pat loughery

I’ve been following the discussion over on Justin’s blog, most recently here lately (and Rachelle’s a bit earlier) about homosexuality. Both are good, healthy discussions with great points from a variety of perspectives. Spend time there if you’d like to delve deeper into this issue.

In considering the most recent post from Justin, I was again impressed with the seriousness of idolatry. And I think it’s worth looking at the things which Scripture closely associates with idolatry.

As I tried to mention in comments on Justin’s blog, we usually think of idolatry as dancing around carved or forged cows or frogs or something. But look at how often greed (as an example, one that escapes us here in the good ol’ USA) is named as idolatry:

Ephesians 5:5 (NRSV)
Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Or this one:

Colossians 3:5 (NRSV)
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

Greed == Idolatry. Am I prepared to accept that?

What, then, is idolatry? Let me suggest that idolatry is simply following an image of God which wasn’t God-generated. More specifically, idolatry is following the God that we create in our own image. It’s making God the way I wish he would be.

Here in America today we have God who is prepared to bless us financially if we are holy enough(Strange, however, that this didn’t work for the original apostles).

We have God who is lovingkind and to whom the only sinful act is intolerance (aka insensitivity/political incorrectness).

We have God who is non-miraculous, confined more to time and space than we are.

We have the God of the aura, the chakra, the God of the Guanranteed Miraculous Prayer of Jabez, Get the Results You Want or Get Your $14.95 Back.

Aren’t these all idolatrous images of God? Isn’t any image of God which owes its definition to our current cultural values, separated from however he has chosen to reveal himself, incomplete or incorrect?

And here’s the tough part: Am I aware of which parts of my view of God are idolatrous? Of course not.

++Lord, show me clearly the ways I’ve hoped to create You in my own image. Transmform my view of You, Lord. ++