The National
Idolatry
Some time ago I asked a student at the University of North Carolina if he believed in God. "Yes," he said, "I have my own private gods."
The idolatry of Western man is humanism, materialism, and sex. Idolatry has an almost automatic connotation of superstition, magic, sorcery, and physical idols; but our modern gods are sophisticated, cultured, fashionable, and intellectual.
When a nation turns from the true and living God of its Christian heritage, then it substitutes false gods. Man is innately religious, He must have a god of some kind. Russell Kirk has well observed: "In the final test, the power of a nation or a civilization will be weighed not in missiles or divisions, but in faith, whether false or true." This condition of false faith, as well as nominal religion, is reflected in a statement by Carl Henry, editor of Christianity Today magazine: "Although modern man zestfully explores outer space, he seems quite content to live in a spiritual kindergarten and to play in a moral wilderness." Actually, he plays with the gods of his fashioning.
Modern Western culture has become a mixture of paganism and Christianity. We are a blend of both. We talk of God, but we often act as though we are atheists. We have developed a sort of dual personality, a schizophrenia. We have "In God We Trust" on our coins, but "Me First" engraved on our hearts. The fact is, while theoretically we believe in God, we have made ourselves graven images
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and have come to worship them. We have almost a new kind of polytheism wherein we attempt to worship both the God of the Bible and the gods of our own making at the same time.
Campus Gods
The chasm between a working relationship with the God of the Bible and our present idolatry is seen in the student attitudes of our generation. Otto Butz of Princeton University, in his book The Unsilent Generation, quoted from essays written by eleven members of the class of 1957. Their statements about God are quite revealing. One said: "I figure I can be indifferent to an indifferent God . . . it is this world, not the next one, that I am concerned with." Another wrote: "I seldom think of God as such, and only pray when I am exceptionally troubled. Even when I pray, I don't consider myself asking for help or advice. I simply find that I discover a measure of assurance."
The majority of today's college students profess faith in God, but theirs is not faith in a personal God. To them a personal God is not relevant; He does not matter. They have, therefore, a tendency to manufacture a god or gods of their own — what Chad Walsh calls campus gods in his book entitled Campus Gods on Trial.
Part of the difficulty has been the church's tragic neglect of its youth during the critical years when they most need spiritual guidance. The average university student has a caricature of God in his mind. He has done little or no real Bible study and has little concept of the Biblical teaching of God or of our moral responsibilities to Him. He therefore rejects the Biblical God. But since he must have a god of some kind, he creates one for himself on campus. His chief object
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may be the best grades, the conquest of beautiful girls, athletic prowess, or rebellion, as one student said, "just for the hell of rebelling." Such things become his substitutes for God. They actually become gods in the lives of thousands of students, and to one or more of these gods a student will commit his life. Therefore, thousands of students lack any genuine belief in God or in the moral values that sustain human society.
The Idolatry of the Masses
Turning from campus gods to the idolatry of the masses, consider first of all the god of humanism, or the worship of man. The true humanist sings with Swinburne: "Glory to man in the highest." This is the new idolatry of our age, intellectual and sophisticated; and it is becoming highly organized. David Winter, editor of Crusade magazine in London, says: "No more subtle enemy has ever faced the Christian church than this one which dethrones her God and replaces Him with His creature." The humanists, especially in Great Britain, are becoming militant. They are dedicated to attacking Christianity. Julian Huxley said that if humanism is to acquire a wider appeal, it must become a religion; while another humanist, L. F. J. Ross, suggests that "a simple humanist bible and humanist hymns must be adopted, a ten commandments for humanists could be added, as could humanist confessional practices for group or individual . . . the use of hypnotic techniques . . . music and other devices . . . during humanist services would give the audience their deep spiritual experience, and they would emerge refreshed and inspired with their humanist faith." In an enlightening series of articles in Crusade magazine, Edward Atkinson says: "Humanism may slowly be developing into
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a mystery cult, complete with its own odd superstition, confused thinking, and obscure jargon. And like all such cults it primarily appeals to the mystic. It is most ironic that humanism, for all its absurd charges that Christianity derives its origin from mystery cults, should develop into one itself."
Thus we see that humanism has become for many a polite name for a vocal, aggressive, influential crusade against religion in the name of social and moral advance. There is nothing new about humanism. It is the yielding to Satan's first temptation of Adam and Eve: "Ye shall be as gods' (Genesis 3:5).
Second, in America we have an idolatry called the "adulation of youth" in a recent article in Look magazine. Apparently distressed by their inability to communicate with the younger generation, many adults simply imitate it. Increasingly, women who follow the trends of the new age strive to look like teen-age girls.
Man Worships Science
Third, out of the new age of science and technology there has been emerging a new faith of scientism that displaces Biblical faith. This nuclear age has greatly reduced the faith that was woven deeply into the culture of the past. One scientist said: "The world picture of the nuclear age does not include God. The cultivated man today finds no God in his reactor, and he finds none through his telescope. God is not among the rushing electrons, and He is not visible in outer space." There is no doubt that there are new powers of science that respond to the touch of a button at the shrine of computers, rather than at the word of our prayers or at the altars of our churches. In our hands is a power that seems
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to our finite minds as great as that we once attributed to God. To many this is the power of a god, and in a new way we hear again the words of the serpent to our first parents: "Ye shall be as gods" (Gen. 3:5)
Yet like the other gods of our generation, science does not satisfy the deep longings of the human soul. The more man learns, the less he knows. Thus many of our leading scientists have come to express their faith in God.
Man Worships Things
Fourth, another of our idolatries is the worship of things. I leave it to the psychologist to discover what our deeper motivation is — whether it is immaturity, boredom, pride, or a genuine sense of need that sends us out in quest of material things to the exclusion of all else. A leading magazine carries an advertisement with this revealing paragraph: "Is automation, the use of electronics to run machines, going to fill your home with pleasant surprises? Will magic eyes light each room? Will you own a portable piano, cordless electric clocks, and a telephone you can answer without lifting the receiver? Discover how this exciting new development can make your life happier." Has happiness been reduced to portable pianos and the blinking of magic eyes?
In Pat Frank's book, Alas Babylon, he imagines Florida under the pall of a fictional atomic attack. All electricity was cut off, gasoline supplies were exhausted, and life settled down to the basics. Cadillacs were traded for fat hens, and power boats for a shaker of salt. If and when a nuclear war strikes our world, the survivors will suddenly realize that most of the thing we have been striving for and racking our brains to acquire are worse than useless. If we could only
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discover this in time, perhaps the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah toward which we are moving could be averted.
Madison Avenue has found it profitable to direct the main thrust of advertising at that inherent trait of human nature — creature pride. Leaf through our slick magazines and note the lavish full-color advertisements. They often appeal not to the usefulness of the object but to the pride of the buyer. "Think how proud you will feel when your friends gaze with envy on your new bathroom, new car, or new yacht." And the illustrations depict the look of envy on the faces of friends being shown a new house with its fine furnishings and built-in appliances. Bacon once wrote: "The happiness of the great consists not in feeling that they are happy, but in realizing how happy other people think they must be."
Thus we see bored people riding in sleek cars, looking not for opportunities to make a contribution to society but rather for people to admire them. Pride consists not in wanting to be rich, but in wanting to be richer than your neighbor. It is not in wanting to be noticed but in wanting to be the most noticed. It is not in wanting to have things but in wanting more things than others.
Man Worships Himself
Man has rejected the revelation of the Bible concerning the true and living God of his fathers, and he has substituted gods of his own making. In actuality modern man has decided to dethrone God and to enthrone himself in all his nuclear glory. Many intellectuals have come to believe that the human mind can understand everything eventually. Kintner says: "The epitome of this point of view is developed in the doctrines of Marx, Engels, and Lenin." And, as Carl Henry says: "In his desire to control the universe, man
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repeatedly puts himself in God's place: but the idea of God's Son as substitute in man's place he dismisses as incredible nonsense." Thus man has thrown aside the pagan deities of past civilizations, such as the sun, the moon, fire, water, and beasts — and the living God as well. Today he worships himself.
From many university classrooms come these conclusions:
First, man is only an animal.
Second, existence is a chemical accident.
Third, the struggle for survival has made man what he is.
Fourth, morality and standards of conduct are derived only from a sociological context.
Fifth, man lives in and for this world only, and any other thought is unscientific.
As a result of such premises, man's failure to cope with his new world has brought futility and pessimism into every area of his life. Joy has gone out of living. the wonder of living, the uplifted face, the smile of gladness, and the thrill of romance have somehow escaped us. Since we have made a god of man, our eyes are no longer lifted up to the sky but are turned inward, distorting our whole world.
The Little Deities Have Failed
Man no longer accepts the standards of behavior handed down in our Biblical teaching. We have become pragmatists, and content with existential and situational ethics. We are no longer concerned with doing what is right but with getting along and adjusting. We are losing our moral balance. America, Britain, and Western Europe are becoming nations of sitters, squatters, and malcontents fed up and bored with all the nonsense that has been handed them. Whether they
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realize it or not, they are sick and tired of their man-made gods. Their little deities have utterly failed them. The joy, peace, security, and happiness they were supposed to bring are not there.
Even a quick reading of the Bible would have taught them that their little gods would fail. The Scripture says: "Turn ye not unto idols . . . I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:4). This is a warning. It is a challenge from the true and living God. In fact, the Bible teaches in Psalm 59:8 that, as God looks upon these little gods of our own fashioning, He laughs.
The Apostle Paul warned us not to change the truth of God into a lie (Romans 1:25). He warned us that we are not to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. Yet this is precisely what has been happening in much of the Western world. The Bible warns that "Idolaters . . . shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10). The Apostle John wrote: "Keep yourselves from idols: (1 John 5:21). Again he warned: "Idolaters . . . shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8).
In the sight of God, idolatry is a grave sin. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3). Judgment will fall upon all idolaters. Millions of Americans are guilty, and many of the guilty are churchgoers who serve God with their lips, while their hearts are far from Him. They are more guilty of idolatry than the savage in the jungle who bows before an image made with with his own hands.
All the way through the Scriptures God is urging the people to "turn." When the city of Nineveh had committed its immoralities and served other gods, Jonah was sent to warn them. He preached repentance in the streets, and the people did repent. They were spared from the judgment of God. It is not too late for us to repent. There is still time.
