Idolatry? In Our Day?

Idolatry is setting up as an object of worship anything that has taken on supreme, controlling value in one’s life. In ancient cultures, idols representing rain gods were set up because an agricultural society wanted those gods to be propitious towards the people. The Nile River, upon whose annual flooding the prosperity of Egypt depended, became an important deity. The same went for goddesses connected with the moon, because the moon was not only connected with fertility but was seen as the weaver of destiny. The Hebrew prophets loved to mock people who would form a god with their own hands and then bow to it.

In postmodern society, we still set up idols that we perceive are important in preserving value systems that we cherish and are afraid of losing. There are the self-described yellow-dog Democrats, so-called because they would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican. Of course, there are Republicans just as fanatically dedicated to their party; they just don’t have such a colorful name for themselves. These are people who are so convinced that their respective parties hold to the correct absolute values that they dare not go against them, any more than an ancient Mayan in the midst of a drought would dare to curse Chaac the rain god.

More specifically, both conservatism and liberalism, as such, have become idols for many and have contributed to the polarization of our society. One doesn’t have to look very far for books on either side that go to shocking lengths to defend despicable acts on the part of politicians identified with those ideologies, simply because the ideologies in question are taken to be unassailable. Abraham was correct in deciding that if God wanted him to do something as unthinkable as sacrificing his only son, the miraculous son through whom the covenant was to be fulfilled, he had better go through with it. Who was he to judge the God who made the universe and therefore makes the rules that govern it? His absolute faithfulness was then rewarded by his being told it had only been a test. Treating our man-made political ideologies that way, however, is a different matter, reminiscent of those absolute monarchies in which the king’s will could be defied only at the risk of death. One thinks of that Medieval Spanish ruler who asked a retainer what time it was, and was told, “Whatever time Your Majesty desires.”

Are we willing to submit so blindly to systems devised by human beings that we treat them as if they were unalterably divine? Our system of government was set up for healthy debate at all levels, in the hope that out of the arguments between the people’s representatives (Jefferson and Adams, for example) and a good deal of evaluation of those arguments on the part of the observers would emerge the truth. If instead we make the truth out to be whatever we hear our idol saying, we are placing ourselves in considerable danger.