American Idol Worship
Recently Pastor Mark Driscoll was on Nightline talking about the 10 Commandments. You can watch the segment here>
The interviewer started off with how America seemingly worships at the altars of those in music, sports fashion and politics. And while I agree that we can “idolize” those people, I don’t know that they ever take “center stage” in our lives as being the one thing that we look to for comfort and protection.
Mark Driscoll said, “an idol is someone or something that occupies the place of God in your life,” he said. “[It] gives you identity, meaning, value, purpose, love, significance, security. When the Bible uses the word ‘idol’, that’s what it’s getting at.”
But then Driscoll clarified if with “If you worship alcohol you become an alcoholic. If you worship food, you become a glutton. If you worship pleasure you become a sex addict,” Driscoll warned. “All the modern vernacular is really not dealing with the root issue of idolatry: Something or someone is preeminent other than God.”
THAT I would agree with. I think a modern day idol is something that you turn to for grace, protection, salvation, forgiveness, love… it’s something you turn to when you need to fill a need in your life.
I don’t know that you can compare that to loving a musical artist like U2 and Michael Jackson.
Driscoll then drive through Seattle comparing things like corporate jobs, starbucks and the Sea Hawks to “human sacrifice for position and lifestyle.” And while I can see on the one hand how some of those things can give a person identity – I think when ASKED a person might disagree.
You see, in the ancient times, when the bible was being written, I think people knew quite well who their Gods and Goddesses were – and they still had their own jobs and sports heroes on the side. There was still a separation from the deity that they worshiped and the lifestyle they lived. But it seems now, Pastors have to “tell us” what our idols are, like we don’t know.
“The Seattle Sea Hawks may be your idol.” Hmmmm, I’ll have to give that some serious thought. If that’s true my priorities are out of whack. [well, who am I kidding. I like the Chicago Cubs]
And I am in no way countering what Driscoll said, this isn’t just HIS philosophy, pastors have been saying these same things for years.
But I think a lot of people give 40-50 hours a week to their career, but they don’t give their life to it. I think a lot of people drink Starbucks coffee or attend sports games, but they would not reach out to those things if they were hanging from a burning building.
I would actually flip this conversation to the other side. How many people really have ANYTHING that they would call their “salvation?” I think there are thousands of people searching for significance and purpose. I think there are whole lost generations out there without security or love and that if it came right down to it….the life of a corporate job, a venti coffee and tickets to tonight’s game…are just falling into a bottomless pit that can not be satisfied.
Driscoll says that our jobs, our appetites and our addictions can become our idols and he is right, but I argue that I bet a lot of people if honestly faced with the question… would have nothing that they could call their “worship.”
Or perhaps in our shedding of gods and goddesses, the truest “god” in our lives is becoming…ourselves. Perhaps when it really comes down to it, the thing that we are really counting on saving us… the place where we find the most security and love is in the self.
Gap 1969 jeans is asking right now… what were you born to do? I hear this statement on American Idol and America’s Got Talent all of the time. People holding a dog, dressed as a giant flower dancing to disco by Abba and they tell the judges, “this is what I was born to do.”
Patrick Robinson says he was born to “explore” and “figure out a new path.” He argues that our world can be as small or as massive as you want it to be. In essence he is saying that “reality” can be anything he makes it, which in essence is saying…it’s not fashion or gap jeans that has become his idol…it’s himself.
In our desire to shed the pantheons who ruled our ancestors, WE have become the very things we were running from.
+ Read Scott McKnight’s response here >
