyone, or not?

I don’t think we should be surprised if we find that real, modern-day idols DO exist. And why wouldn’t they? They have existed in all cultures since antiquity; they represent the most powerful forces of evil in the world and are called out as the number one and number two objects of which to beware in the Ten Commandments. Surely such a powerful force would find some expression in the world, no matter what the sophistication level the culture.

So to answer the question of whether there are ‘real idols’: Yes, and there are good reasons to believe that this is so. Admittedly, we need to be careful not to condemn or paint with a broad brush. And even if we name something as a ‘real idol,’ that does not mean that we must presume to destroy it or that by simply looking at them, we commit idolatry.

Paul said:

Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. — I Corinthians 8:4–6

Paul gives us the proper perspective on idols and gods in the world – they are nothing, empty, void of any good or power to do harm to us, as long as we remember that there truly is no other God but the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that said, what then would be the characteristics of a ‘real idol’? Can we use the simple logic of the old canard:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

I believe we can.

Taking the characteristics of idols from the word of God, I believe we can identify a ‘real idol.’ I count at least five clear characteristics that we can use.

Here are the five characteristics.

1  Artificial objects. Historically speaking, idols are inanimate objects, man-made, replicable things; real idols are not ideas or persons or anything living.

Their idols are silver and gold
The work of men’s hands. — Psalm 115:4

2  Images or symbols of so-called gods. Idols are images that represent and stand for a recognized god and can be copied into existence. The god that it represents is universally and implicitly recognized and viscerally identified and understood.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. — Deuteronomy 5:8

3  Primarily created to inspire fascination, awe or adoration. We must ask the question, ‘Did the creator/designer(s) intend to inspire this response?’ In many cases, this certainly would be hard to determine or demonstrate, but it could be inferred by what the designer has said about the object or by whether there is a near-universal worship response to it.

You shall not bow down to them nor serve them . . . — Deuteronomy 5:9

4  Make promises to please, protect or improve/enhance our lives, but in fact, do not deliver on that promise. Whether this promise is made explicitly or implicitly, the promise is universally understood. And that promise turns out to be a false promise. It may momentarily please, but in the long term, it produces the opposite: bondage.

Those who make an image, all of them are useless
And their precious things shall not profit. — Isaiah 44:9

5  Produce bondage. By allowing ourselves to be drawn to an idol (fascination or awe) and listening to and believing the message of an idol (false promise), we descend into varying levels of addiction and bondage.

Those who make them are like them,
So is everyone who trusts in them. — Psalm 115:8

Now let’s test this rubric. What artificial objects might fit this description? I can think of a few:

• Pornography
• Some glossy magazines, websites and internet platforms
• Some TV commercials

Here’s a breakdown of these three examples using the five characteristics:

Characteristic	Pornography	Some glossy magazines/websites/internet platforms	Some TV commercials
Artificial object	images of actors, body parts	images of beautiful houses, bodies, clothes, things, etc	flowing images of beautiful people, smiling, enjoying, playing, loving
Image/symbol of a god	the god of illicit sex	the god of Mammon/materialism	the god of health, beauty, family, nature, etc.
Created to inspire worship	definitely produced to inspire lust, which is a form of awe or fascination.	check out, for example, Architectural Digest, and try not to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the beautiful homes.	idealized, often slow-motion, beautiful images that tell a story,
Promises but does not deliver	promises to sexually please but only momentary, if that	promises to enhance/elevate/please, but only momentary, if that.	for example on pharmaceutical commercials: first taglines and slogans, then a litany of potential grave, even deadly consequences[1]
Produces bondage	few doubt porn’s addictive power[2]	especially true, for example, for image-dominated Pinterest or Instagram accounts.	the consumption of the product often produces the bondages of debt, ill-health, addiction, etc

I could go on but I’ll stop there. Admittedly this exercise requires a healthy dose of discernment and wisdom. We must be careful to be culturally aware and sensitive – the same object does not necessarily mean the same thing in all cultures.

I say all of this to say that, yes, real idols do exist and have always existed in the world. As such they carry a special power to deceive and create bondages. For these we must beware and name them as idols if we discern that they indeed are. We must not passively allow their lies to infect our minds.

One clarification with regard to visual art is in order here:

Although some visual art may qualify as an idol, good art does not. The promise and purpose of good art elevates our aspect, our vision, reminds us of our humanity, and creates no bondage. Rather, good art liberates us, inspires us to pursue the good, the right, and the true, the greatest of which is the true and living God himself.

How then can we be free of this pernicious evil? Let me offer some hope. Here are five – not easy – steps:

(A) Understand the fears that motivate you to seek an ideal that you think will ‘save’ you from your felt vulnerability, weakness or limitation.

(B) Understand the ‘idol coping mechanism’ that gives you that false hope, whether it be clothes and grooming, body image, intelligence, car, house or any other transcendent ideal.

(C) Understand that the idol will ultimately, if left unchecked, damage or even destroy you. It does this by hollowing you out and reshaping you into a false object like itself — deaf and dumb, blind and stiff.

(D) Embrace your weakness and vulnerability before God as a human being. Like Christ who faced the cross and His worst enemy in His weakest state in the wilderness, said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.”’ Luke 4:8

(E) In the Name of Jesus, cast down your idol, whatever it is! Then, worship our God! Unless we worship the true and living God and serve only him, we are sure to fall into the common, modern practice of idol worship.

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

[1] As one example of many that could be cited, see the Lyrica TV commercial here: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wBqo/lyrica-babysitter. It tells the story of a women with fibromyalgia who goes out on an enjoyable date. While out on the date, in the middle of the story, the side-effect list is narrated that includes serious allergic reactions, difficulty breathing, suicidal thoughts or actions, dangerous impulses, etc. The juxtaposition and contrast of the beautiful images and story on the one hand, and on the other hand, the fact that the drug could cause deadly complications is jarring to say the least. But this black/white characteristic of nearly all pharmaceutical TV commercials is a tell-tale sign of promises not delivered.

[2]Check these statistics for example: 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography; 40 million Americans regularly visit porn sites; every day 68 million search queries are generated related to porn, which account for 25% of all searches. Pornography is extremely addictive, for both men and women. See https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/internet-pornography-by-the-numbers