Is Your God Alive?

You can hardly read the Bible without encountering the subject of idolatry: It ranks as by far the most common topic discussed. For us modern readers, though, a nagging question hangs over those passages: Why all the fuss? What’s the big attraction with idols anyway? Why did the Hebrews, for example, keep deserting Yahweh, the God who had delivered them from Egypt, for the sake of carved tree trunks and bronze statues?

I gained insight into this issue on a visit to India where idol worship flourishes. The four-star attractions in most Indian cities are temples erected to honor any of a thousand gods: monkeys, elephants, snakes, even a smallpox goddess. There, I observed that idolatry tends to produce two contradictory results: magic and triviality.

For the devout, idolatry adds a dimension of magic to life. Hindus believe the gods control all events, including natural disasters, diseases, and traffic accidents. These powerful forces must be kept happy … but devotion to such gods can easily lead to a paralyzing fear and virtual slavery to a god’s whims.

Other Hindus, less devout, take a different approach. They treat their gods as trivialities, almost like good-luck charms. A taxi driver mounts a tiny statue of a monkey god, draped with flowers, on the dashboard of his car. If you inquire, he’ll say he prays to the god for safety—but you know about the traffic in India, he adds.

Both these modern responses to idolatry illustrate what so alarmed the prophets of Israel. No attitude could be further from that demanded by Yahweh, the true God. He had chosen the Hebrews as a kingdom of priests. He mocked the ludicrousness of carving a god out of a tree, then using branches from the same tree to cook a meal (Isaiah 44:16). He is the Lord of the universe, not a good-luck charm.

Why did sinister idols like Baal prove so irresistible? Like farm kids gawking at big-city life, the Israelites moved from 40 years of wilderness wanderings into a land of superior cultural achievement. When they settled down to the new occupation of farming, they looked to a Canaanite deity, Baal, for help in controlling the weather. In other words, they sought a shortcut through magic.

Idols became a phantom source of power, an alternative place to invest faith and hope. The worship of graven images disappeared from Israel only after God took the extreme measure of dismantling the nation.

In our modern society, dominated by appeals to image and status, idols abound. Some gods—mammon, beauty, success—appeal to our thirst for magic. I worry more, however, about the false gods that escape easy detection, the ones that tend toward triviality, not magic.

What modern idols make God seem trivial? What tends to reduce the surprise, passion, the vitality of my relationship with God? Most days, I am not so conscious of choosing between a god and God; the alternatives do not present themselves so clearly. Rather, I find God edged out by a series of small distractions. A car repair, last-minute plans, a leaky gutter, a friend’s wedding—these trivialities may lead to a form of forgetfulness that resembles idolatry in its most dangerous form. The busyness of life, including religious busyness, can crowd out God.

I confess that some days I meet people, work, make decisions, talk on the phone, all without giving God a single thought. I turned a skeptic’s accusation of a friend: “But you don’t act like you believe God is alive” into a question:

Do I act like God is alive?

It is a good question, one that lies at the heart of all idolatry, and one that I must ask myself again every day.

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Excerpt from I Was Just Wondering by Philip Yancey © 1989 & 1998 by Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Printed with permission.