Posted on 06/21/2002 5:03:58 AM PDT by logos
Over the course of Church history change within the Church has been a slow and at times agonizingly slow, process. Despite the great strides the Church has made since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 A.D. in ridding false teaching, more yet remains. And, false doctrine is far from being the innocuous matter it is veiwed as being by many professing believers today.
Erroneous, that is to say, unbiblical, teaching or doctrine, though it is rarely seen as such, is in fact spiritual idolatry. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude today in many sectors of Churchdom is that sound doctrine is considered to be of secondary importance to so-called "unity." But, the fact of the matter is that false doctrine or unscriptural teaching is not only idolatry of the highest order, but in actuality is the very essence of idolatry. Thus, to be in "unity" with practioners and promulgators of false doctrine is to be in agreement and alliance with idolatry. Or stated another way, to be a practioner or promulgator of false doctrine is to be an idolater. In this article we will take a look at the true nature of spiritual idolatry and the effect it has upon the individual who is caught up in it as well as the collective church.
False doctrines are idolatrous for two related reasons. One, because they lead people away from the objective of whole and complete trust in God alone as the ultimate Source of supply of all things. And, two, because in addition to leading people away from trust in God, they also lead people to put their faith, hope, and trust in mere flesh and bone human leaders for the things God insists we look to Him for. To merely call idolatry "sin," though it certainly is, somehow seems an extreme understatement, for it is the ultimate affront unto God. Yet, arguably, it is the most pervasive sin of all today among professing believers. Contributing to the prevalence of idolatry within Christendom, no doubt, is the common perception by many that idolatry is something that occurs only in underdeveloped, far-away, foreign lands, or that it is something relegated mostly to ancient civilizations of past ages, while nothing could be further from the truth. In Galatians 5:20, the Apostle Paul by inspiration of the Holy Spirit listed "idolatry" as one of the fundamental elements of evil comprising the carnal nature, or sin nature, which actually is the nature of the devil himself, and which is also alluded to as the "spirit of disobedience"--the "spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). So, in other words, because the carnal nature is common to every human, idolatry, then, is a basic tendency of every person ever born.
In simplistic terms, idolatry is making something or someone that to which we look to bring happiness, peace, fulfillment, contentment, and all the things only God is supposed to provide us, which in essence is the definition of a false god.
To put it another way, idolatry is fashioning and forming false gods, or idols, out of one's own vain imaginations. Indeed, idols are really always imaginary, existing solely in the human mind and thoughts. Again by inspiration of the Spirit, in another place, Paul states categorically that those possessing true Spiritual knowledge and understanding "know that there is no such thing as an idol (false god), and that there is no God but one" (1 Cor. 8:4). False gods are false because they really do not exist, except in the mind of the idolater. Idolatry in actuality then is merely the product of human thinking, manufactured in the factory of the human mind. It is the act of creating an abstract god within the deep, dark void of human reasoning. At bottom, all idolatry is "mind-idolatry," for it is primarily in the mind that all idolatry exists. In a nutshell, the basis of idolatry is what I refer to as "stinkin' thinkin'."
Moreover, the ilk of idolatry which bona fide believers are most guilty of committing even routinely, though unwittingly, is the idolatry of holding to false and contrived ideas about God that in fact are wholly incongruous with what He Himself has revealed in His Word concerning His Divine Nature, Will, and Ways. When it is all distilled down, idolatry is the ultimate form of arrogance and self-righteousness, for it supplants God and His Word, Will, and Way, and puts in His place a false, humanly formed and fashioned god, one made in our own image and after our own likeness, to affirm and hallow our own humanly contrived ideas and concepts. Thus, idolatry, in my view, is the ultimate offense that the human heart can commit against a Holy and Sovereign God.
A.W. Tozier (1897-1963), who was the pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Toronto and Chicago, for a number of years was also editor of the CMA's official organ, Alliance Weekly, as well as a prolific author of books. His spiritual acumen was so highly regarded by his colleagues that many esteemed him a twentieth-century prophet. Despite all his prodigious achievements, he was perhaps best known for his personal intimacy with God, and his book, The Knowledge of the Holy (Harper & Row), was a collection of some of his most outstanding messages related to knowing God in personal intimacy. So profound and insightful are his comments regarding the subject of idolatry, as well as exquisitely and eloquently articulated, that they could scarcely be improved upon, making direct quotation the only fitting means of conveyance. The following are excerpts of his commentary, the chronology of which I have taken the liberty of rearranging in order to better serve our purposes here:
"Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it."The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. 'When they knew God,' wrote Paul, 'they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.'"
"Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is--in itself a monstrous sin--and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness."
"A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God." "Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true."
"Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear. The long career of Israel demonstrates this clearly enough, and the history of the Church confirms it."
All false doctrine is, in essence, an assemblage of "wrong ideas about God" and "perverted notions about God," as Tozier put it. How profound and Scriptural is his statement: "Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous," for "polluted waters" is a metaphor evoked in Scripture to represent false teaching. Indeed, false teaching is by no means, as some seem to believe, a harmless or inconsequential phenomenon, but rather polluted waters can be lethal, both in the natural and the spiritual. False teaching, which in essence is substituting human ideas and sophistry for the absolute Truth of God's Mind, in fact IS idolatry.
Idolatry and false teaching are synonymous terms. Idolatry always has associated with it some form of false teaching, and false teaching is always an ilk of idolatry. As Tozier so brilliantly articulated it: "The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true." In other words, the person engaging in idolatry simply contrives his own doctrine concerning spiritual matters and the composition of "truth," and conducts his life based on those determinations even though they are not congruous with the real Truth so defined and contained in God's Word.
Idolatry:
Worship of any but the true God; a violation of the First Commandment.
I think you're looking for an attack on your church where none was intended, or you've simply misread the article. Nor am I attacking you or your faith or your church.
I don't believe I have EVER met a fellow Catholic who was in idolatry.
I, on the other hand, have never met anyone, Catholic or Protestant or whatever, who didn't wander into idolatry from time to time. After all, idolatry is really no more than holding someone or something in a higher position, however temporary, than God. I'm not here to cast stones or pick a fight, but really, do you know anyone who "love(s) God with all your (their) heart, mind, soul and strength"? Taking the first commandment, or the Shema literally leaves very little time for anything else.
Not to mention that responding solely about doctrine leaves out a significant portion of my statement...
Every jot and tittle of your personal belief and doctrine is pure and holy.
This article is a call to every Christian for personal reflection - it is not an attack on any church or body of faith. I've been lurking on this forum for about six months now, and I have to wonder if there hasn't been so much fighting and squabbling that many are beginning to see attacks where none exist. (Not picking on you, Catholicguy, just making a general observation.P
Any denomination made up of human beings certainly.
That definition is true of the Old Testament, to be sure (without the Greek, that is, unless you're referencing the Septuagint), but from The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, Alan Richardson & John Bowden, Eds., (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press), 1983, under the heading of "Idolatry" I find:
In the NT there is a tendency to 'spiritualize' idolatry, referring it not to the literal worship of images of gods but to the giving of priority to interests other than God (Eph. 4:5; Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:5). This line has frequently been followed by Christian expositors.
From The Interpreter's Dictinary of the Bible, Vol. 2., (New York/Nashville: Abingdon Press), 1962, under the section "Idolatry" I find:
In general "idolatry" is used figuratively in the NT, especially in the Pauline letters, and signifies obsession with created things instead of devotion to the Creator (e.g., Eph. 5:5; Phil. 3:19, where gluttony and covetousness are said to be "idolatry").
"Created things" could also be ideas, or systemitized theologies, such as process theology, liberation theology and feminist theology, among others, none of which is exclusive to the Protestant church.
All that said, the main thrust of the article, to reflection and self-inspection is always a good thing for a Christian to be doing, I would think.
I'm sorry you took it that way; I didn't. I read it as an historical marker. After all, Luther's motivation was not to kick off the Reformation - that came after. All he wanted to do was begin reforming the Church from within.
What you cited is a "type" of idolatry. Look, one can call everything "idolatry" but that diminishes what true idolatry is. If idolatry includes worshipping a dog as God and the sin of fornication idolatry, why not just call ALL sin idolatry?
In one sense, all sin IS idolatry, to the extent that the sin (whatever it is) becomes more important to the sinner than God, at least in the moment of the sin. I didn't call gluttony and covetousness idolatry, the writers in the NT did, or one writer, Paul.
At any rate, let me repeat for the record: this article was not posted with any intent to attack; I'm sorry you took it that way.
You're not thinking of the remark in its historical context. First of all, how many other churches were there at the time? Second, if it was an attack on "the church," it was made by a member of its own clergy, from within. And third, if the doctrine of the church, Catholic or after the Reformation, Protestant, has always been right, why have there been so many changes over the centuries? It's hard to find a noted theologian from any religious persuasion quoting Augustine these days, yet in the fourth century one could almost say Augustine was "the voice" of the church.
Look, I apologized for you inferring I posted this as an attack on the Catholic Church - again, I didn't read it that way. Even so, I'm not quite ready to don my hair shirt and begin the self-flagellation. Since it's only you and me arguing over what is to me a non-issue, why don't we just stop? Okay?
The world of the Old Testament was an intensely disfunctional world. People were hearing real voices emanating from idols and were for the most part powerless to disobey them. They were fighting wars and sacrificing children at the behest of these idols, i.e. the practice of idolatry essentially turned the planet into an insane assylum for a thousand years or thereabouts. That is why the first commandment reads as it does and why building idols is the most major crime in the old testament.
What if an outsider were to come up with something hundreds of times more fabulous than flight or sonar. For onstance, what if a creature were to be found which, without recourse to any technology, was naturally able to withstand the cold and vacuum of space and somehow navigate and travel across cosmic distances?
Is there any point at which even the most hardcore evolutionist would have to stop, examine the evidence, and say to himself "JEEEsshh, now I KNOW that shit can't evolve... time to go back to the drawing board."
If there is no such point, than evolution is basically unfalsifiable and clearly a pseudoscience.
I believe that a number of things which are normally termed "paranormal" represent just such a case. Evolutionists generally pooh-pooh such evidence and attempt to discredit the people involved with such studies, since they instinctively dislike the idea of having to deal with anything like that within an evolutinoary context.
Nonetheless, there are other people and groups of people who do not have the luxury of trying to ignore things which do not fit within their ideological paradigms. The king of France in the 1400's, for instance, did not have such a luxury. The Catholic church, apparently making up in thoroughness for anything they might lack in celibacy, took several hundred years to analyze the case of Joan of Arc, and ultimately determined that at least some of her activities required information that she had no way of having other than for paranormal means; they cannonized Joan in the 20'th century.
Likewise the US military does not have the luxury of ignoring such things. You can check out this article on the US military's interest in remote viewing or do your own google search on 'Stubblebine' and 'remote viewing' at your leisure. Books have been published on soviet activities in this area and I presume American general officers are not paid to investigate pseudoscience.
My own take on this sort of thing as I've noted resides on bearfabrique.
I believe I've done a more adequate job of presenting these ideas on this page than I had with previous efforts.
Rupert Sheldrake's www site is Sheldrake.org
Sheldrake is a former director of studies in cellular biology at Cambridge University who has made a second career of using statistical methodology and intelligent experiment design to investigate things normally termed "paranormal" and is generally viewed as public enemy #1 by the CSICOP crowd and other such "science vigilantes". If nothing else, his methods are unassailable and his credentials are significantly better than theirs are. The best starting point for reading Sheldrake's view of nature is "Seven Experiments Which Could Change the World", which is available as an inexpensive paperback. Sheldrake notes that the big questions in science no longer require "big science" or large sums of money to investigate them. In particular, major compute power which not long ago was exclusively found at government agencies and universities, is now available to the public for under $1000.
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