So What?

Idolatry 5: Classic Idolatry in a Postmodern World

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 .

Idolatry 4: The Classic Idol

Next I turn to one of several Old Testament descriptions of idols.  At the time it might have seemed legitimate to mock those who worship idols.  But how much was down to rivalries between Israel and other nations, rather than a concern for a right relationship with God.  Remember the concern was always for the nation rather than individuals.  Did marking nations as idolatrous justify war with them?  Or did it explain why they invaded Israel?

Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases. 

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; they make no sound in their throats.

Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.  (Psalm 115:3-8; NRSV)

This is about physical idols; idols you can see and touch.  It is customary these days to say all manner of abstract things can be idols, such as money or celebrity.  I will explore this view later. 

The mockery is based on the question, why worship something that is not alive?  It exists alright but it is dead matter.  It has no capabilities whatsoever (unlike the God of Israel).  We need to pay attention to this because we need to be careful we don't project our own fears onto the writers and first readers of these texts.  This passage shows they are capable of distinguishing between what is real and what is not.  They make a real distinction between what is capable of many things and what is capable of nothing.

Atheists might wish to argue that the God is verse 3 is also an idol, a figment of the imagination.  They might be right and I will explore this view in a later post.  But the point is this passage does not allow such a simplistic dismissal of their ability to discern between what is real and what is not real. 

If they are able to see that material idols are not real, why assume they cannot discern that their God although not material might also not be real?  Why should they believe that material idols are false but that an imaginary God (as some atheists would have it) is true?  Why couldn't they see they are both idols? 

There are only two possible explanations.  Either this is an attack on people of other faiths, rubbishing their gods, or they had genuinely perceived something about the nature of reality.

Perhaps the last verse is a clue to what they perceived.  They make a distinction between those who worship idols and so are like them, unable to do anything of their own volition, and those who worship God and so somehow share in God's freedom.  (Compare the last verse with the first.)

At this stage, I will not take this any further except to note that before we jump to conclusions we should heed their warning about what happens to those who worship false gods.  As a further warning, this video shows what happens when you mess with idols.

 

Idolatry 3: The Second Commandment

The ten commandments might be the obvious place to start.  As the Shema  is similar to the first commandment, this time we will look at the second. 

In my post what sin is not I make the point these commandments are not laws to be obeyed but a sign of friendship between humanity and God.  (I believe this point was made by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, although I do not have a reference.)  It is not unreasonable, where friendship is involved, to expect the friends to know each other.  The point of the second commandment is to resist the temptation to muddy the water by creating images of God, which are not in fact God.  We're not talking about other gods here (they're dealt with under the first commandment 'you shall have no other gods before me').  Here we are talking of images of God, not miscellaneous gods.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.  (NRSV Exodus 20:4-6)

What I see here is a warning to Israel about the risks attendant upon making an image of God.  The point is this image is not God.  To worship it in the mistaken belief that it is God will lead to error.  Images of God are effectively other gods.  The problem is we will add to any image our own prejudices, hunger for security, projected fantasies.  We might as well hang up a mirror and worship the reflection.

The second part might not seem particularly friendly but take a close look.  Iniquity is punished only for a few generations but love is rewarded effectively forever.  We have to remember these texts were written not by individualists (as most of us are today) but by a people.  They are reminded that if a few go wrong, all will suffer the consequences.  We see this later in the Old Testament stories of the exile, for example.

Some Christian traditions leave it here.  They do not accept any image of God in their place of worship, or perhaps only the plain empty cross.

Other traditions use images in three dimensions, notably but not only Catholicism, and two dimensional icons, mainly in Orthodox churches (or stained glass windows).  The argument goes that this is permissable because of the doctrine of the incarnation.  God who cannot be depicted in an image became human and so we now have an image.  Furthermore, I would add that if anyone can find something in the image of the crucified Christ that encourages them to further acts of egotism, they must be leading strangely confused lives.  Through that image we are reminded of exactly who we are.

Idolatry 2: The Shema

The opening verses of Deuteronomy 6 state the basic principle underlying Israel's law.  A principle of friendship; the commandments were and are seen as a gift from God.  To follow them means the people will not make the mistakes so often made by nations.  The Old Testament is mostly about the consequences of breaking, ignoring or forgetting these commandments.

The main commandment is known as the Shema (Hebrew for 'to hear', from its first word) and is found in verses 4-6:

Hear,O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  (NRSV)

In the following verses, the importance of remembering this commandment and passing it on to future generations is stressed.  This parallels the first of the ten commandments, in its emphasis on the one God.  Most people agree it is best to devote your life to what is right.  The problem is how to identify what is right. 

The closer we are to worshiping God, the more likely we are to deceive ourselves into believing our god is the God.  It is this the Shema warns us against; the belief that we have understood God and so are absolutely correct.  It is hard to know God, consequently the need for use of all our heart, soul and strength.  We need to heed this warning when we choose to enforce our beliefs over the beliefs of others.  No-one according to the Shema can be right; if you think you are right, you need to try harder.  Hence the details in later verses of the need for constant reminders that all are prone to forget who God is.

The Shema appears again in Mark 12:28-34, where Jesus is asked by a scribe, which commandment is the greatest.  Jesus quotes the Shema, subtly modified, and the scribe agrees with him.  Jesus responds by telling him 'You are not far from the Kingdom of God'. 

Why is the scribe 'not far' rather than 'there'?  After a lifetime of study, the man is not far.  Will he ever arrive?  He must try harder!  However small the distance he must travel, it is still significant as we shall see later.

On the Nature of Repentance

The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means we turn around, away from what is not of God, towards what is of God.  The problem is we tend to think of repentance as turning away from sins we conceive of as crimes. 

But we need to understand those things not of God, not as crimes but as principalities and powers .  We are invited to turn away from those things which hold us captive.  Certainly, activities we commonly hold as sinful such as murder or covetousness can hold us captive but so can many other things.  As we buy into the second best worlds of the principalities and powers, we imprison ourselves.

Those who are unemployed for example, are often faced with an overwhelming sense of being sidelined.  They believe their  unemployment is their own fault.  Gradually, healing might come through a realisation that society is to blame.  Later still, they may see how they were at fault for accepting the idea they were personally to blame.

Terrible things happen to all of us and we turn them into prisons for ourselves.  Repentance is breaking out of our own prisons, realising that we are personally responsible for sins not only against others but also against ourselves. 

When someone commits a serious crime, such as the murder of a child, it is almost as if they commit two crimes.  In addition to the crime itself, there is also a spiritual crime, a crime against the surviving victims.  They are held captive by grief and often a desire for vengeance.  Of course, these desires cannot be met for all sorts of reasons and so they can be nursed for many years.

Whose fault is this self-captivity?  Without a doubt it was originally the perpetrator of the crime.  But who is responsible many years later?  The perpetrator might be dead.  Release can come only with the recognition that I am my own gaoler.  Blaming the other reinforces the shackles I have forged for myself.  Ultimately, the call to repentance is a call to take responsibility for my life.

To see someone who has not been able to forgive and let go is never edifying.  Sometimes we see the opposite, someone who is able to forgive a terrible crime, sometimes very soon after it is committed.  This is never unfeeling, it is always a great generosity of spirit which happens despite ongoing and real pain.

Sporting Life is the real villain in Porgy and Bess.  Whilst Porgy and Crown fight over Bess, he insinuates himself into her life using her drug addiction.  Unlike Crown, he lacks self-awareness and so awareness of the humnaity of the other.  In this extract he tempts Bess to come with him to New York.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to find an extract from a performance of the opera.  This is the best I could find out of an indifferent pick of on-line recordings.

What Sin Is

Hopefully you are persuaded that sin has nothing to do with the 10 commandments or sex  .  But you might ask what is it do with?  There is a debate about whether there is such a thing as institutional sin.  How can institutions be sinful, it is people who are sinful?  Well, actually no.  The truth is all sin is institutional.  But of course this needs to be unpacked.

We need to understand human institutions have a temporal and a spiritual dimension.  The temporal are those aspects you bump into, shake hands with or bow down to.  So, an easy illustrative example would be a king.  A king has a kingdom, a throne, castle with banqueting halls and dungeons.  The problem is none of these or anything else the king possesses will earn him the obedience of his subjects.

However, if the subjects believe the king, or better still the kingdom, is good and so ordained by God, they will generally do as they are told.  This is broadly the spiritual aspect of the kingdom.  Notice, it happens because the kingdom takes up residency in the heads of the people who live in it.  This applies to the king, his subjects and in fact their enemies too.  This is what Paul means by powers and principalities.  There is in the view of Christians one ruler who is not divinely ordained but is in essence divine.  Our calling is to know God and this means repeatedly unseating an unending procession of powers that seek our allegiance, often in very subtle ways.

The reason we do this is because we have a natural instinct to put our own survival first.  Whatever is out there that promises to earn our allegiance, will be placed at the centre of our lives.

This is known as idolatry and I intend to write a series on this theme during advent (for reasons which will become apparent).  Even something which seemingly has nothing to do with the powers is filtered through our distorted vision of what is right.  I fall in love, the way I express that love is through my sinful nature.  I learn from the media.  I buy valentine cards.  I buy loads of things.  Today we live in a consumer society, so our lives are expressed in terms of consumerism.

That's enough for now but it gets much more difficult as I will explain next time.  For now, remember it is the sin that is the problem, not the sinner.  God loves sinners because he can see the person captured by all the crap. 

I've always been fascinated by the character Crown in Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess.  He is one of the villains (I'll tell you about the other next time).  Crown is a brutal man and a bully.  This song A Red Headed Woman makes the Choo Choo Jump its Tracks is an example of his style.  He sings this in the middle of a prayer meeting during a storm.  He boasts that he and God like to fight.  But he is the one who is prepared to go out in the storm to rescue the men in the boats.  He is lost but on his return he is murdered by Porgy because of the power he has over Bess.  He is a man who is impossible to love and yet you can see he might be loved by God.  Not so the other villain.  (Click on the picture to hear the song.)

What Sin is Not

OK, so I'm saying religion does not make you happy  and engages you with the world .  It is spiritual but spirituality engaged.  So, what does this mean, what does religion do for you?  I have to say I don't know because the word religion is too general. 

I suppose it's possible that all religions do the same for you.  I think this is unlikely but I'm not going to explore that road.  I can tell you about the religion I do know.  If we are to understand what Christianity does for us we need to understand sin.  This post is about what sin is not.

You may find some of this surprising.

First, sin has got nothing to do with the ten commandments.  Lots of reasons.  Most people tend to focus on the later ones and ignore the ones about loving God and graven images.  This makes it easy.  I haven't murdered anyone or coveted my neighbour's wife and so I am not a sinner.  Actually I'm not into graven images and I go to church most weeks and so I must love God.  That just about wraps sin up for me.

I'm afraid not.  So, am I saying the ten commandments are necessary but not sufficient?  No, I am not.  I am saying obeying these commandments or any others is not the point.  For a start, biblical Hebrew has no word for obey (unlike Biblical Greek or Aramaic).  They are actually signs of friendship between God and humanity.  God is saying to Israel, behave like this and consequently things will go well for you.  But even this is not good enough.

Sin is not simple disobedience, it is a perception of the world that is unrealistic.  It is a disengaged perception which places me at the centre and expects everything else to revolve around me.  Consequently my behaviour will always be to some degree inappropriate.

Second, sin has nothing to do with sex.  Let me be clear here.  Sex tends to get tied up with the false perceptions we all have about our place in the world.  But it is these false perceptions which are the problem. 

This problem goes back to Augustine of Hippo (illustrated).  Prior to him, there were suspicions about sex but they were largely socio-economic, the wealthy and powerful use wealth and power to sexually exploit the weak.  This was frowned upon because in Christ the early church was understood to be a church of equals. 

Augustine introduced the idea of original sin.  Let's be clear this is the idea that the next generation is infected by sin (as it were) through the sex act.  Jesus was without sin because there was no sex involved in his birth.  Neat!

It is hard to imagine any doctrine which has and continues to cause more problems.  I don't particularly want to let Augustine off the hook but the reason his views made sense for hundreds of years was the doctrine of the fall.  There was an original state of grace (presumably based upon Platonic ideals) from which humanity fell.

This is why evolution is such a problem for some Christians.  Evolution means there was no original state of grace and so no fall.  I've never understood why this is a problem.  The vision of perfection could as easily be a future state.  It is not a goal of evolution but a gift from God.  We know we can be better.  

The problem for theologians is we know we can be better than we are but don't know how to get there.  Evolution cannot get us there any more than laws or commandments, so what do we do?

Atheists: Are they Angels?

I am fascinated by the debate between the new atheists, eg Dawkins and Hitchins, and whoever listens to them.  It seems to me though, much of the debate misses the point.  I remember many years ago reading Bertrand Russels' essay Why I am not a Christian.  Here Russel suggests two beliefs are essential to the Christian faith and then proceeds to knock them down.  I remember when I first read the essay, my thought was that as a Christian I found neither of Russels' beliefs essential to my faith.  (For the record they were: (1) that God exists, and (2) that Jesus was the best man who ever lived.)

The modern debate is just as full of non-sequiturs.  It does get a bit wearing when Dawkins tells me I believe something I don't believe and then calls me an idiot for believing it.  The point to grasp is this debate is not about atheism (or theism); it is about idolatry.

Dawkins' particular target is creationists, and I agree wholeheartedly with everything he says about their beliefs.  This leads me to apply my own label to the new atheists.  They are angels.  This Greek word means messenger and, by applying it to the new atheists, I mean they are messengers from God.  They have been sent by God to help us identify our idols.  They should therefore be treated in debate with utmost respect.  As God's messengers they are loved by God and Christians must never forget to give thanks for their ministry.  (The photo is of the mourning angel in the churchyard of San Miniato al Monte, Firenze, Italy).

However, (didn't you know that was coming?) there is a problem with atheism.  Atheists don't go far enough.  All of us have images of God that are idolatrous.  To be consistent atheists should empty their minds of all images of God.  These crop up in all sorts of places, for example, the invisible hand that keeps capitalism ticking over or the rather inchoate mind that guides evolution according to Dawkins.  Of course, this is the journey taken by Christian mystics, it is an emptying, known by theologians as kenosis.  It is interesting that when the mind is emptied of all preconceptions, mystics do not find nothing, or if they do it is not the sort of nothing they expected.

Atheists are profoundly mistaken if they believe rejection of God leads to the conclusion there is nothing outside the known universe.  We have as much evidence for the existence of nothing as we have for the existence of God.

Of course, according to Barth, we should all do this exercise because all of us have false images of God.  The only image we have is of God crucified on the cross, an instrument of Roman Imperialism.  And it is in that context where we see the consequences of idolatry.  False idols are never benevolent and this applies as much to atheists as it does to the rest of us.

Atheists are right to point to times in history where Christians have been driven to war with each other and people of other faiths because of our idols.  My other blog is solely concerned about healing the wounds between Christians.  But atheists cannot present themselves as blameless in this regard.  Idols work on atheists as much as they do on Christians.  Think back to the last century: the wars, the weapons of mass destruction, the landmines, the gulags, the holocaust.  Most of these horrors can be traced to atheism, the rejection of religion.  The rejection of one set of idols left human minds open to others more terrible than the first.  My worry is that whilst most Christians might have learned this lesson, have the atheists?

Christianity is, as far as I know, the only faith that places at its centre an instrument of torture and death.  Despite our history, it is not there to incite us to violence but to warn us of the dangers of leaving anything solely to the warped timber of humanity.

Unbaptism Revisited

A few months ago unbaptism was in the news.  At the time it struck me as odd. 

As usual a number of atheists voiced some of my bewilderment.  Surely to demand your baptism is undone is to attribute to baptism the very efficacy atheists deny?  If it is meaningless, to have it undone implies it has a meaning.  Why not just ignore it? 

One reply was that the aim of this particular demand was to undermine the Church of England.  The Church of England would no longer be able to claim them as members.  There may well be other arguments for unbaptism and I’ll willingly have a go at them, if someone tells me what they are.

The main problem is that the Church of England does not have members.  It is organised into parishes and anyone living in a parish has a right to participate in the services of their parish church or churches.  If they wish to ignore them, they are free to do so.  It is not just atheists who ignore the services, Christians of other traditions, some of whom might have been baptised in the Church of England, will rarely take part if ever.

Those who wish to support the Church of England opt in through the electoral roll.  These people might never have been baptised (in which case they are able to ask to be baptised), they might have been baptised by the Church of England or by another tradition.

So, to be unbaptised makes no difference whatsoever to the Church of England in terms of its legitimacy as the established church in England.  If you’re an atheist the only thing you can do is to opt in.  (After this you could opt out again but it seems fairly pointless to me.)

One other point.  Is it actually possible to renounce baptism?  The question I would ask is this.  Rebaptism is forbidden in the majority of churches.  If an atheist who renounces baptism, takes their unbaptism certificate to a minister of most traditions, would they be able to rebaptise them?  I suspect not.  So, a hypothetical person baptised as a baby, grows up atheist and renounces their baptism, then changes their mind and becomes a Christian.  Do they need to be rebaptised?  I suspect not because the churches would see this as a rebaptism and not as a first baptism.  I’m sure someone will tell me if I’ve got this wrong.

Unbaptism looks to me like a campaigning tool but I'm not sure it has been thought through.

The way I see it is baptism is a covenant initiated by God.  From this perspective, even if you are an unbeliever, it is hard to see how you can renounce your baptism.  Atheism doesn’t need this type of gimmick; it is what it is.  In my view atheists are particularly loved by God, because they reject the idolatrous images of God so many religious people take for granted.  Many are therefore closer to God than Christians who separate themselves from the pain of being human, through their illusions about God.  So, there is probably a very comfortable corner of heaven set aside for atheists (unbaptised or not).  (The picture is of Homer and the Ancient Poets in Dante's first circle of Hell by William Blake.) 

Evolution and Creation, Fit the First

Pilgrim writes a well researched and well argued blog and I heartily recommend it even though I disagree with almost everything he writes!  Imagine how delighted I was to see his latest post Creationists akin to Holocaust deniers in Dawkins brave new world.  This post comments on an article by Dawkins in The Times, Creationists, now they’re coming for your children. 

I will try to spare you another long article and make one single point about this frustrating debate (although I'm afraid it will take some development).  Both Dawkins and creationists are making a basic error of logical typing.  In plain English, they are not comparing like with like.  Reductionism is a good example of an error in logical typing.  To assert, for example, that human behaviour can be explained solely in terms of chemical reactions in the brain, makes the erroneous assumption that chemical reactions and human social interactions are the same kind of thing.

So, the debates about evolution and creationism are not comparing like with like.  We are comparing science with theology.  Creationism is a fundamental error not because it is bad science but because it is bad theology.  This means it is impossible to disprove creationism using science, it is for theologians to demonstrate that creationists are in error.

So, the idea that creationism should be taught as science is absurd.  It is not science.  To do so would be to misinform children about the nature of science.  There are scientific controversies about evolution and these should be taught in science lessons, as they would demonstrate how truth is arrived at using scientific methodologies.

Of course, some creationists have recognised this and have developed a creation science.  Note creation science came after creationism.  What they are doing is confusing a theological statement with an objective scientific truth.  So, is there no place for creation science in school?  If there is I would place it in religious studies and indeed science as a whole can be studied as a belief system.  I am not convinced I would want to give creationism that much prominence, simply because I think there are more important issues but them I don't set the syllabus.

Karen Armstrong has written about the distinction between logos (scientific truth) and mythos (religious truth) for many years.  A good example is her recent book, The Case for God, details can be found in 'Featured Books' in the left hand column of my other blog.  For hundreds of years, this clear distinction has been recognised.  It has only been with the rise of modern science, in a mistaken search for the reassurance of objective truth, that fundamentalists have perversely claimed mythos as logos.

Here are a few examples of theological arguments against creationism:

1. It replaces faith in Jesus Christ with faith in scientific or objective truth. 
2. It is a form of idolatry, raising a particular interpretation of scripture to become an essential element of Christian faith.  Are creationists really saying belief in creationism is essential for salvation?
3. Pilgrim is wrong, if I've understood him correctly, when he says it is inconsistent to draw ethical or theological truths from a story not understood to be literally true.  The distorted interpretation of the creationists distracts from the truth of scripture.  Whether it really happened in exactly that way is irrelevant and leads to ludicrous interpretations of the text.
4. There are two accounts of creation in the opening chapters of Genesis and others scattered throughout the Bible, eg in Proverbs, Job and John.  Why does Genesis get all the attention?  Because its at the beginning?  No-one seems to have a problem with John's account, for example.  I'm sure Dawkins would find something in it to take exception to. 
5. To idolise scripture is to misinterpret and draw attention away from the figure of Jesus into attempting to prove a whole raft of unprovable things.  This is not part of the mission of the church but a distraction from it.

I'm sure there are other arguments and would welcome suggestions.  If you are interested in this topic I have written at length about evolution in my other blog.  Start here and work forwards until you can't take it any more.