CONTEMPORARY IDOLATRY

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

CONTEMPORARY IDOLATRY

Idolatry in Orthodox Theology

Definition: Idolatry is not just bowing to statues, but misordering priorities by substituting the True God with something else, including human ideology, culture, or self-will. Modern or contemporary idolatry is viewed as pervasive in modern culture, with idols taking the form of entertainment, career, technology, hedonism (pleasure) or money (wealth). In other words, the Orthodox Christian understanding is that anything worshipped other than the Triune God is an idol.

Orthodox Holy Fathers and Tradition define idolatry as placing anything–material, personal, or conceptual–above God, emphasizing that it constitutes spiritual destruction and a violation of the command to worship God alone. While condemning false gods, they distinguish this from venerating icons, which they hold as windows to the Divine, honoring the person depicted rather than the material. Saint John of Kronstadt warned that attaching one’s heart to material things or other people is a, "lie, an enticement of Satan," as only the Lord should be the focus of the heart. The Holy Apostle Paul highlights that idolatry is a "constant threat" that includes, "covetousness, passion, (and) greed," often involving using God to serve, "material aims" or, "social ambitions." Our Holy Orthodox Tradition warns that idolatry leads to, "brokenness, pain, [and] judgment," as it causes people to depart from the Church" and, "rend the garment of Christ."

Saint Paul writes to the Colossians (3:4-11): "When Christ Who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you live in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him Who created him, where there is neither Greek or Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all in all."

"This text lists various manifestations which belong to people of former times didn’t know the goodness of God’s ways. To use the terminology of Saint Paul, they are the "old persons.’ Among these manifestations are sexual deviations, passions, sheer wickedness, anger, lies and greed. It’s increasingly difficult to say that these belong irrevocably to the pre-Christian era, since they’re so often features of today’s reality, with which we’re all familiar..

We said above that renwal is A WORK IN PROGRESS, which includes the possibility that we’ll fall then pick ourselves up again and carry on. ‘As many times as you fall, get up and you’ll be saved’, is an unrecorded saying of the Lord which is preserved in our Patristic and Liturgical texts. RENEWAL IS A STRUGGLE IN WHICH WE MAY BECOME EXHAUSTED, SPENT,BUT CAN ALSO GET BACK AND CONTINUE OUR ASCENT TO THE PEAK OF PERFECTION. Saint Paul says: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

The list of transgressions in the holy Epistle reading are typical features of IDOLATRY. The fact that the Holy Apostle Paul points to them, addressing the Christians in Colossi as well as us today, means they are still a real danger. His exhortation makes us realize that idolatry is not a forgotten past but IS A CONSTANT THREAT IN THE HERE AND NOW. Of course, Christians triumphed over the idols historically, fought against them and even were martyred rather than forced to accept them or worship them, but on the human level these idols still wreak vengeance on us, in an effort to take us back to the distant past. If anyone doubts this, just look at what is going on around us today. Greed–which the reading states specifically is idolatry–appears as a lack of faith and confidence in God as fear in the face of an uncertain future, as a defence at the thought of death, as an excessive boost to our self-confidence, as a state of self-assurance similar to that of Lucifer."

Therefore, dear fellow Christians, the danger of idolatry is still a threat to all Christian today. And it is one that we should take very seriously. We must continue to listen to the voice of Prophet Moses in the first Commandment of the Ten which is, in fact, the most difficult to observe: "You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in heaven above or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God," (Exodus 20:4-5). God is without passion, but He condescends to call Himself a jealous God to show the intensity of His love for man. Therefore, let us love Him with intensity, for this is very pleasing to Him (St. John Chrysostom).

Christians both have received Christ’s exalted resurrection life in baptism, and need to keep on seeking the ultimate and spiritual glories of the age to come. Remember your baptism! Live according to His Resurrection! Seek your true life in Christ, awaiting the heavenly and glorious final revelation! As baptized Christians, we are becoming in practice what we are already in spirit. As we died with Christ, so we must will to experience death daily by "Killing" old sinful and disintegrating passions. As we were raised with Christ, so we must will to experience life daily by the virtuous and unifying desires of the "New Man: which we all are in the body of Christ. The "new man" grows from one stage of perfection to another, becoming the IMAGE of Jesus Christ and throughout eternity remaining THE IMAGE OF HIM WHO CREATED HIM" (Colossians 3:1-10).

Let us remove all obstacles to our union with our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us free ourselves of all the various idols which form a barrier between us and our beloved and eternal God. Idols are created by us and, therefore, it is up to us to erase them and to obey Him and His Commandment and "not make for yourself an idol."

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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
+ Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George