I will be making the case that classic idolatry is alive and well in our postmodern age. Whilst I appreciate the view there are no longer any grand narratives, I am also suspicious of it. Is it that there are no longer any grand narratives, or that we choose to overlook them? It may be true the old grand narratives are no more but it does not follow there are no grand narratives. Plato reports Socrates as saying 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. The invitation to examine our lives is an invitation to step into another world, quite different from the one we think we know.
The first thing to do is to clear up some possible misconceptions about classical idolatry.
First, the prohibition of idolatry in ancient Israel, took place in a political context. It is likely the concept of God developed from arguing that many local gods were each a manifestation of one God. These local gods had idols and many worshippers transferred their allegiance to the one God, worshiped through their local idol.
The Israelites were also known as Hebrews, a word which originates as a social rather than ethnic designation. Often the idols would have been controlled by political elites, the one God was a movement of the nomad, the marginalised, the dispossessed. Later we see the focus shift to the dominance of a temple elite.
This complex history is fascinating and we need to take care not to confuse its vagaries with the deeper concern beneath the politics of the time. What is important is the way our idols form our lives in the present. We do not need to believe the nations surrounding ancient Israel were evil because they worshiped false gods. Our task is to identify our own false gods and understand why they are so dangerous.
Second, I am not writing about bonkers sects. There is no end to the bonkers things people believe in. In this series of posts I am not concerned with debunking bonkers beliefs. Plenty of writers have had great fun doing this but it does not concern me here.
Third, a discussion of idolatry carried out by a professed Christian is likely to raise the suspicion that the aim is to question other faiths. This is not my intention. The best way to settle this for the present is to say you will see in later posts, I do not see Christianity as exempt from the dangers of idolatry. One way or another all faiths have to struggle with this issue.
In this series I will explore how idolatry works across the generality of Western society. Once this is complete, it may be possible to engage with atheism in a constructive debate. Atheists may be suspicious of what I write and so they should be. If we take idolatry seriously we should all be radically suspicious.
What I hope to do is to show how idolatry is very much a part of our world. Indeed, we make idols out of many abstract concepts but I want to show how so many of our idols are material, not far from the graven images in the second commandment and described in Psalm 115 .
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