Long time no blog…
Sorry it’s been so long! I’ve started a religious editorial in the local paper called, “Speaking of Faith.” Strangely ironic, since the last post I put up here had the same title…
Anyway, I’ll at least try to get my articles up here from time to time. If I get more, I’ll do more. If not… well, you get the point.
Article one:
Making God
I have a candid confession to make: I have never enjoyed watching American Idol. This is true even though my wife and I lived in Birmingham – home to Reuben Studdard, Bo Bice and Taylor Hicks – during the early height of the Idol era. I know this is shocking, and it places us in the small percentage of Americans who don’t spend those hours in front of the TV each week.
It’s not that we’re against it for any particular reason – we just have better things to do, like play with our young daughters (who are infinitely more entertaining). And it’s not that I have some hangup on the idea of an “American Idol.” Fact is, whether or not we have a television show to tell us who our cultural idol is, we’ll find one anyway – even though those idols rarely turn out to be worthy of our “worship.”
A few years ago, listening to a sermon on idolatry, I experienced one of those rare moments in which I actually remember something I heard in a sermon. I, like most of my fellow audience members, had been used to thinking of idolatry as some ancient sin that only involved wooden carvings or ancient statues in pagan temples. Or maybe we were used to hearing it used in connection with Christian symbols that have taken on a life of their own – the cross, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. However we define it, idolatry is a serious sin… but none of us modern folks really do it.
That’s what I thought, until I was challenged with this simple but frighteningly clear definition of idolatry: “God created us in his image, and we sometimes return the favor.” It reminded me that idolatry is not limited just to the worship of things that are blatantly not-God, but extends to the worship of our own limited views of God as well. Whether it’s a statue or an ideology, idolatry is finding a god to worship that’s not really worth worshiping.
How often do we try to re-make God in our own image? I find myself doing it all the time, and I imagine it’s a pretty common practice for most of us. We imagine Jesus as a white (or black) handsome, middle-class kind of person who hung around mostly folks just like us. He was calm and serene, never angry, never laughing. We envision God to be a Republican or a Democrat, urging us to vote along political lines. We make God an American, a pro-choicer or pro-lifer, a Baptist or a Methodist. These labels conveniently place God on “our side,” and allow us the freedom to withhold love (or “fellowship,” or help) from those who are not exactly like us.
More dangerously, I think, when we do these things we run the risk of forgetting that, while you and I must usually be “either-or,” God can be “both-and.” We hold to our little re-fashioned gods despite the fact that all of scripture points to a God who is complex: showing love and compassion while threatening judgment; showing favor for one people while bestowing blessings to all; bringing peace while bringing division.
And so we commit that ancient sin over and over again – not when we bow down to a little wooden statue, but when we bow down to our own tiny and limited view of God at the exclusion of the many other things God is. When we think we’ve got God figured out and have him placed firmly “on our side,” we don’t need a wooden idol – we’ve built one in our minds and hearts.
As a New Year resolution, let’s commit ourselves to rediscovering the true God in the days ahead. When we do, we’ll be reintroduced to a God who, while warm and familiar, is also mysterious and holy – who is infinitely more terrible and yet compassionate, more peaceful and yet dividing, more dreadful and yet more wonderful than we ever imagined. That’s a God worth worshiping!
Thanks Jon.
I’ve often thought about the ways we filter God through our own views, but I guess I’ve never taken the next step and recognized it as the idolatry it is.
It is a very interesting thing how culture impacts the way we read scripture. It reminds me of readings about Liberation Theology and how our social standing can cause us to receive dramatically different messages on a first read through scripture. I think it is important to have these things pointed out to us from time to time so we can be sure we are reading scripture, and not culture.
Sadly, though, often our culturally-inspired readings are made quite consciously.