Contemporary Idolatry

Israel’s greatest struggle was idolatry.  We often imagine that idolatry is relegated to those terrible pagans who don’t know the Lord, but Israel’s history should teach us otherwise.  The same people who heard His voice at Sinai offered sacrifices to the gods of Canaan, Assyria and Babylon.  Were they just being perverse?  Were they simply rebellious?  Did they flaunt the Lord’s favor with malice aforethought?  Probably not.  They simply did what they mistakenly thought they needed to do in order to take care of themselves.  That’s the way most people behave.  Ever since the Garden, we determine our ethical choices on the basis of our own evaluation of what is best.  Just like Israel, we are not people of the Word of the Lord.  We evaluate before we obey.

Let’s examine contemporary behavior with reflection toward Israel’s idolatry.  I think we will find some disturbing repetition.  The first question to ask is about motivation.  Why do ancient people worship idols?  The answer is humanly obvious – because they believe that their lives will be improved.  Israel constantly struggled with the idolatry of fertility cults.  The basis of all fertility cults is the proposition that my worship of this or that god will benefit my life.  If I do what the god says, my crops will thrive, the rains will come when I need them, I will have health and wealth, my land will be strong and stable, etc.  Fertility cults offer a quid pro quo for existence.  Do this – get that!  No one worships a false god for no reason at all.  Idolatry depends on perceived personal benefit.  Israel fell into idolatry because the people believed the claim that the good life could be attained by negotiation with the ones who controlled life.  They worshipped false gods believing that they were going to get something in return.

We do exactly that same thing.  We just don’t erect a sacred pole or a golden calf.  We are a bit more sophisticated.  We turn God into an idol.  That way is much more palatable.  For example, consider the idea that if I am obedient, if I give the proper amount of tithe, if I attend regularly and if I pray hard enough, my life will be blessed.  I am religious for a reason and that reason is to get something that I think I need.  Oh, it might not be money in the bank (although it certainly could be).  I might shy away from the crass materialism of claiming that God will increase my wealth if I obey His word.  But I can still convert the Lord into an idol if I think that my religious actions are part of a negotiation for health, happiness, protection, peace of mind or anything else that happens to be on my perennial Christmas list.

Why is this idolatry?  Doesn’t God guarantee us peace and health and prosperity?  Isn’t that what Deuteronomy 28 and the countless Biblical promises are all about?  If you listen to the usual theological interpretation, it would certainly seem as if our obedience guarantees His reward.  But it takes a re-interpretation of the context to turn promises into bargaining chips.  There’s a long history here.  Genesis 4:1 comes to mind – the first example of a negotiated settlement with God.  Behind all this re-interpretation is the refusal to accept God’s call to suffer.  That’s right, Israel and all of God’s adopted children are called to suffer.  We are called to be intercessors between the world and the Lord, and most of the time, that means standing against the idea that my evaluation of what is good is good.  We are called to live by the Book, regardless of the outcome.  If Yeshua were a contemporary Christian, He would never have arrived at the Garden.  He would have arrived at a magnificently manufactured pulpit with the latest in high technology devices, degrees in motivational training and a message that made everyone feel good.  His ministry would be measured in terms of memberships.  Failure would not be an option.  He would ascend to the national stage, influence political decisions and receive honorary doctorates.  But suffer and die?  No way!  That isn’t what God promises.  Suffering is not the pursuit of happiness.

Blessed are the peacemakers.  Ah, but peacemakers take the fire from both sides.  They are the ones who are not at peace.  To stand with Yeshua is to mount the cross.  Daily.  It is to deny oneself.  But we knew that, didn’t we?  What we seem to have forgotten is that denying myself begins with rejecting my own evaluation of life’s goods and goals.  It’s not just putting aside power, sex and money.  It’s refusing to let me be the judge of what is good.  The mark of self-denial is contentment in the midst of suffering.  Only a man who denies himself can trust God, and a man who trusts God must deny himself.

Doesn’t all this make you wonder what happened to us?  How did we arrive at a modern version of fertility cult idolatry?  How did we come to believe that life is about getting God’s promises by any means necessary.  We arrived here because we gave up a culture of commitment.  Israel learned its lesson.  After Babylon, Israel never again turned to idol worship.  God made His point by destroying the nation that attempted to negotiate what was good.  We miss the lesson if we think that it was only about moral corruption.  It wasn’t lust, greed, avarice, violence and a lack of compassion that caused Israel to fall.  Those are only symptoms of a deeper iniquity.  Israel fell because it tried to barter with God.  It tried to negotiate God’s calling.  It attempted to determine what was good on its own.  We should take careful note that all of this happened inside a religious culture.  The people who went into captivity did not think of themselves as idol worshippers.  They thought of themselves as religious practitioners. They considered themselves the chosen.  It took the prophets (whom they summarily killed) to point out the hypocrisy.  These very religious, orthodox believers were subtle idolaters because they thought they could manipulate God’s goodness.

We have thrown away the lesson Israel learned.  When Christianity was invented in the second century, it discarded Israel’s experience of the tragedy of idolatry.  Christianity tossed out the Book and reinvented itself on the basis of an ethic of “love.”  We redefined what God expected of His people by adopting our evaluation of what is good, an evaluation based in Greek metaphysics.  That shouldn’t be surprising.  The basis of all Greek thinking is the primacy of Man’s reason.  No Greek would accept a command from the Lord simply because God said so.  Greeks first ask, “What reasons do you give for me to accept what you say?” before making a commitment to obey.  Unfortunately, after eighteen hundred years of Greek indoctrination, contemporary Christianity is in precisely the same place as the fertility cult worshippers.  We don’t have temple prostitution (but that sort of depends on how you define it).  We don’t have sacred statues (or do we?).  We don’t have sacred places (wait a minute!).  We just define God’s commands according to our own theology convenience.  After all, Christians aren’t Jews.  Why should we have to follow all those Jewish commandments.  We serve a God who changed His mind after the resurrection, right?  We replaced Israel so we don’t have to pay any attention to God’s instructions to Israel.  We are different.  We can make up our own minds about what is good for us.