# How Does Idolatry Take Form in 21st Century America?



## Dr. Bob Gonzales (May 20, 2010)

The most resent post on RBS Tabletalk features an excerpt from a recent theology published by Crossway Books, showing the continuity between the ancient idolatry of Bible times and the modern idolatry that's found in 21st century America. 

*What Does Idolatry Look Like in 21st Century America?*


----------



## P.F. (May 21, 2010)

I would like to take issue with the linked article. There is still widespread and rampant idolatry in its primary form. The Roman Catholics worship statues, both purporting to be of God and of men and angels and many Evangelicals continue to make and use idols purporting to be of Christ or, more heinous still, God the Father.

There is a sense in which Home Depot is a "temple" for "craftsmen," but the Mormon temples are actual temples for actual worship. Roman Catholic shrines are really for performing religious devotion.

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox people often continue to make small shrines in their home. It's not something that exists only in far-off Japan or the dark jungles of Africa.

It's good to awaken people to the dangers of materialism, but it is too easy to forget that there is real, primary idolatry in our midst. There are still those who try to image God. There are still those who bow down to images. Not only in India but here in America as well.


----------



## Kiffin (May 21, 2010)

PCFLANAGAN said:


> I would like to take issue with the linked article. There is still widespread and rampant idolatry in its primary form. The Roman Catholics worship statues, both purporting to be of God and of men and angels and many Evangelicals continue to make and use idols purporting to be of Christ or, more heinous still, God the Father.
> 
> There is a sense in which Home Depot is a "temple" for "craftsmen," but the Mormon temples are actual temples for actual worship. Roman Catholic shrines are really for performing religious devotion.
> 
> ...



Good point. But for us, "primary" idolatry is easy to avoid--I'm sure none of us are tempted to bow down to physical idols. They are the subtle forms that trap us unknowingly.


----------



## dudley (May 21, 2010)

PCFLANAGAN said:


> I would like to take issue with the linked article. There is still widespread and rampant idolatry in its primary form. The Roman Catholics worship statues, both purporting to be of God and of men and angels and many Evangelicals continue to make and use idols purporting to be of Christ or, more heinous still, God the Father.
> 
> There is a sense in which Home Depot is a "temple" for "craftsmen," but the Mormon temples are actual temples for actual worship. Roman Catholic shrines are really for performing religious devotion.
> 
> ...


 
Amen my PB brother...The Roman Catholic Church teaches that when the priest utters the words of consecration, the bread and wine are changed into the literal body and blood of Christ. He is then offered to God on the altar as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin. 

Calvin takes a similar tack when offering critique of the Roman Catholic practice of adoring the consecrated host. Far from being a sanctioned practice to facilitate Eucharistic contemplation, Calvin says this practice is an idol which evokes a vain imagination: “For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself? In this there is a double transgression: for both the honor taken from God has been transferred to the creature, and he himself is also dishonored in the defilement and profanation of his gift, when the holy Sacrament is made a hateful idol” [28].


----------



## JM (May 22, 2010)

[video=youtube;ixRs7xXIqyI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRs7xXIqyI[/video]
"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Isa 45:22

Philpot writes, 

If the Lord has ever brought us near to Himself, and we have basely departed from Him, backslidden from His gracious ways, been overcome by the world, been entangled in Satans snares, or our own vile lusts and passions; if we have done things unbecoming and inconsistent with our profession and who here can hold up his head, and say he has not so done? these things bring guilt on our conscience, and banish us in soul feeling to the ends of the earth far away from the presence of God.

But when, in soul feeling, we are thus at the ends of the earth, we learn lessons there which cannot be taught us in any other place. There we learn what it is to be at a distance from God, with a desire to be brought nigh; there we are brought to know the exceeding sinfullness of sin, and there begin to learn the value of the blood of Christ to purge the conscience; there we become clothed with shame and confusion of face; there we are taught to feel our thorough helplessness and complete inability to bring ourselves spiritually and experimentally nigh, and feel what it is to wander in confusion without being able to get near the source of light, life, and truth, or feel access of soul to God. Thus, to be at the ends of the earth, is a painful but a profitable place; for there we learn lessons which we could not learn anywhere else, and are taught to feel something of the purity of Jehovah. and of our own defilement before Him.

Now, it is to those who thus feel themselves to be at the ends of the earth, that the Lord speaks in the text. He will never encourage presumptuous professors, those I mean who daringly rush on without His sanction, leadings, or drawings. It is better to tarry at the ends of the earth all our lives long, than to rush unbidden into the sanctuary, or advance presumptuously into the presence of the Most High. For there is a day coming when the Lord will thoroughly purge His floor; and then how many presumptuous intruders into His sanctuary, how many burners of false fire, and offers of unclean sacrifices, will be detected, and driven out! If the will of God be so, it is better to be poor, condemned criminals at the ends of the earth, waiting in humility for a smile, pleading in sincerity for a promise, than rush presumptuously on, and claim His gifts as our right and due.


----------

