Identity: The New Idolatry
In being assigned to teach Old Testament passages as a lay minister, I find it hard to talk about idolatry of the pagan, Baal-worship kind. Not many people in America go to temples and bow before statues and believe the spirit of the statue can do anything, much less do Christians.
So while I don't think this is original, it occurred to me today that identity is the new idolatry--although it's really not that new. It is what the Jewish people of Jesus' time were struggling with. They weren't in danger of offering their children to Molech. They seem to have gotten over that after 70 years in Babylon. But they were obsessed with their national identity, and it became the idol that stood between them and Jesus' revelation.
Today the identity idol is related to race, biological sex, and sexuality for a lot of people. Granted, heterosexuals are "the norm" (statistically and biologically), so we don't have to think about it as much. The majority doesn't have to examine their identity, although of course they should, since the majority is as susceptible to making their identity their idol as the minorities are.
The core of the gospel is to repent of your identity that you have made your idol, your reason for existence, your definition to the exclusion of all others. If you had one term to describe your identity, what would it be? (Your profession can be an idol, too, and many of us identity ourselves solely by career.) And upon that repentance, accept only one new identity.
But this is hard, and for many this repentance is a process of years, study, understanding, community, and prayer. We have made conversion into a "zap" experience--one time does it, one size fits all. It simply is not for everyone.
I say this because I have made many "identifiers" my idol so that I could feel warm and fuzzy, accepted, proud, superior, valued, appreciated. Only one identifier matters.
So while I don't think this is original, it occurred to me today that identity is the new idolatry--although it's really not that new. It is what the Jewish people of Jesus' time were struggling with. They weren't in danger of offering their children to Molech. They seem to have gotten over that after 70 years in Babylon. But they were obsessed with their national identity, and it became the idol that stood between them and Jesus' revelation.
Today the identity idol is related to race, biological sex, and sexuality for a lot of people. Granted, heterosexuals are "the norm" (statistically and biologically), so we don't have to think about it as much. The majority doesn't have to examine their identity, although of course they should, since the majority is as susceptible to making their identity their idol as the minorities are.
The core of the gospel is to repent of your identity that you have made your idol, your reason for existence, your definition to the exclusion of all others. If you had one term to describe your identity, what would it be? (Your profession can be an idol, too, and many of us identity ourselves solely by career.) And upon that repentance, accept only one new identity.
But this is hard, and for many this repentance is a process of years, study, understanding, community, and prayer. We have made conversion into a "zap" experience--one time does it, one size fits all. It simply is not for everyone.
I say this because I have made many "identifiers" my idol so that I could feel warm and fuzzy, accepted, proud, superior, valued, appreciated. Only one identifier matters.
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