Kargador at Dawn

Kargador at Dawn
Work in the Vineyard

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Reflection on the 1st Commandment

YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GOD’S BEFORE ME: THE FIRST COMMANDMENT 

But how do we—believers, Christians, sincere churchgoers—break the first commandment? How do we have strange gods before us?

The answer is not easy. The idolatry that afflicts us has little to do with worshipping icons, misguided devotions and other such things. It is more subtle. It has to do with the false images of God to which we give obeisance.
Allow me to name 10 such false gods whom we habitually substitute for the real God, Yahweh.
1. The arbitrary god of fear.
2. The insecure, defensive, threatened god.
3. The dumb, non-understanding god.
4. The exotic god of special places.
5. The ascetic god who Christ does not proclaim feast.
6. The emasculated god of unbalanced piety.
7. The orthodox god of strict theological formulation.
8. The unholy god in our own image and likeness.
9. The overly-intense, wired, god of our own neuroses.
10. The anti-erotic god, anti-enjoyment god of our guilt.

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