False Gods in the Context of Contemporary Lifestyles

By Khen Lim



Image Source: ahermin.deviantart.com

Exodus 20:4 (NASB) says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”

While that is the core of the Second Commandment, there is more if we read on (vv.5-6):

“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Before we look more into it, let us check out the second article in today’s Lux Mundi Sunday Weekly on pages 4 and 5. You can find it here. The title says, “Progressive Christianity Interprets Ten Commandments and Gets into Trouble.” To save you the trouble of reading it in full now, I’ll extract some provocative parts here:

•      A Baptist minister of the NewSpring Church in South Carolina says, “Instead of Ten Commandments that you have to keep if you’re going to be a follower of Jesus, they’re actually ten promises that you can receive when you say yes to Jesus.” (bold are my own)
•      He goes on to interpret the First Commandment, saying, “You do not have to live in constant disappointment anymore” rather than, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
•      The same minister makes the claim that not only was his topic “given by God” but that it was God who instructed him to reach out to those who, in their struggle to keep the Ten Commandments, have been prevented from “saying yes” to Jesus.

 Click here to download a PDF copy of the Lux Mundi Sunday Weekly (Feb 1 2015)

As for the rest of the article, you can and should read it at your leisure.

The article is an indicting statement of contemporary lifestyles. Not that everything about the modern world is bad but stretching or even distorting the truth has been an expression of emancipation among the “liberated” population. God’s words, it seems, make for popular targeting because it is not uncommon to find them persistently tampered with. Commonly misinterpreted even in churches, God’s Ten Commandments are also fast becoming a doormat for others to trample on. They too have not been immune to man’s pesky hands and deliberations.

Defining ‘Idol Worship’

As we bring the Second of the Ten Commandments into sharper focus, we seek now to reflect on its relevance. We are often told that the notion of ‘idol worship’ is an ancient preoccupation with little relevance to what today’s lifestyles are about. That would be true if we confine the definition of ‘idol’ to exotic false gods that are popularly carved in stone or wood or even metal. They are, as we know, worn around the body or they exist as large life-like statues.

In many older parts of Asia, the presence of idols is probably more widespread than any other parts of North America, Australia or Europe. Malaysians are privy to idol worship because of the rich mix of polytheistic religions apparent in Taoism and Buddhism as well as Hinduism. Even Roman Catholics are not unfamiliar in this case.

But the word ‘idol’ must not be constrained in such a way. Today the Second Commandment is just as directly applicable in modern society and its significance is particularly worrisome if we enlarge the scope of definition of the word ‘idol.’ Some of us feel that idolatrous practices in the modern world are likely to be more frightening than what we imagine during the Mosaic days.

Why? Because today’s lifestyles have welcomed idols – or false gods – in many subtle forms. You find them in abundance if you look hard enough and when you do, peer not only into the world of arts and education but look askance at man’s preoccupation with fame (or infamy), material wealth and money to name but a few.

History has revealed to us that the worship of false gods has had devastating effects on mankind. Man’s obsession with idolatry has manifested itself in evil of massive proportions. We can find many examples of this but perhaps the German Third Reich – or Nazism – and Communism (which exists in many flavours including Leninism, Marxism, Trotskyism and Maoism) are easily the ones we can identify. While these are examples on a public scale, idol worship has also wrecked private lives, leading ultimately to deep unhappiness.

When we seek to properly understand the significance of this Second Commandment, we should also consider its preceding Commandment, the First, which says, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3, NASB). It isn’t surprising that these two Commandments are lined up in sequence. We believe God has a purpose in doing so because one flows coherently into the other to form an unavoidable impression that they are written with similar overtones. As we study the Second Commandment in light of its modern application, we can see how this relationship works.

A Multitude of Confusing False Gods

If you’re like many others, you will assert that the Ten – and not just the Second – Commandment are all outdated, inapplicable, unrealistic and impractical. In the Bible alone, the impression of false gods or idols is well documented. Avid Bible readers will identify at least the following:

Location	Idol Name	Purported Function	Biblical Source
Babylon	Marduk	god of war	Jer 50:2
Egypt	Amon	sun god	Jer 46:25
Canaan	Asherah	goddess of fertility	Judges 6
Canaan	Ashtoreth	goddess of fertility	1 Kings 11:5
Canaan	Baal	principal god	2 Kings 10
Ekron/Philistine	Beelzebub	lord of the flies	2 Kings 1
Philistine	Dagon	god of grain	1 Samuel 5
Ephesus	Diane	goddess of virginity	Acts 19

Taoists and Hindus in Malaysia are also exposed to similar levels of reverence. For both religions, there are myriad different gods that function territorially or seek to master certain aspects of human life. We therefore have gods of rain, kitchen and war as much as there are also those that purportedly bring luck and material wealth (including gambling) and representation in the netherworld.

Roman Catholics also have their fair share of such reverence as they contend with an ever-growing army of canonised saints that offer all sorts of protection. The Catholic Church refer to these saints as akin to act like gods with “special intercessory gifts and influences.” It’s not difficult to find information on these on the Internet. You will find saints with interesting titles like “universal doctor” (St Albert the Great) or “evangelising doctor” (St Anthony of Padua) or the “angelic doctor” (St Thomas Aquinas).

Looking like a list befitting of the size of a metropolitan telephone directory, the many patron saints are way too numerous to mention here. The screen capture below reveals only a “modest few” from entries stretching A to E:

A selected portion (A-to-E) of the whole collection of patron saints in the Roman Catholic order

Image captured from www.catholicsupply.com

From its expansive list, you might have heard some of them:

St Christopher	Patron of travelling and motorists
St Mary Magdalene	Patron of penitent sinners
St Patrick	Patron of Ireland and slaves
St Paul	Patron of converts, writers, novelists etc
St Peregrine Laziosi	Patron for cancer victims
St Vincent de Paul	Patron of charitable societies

Even as a Roman Catholic indulges in the existence of their own false gods, he could easily quote from his Bible God’s instructions that prohibit such practices. While he understands the forbiddance of worshipping ancient pagan deities of rain or fertility or titan gods like Zeus or Jupiter or animistic preferences for Gaia and their ilk, it seems he and many in the Roman Catholic order fail to see the similarities.

For Protestant Christians, understanding the first two Commandments does not appear difficult when the traditional definition of the word ‘idol’ is used. These gods are no threat. They pose little significance or danger. This is why the Ten Commandments are largely considered irrelevant, perhaps harmless but certainly pointless. There is no place for them in the modern world. Many Christians even believe (wrongly) that Jesus came to render them irrelevant.

But even so, it is very important to understand that the Second Commandment alone and singularly holds up the whole of the Ten Commandments. This is because by obeying it, we help ourselves to identify and hence avoid worshipping false gods. And in achieving this, we can then genuinely eliminate one of the most abhorrent affronts that God speaks so bitterly about – false gods. But first, we must properly identify what these false gods are. For that we must go far and beyond the old-fashioned idea that we’re talking about pagan deities alone.

When people tie the Second Commandment to images of savagery, violent brutalities and virgin sacrifices to pagan gods, we miss the point of its relevance. Modern society provides a perfect platform from which we now have lifestyles that are far more hedonistic than we can imagine. And they produce similar end results to the Biblical definition of idol worshipping except that perhaps we’re all doing it in a more sophisticated, advanced and technologically stunning manner.

Today the worshipping of false gods extend into many realms never found during the days of Moses. Our lifestyle offers limitless idolatries in the form of video gaming, texting, social media networking, gambling, entertainment, sports, nightclubbing, recreation drugs and unbounded sex and in fact, anything that tempts us to take our eyes off God.

One God, One People, One Standard

The principal of our biblical-based monotheism is that we have only one God. In essence, we have only a need for that one God. Only this God is our sole Creator of life and the universe. He is also the one God who demands our attention and obedience in obeying His laws, ordinances and his moral codes such as the Ten Commandments. He expects us to worship only Him alone and nothing or nobody else.

Why is that so? We offer you five simple reasons:

1.    Dedicated God

One God produces only one specificG and exclusive human race. There are no other equivalents to us anywhere in the universe. Not even in deep space. Not even in any notion of unexplored space. There are, therefore, no aliens living in far-flung galaxies light years away from us.

2.  Siblings worldwide

The one God who produces an exclusive human race is the one same Creator or Father to all of us. That makes each and every one of us throughout the world, brothers and sisters under the same heavenly Father. In other words, all of us come from the hands of the same Creator who moulds and shapes us in accordance to His own image.

3.  Egalitarian in God’s eyes

Because we are endowed as brothers and sisters under the same one heavenly Father, it means that no person or ethnicity or population group can ever be more valuable or superior or of a higher order than any other. We are not just equal in God’s eyes but His love for us is the same no matter who we are and where we are from.

4.  Bound by the same laws

As we have only one God, there is only one moral code for all the people throughout the world who are in fact our brothers and sisters regardless; that this moral code is enshrined for all the world to know as the Ten Commandments. These are the standards of living that define us as humans and as children of God no less.

5.   God says so and it is so

With one moral code universally relevant to all the people worldwide, it means that what God says applies to everyone no matter what. So if God says thieving is wrong, then thieving is wrong no matter who you are and where you are from. There is no “other god” to go for a “better answer” or one that suits you better. Nobody is above His law regardless of whether you are a common man or a royalty.

Forcing God off-stage to be replaced by some false god is to ask for trouble. The Bible says so. The Second Commandment affirms it. We do so at our own risk. And the outcome can only be bad.

Time and time again we see this. Throughout the history of the world, the result doesn’t change. Irrespective of whichever part of the world, substituting God with false gods invariably leads to atrocious acts of evil. This then results in disasters of catastrophic proportions where many die needlessly. These false gods lead us to the covetous nature that underpins the world we live in. We find ourselves craving as much material wealth as we can get our hands on, desirous of far-ranging territorial powers, elevating one race to dominate and overpower another, to seek superiority that gives us all sorts of advantages over those who are subordinate to us. All of these often end in misery. In fact when God is in absentia, even the most beautiful and invaluable things in life can turn out destructive and tragic.

Tainted and Repugnant Music

Works of art, as beautiful as they are, can have a seriously heinous side to them and history has recorded some of the worst. As it were, choice of music and the people who compose them have been linked to horrific men and their murderous deeds.

Image Source: bbc.com

For example Hitler’s anti-Semitic Nazi movement has been firmly associated with a famous classical composer of equal distaste for Semitism. His name is Richard Wagner. Another, a German poet and philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, has also be inextricably tied to Hitler because of his ideologies about the “superhuman Aryan race” (übermensch) and the desire to purify the German blood without acknowledging the existence of God. 

Image Source: wikipedia.org

Philosophies taken completely out of context and much to the political advantages of the expedient Nazi power and dominance, Hitler propagated Nietzsche’s ideas on a grand scale leading to the mass extermination of the Jews in what we know as the Holocaust. And throughout all of these, echoes of Wagnerian music had chilled the hearts and minds of dying Jews and the survivors who lived to not only tell the tales but often to be reminded in their latter years.

Inevitably when the great Indian-born Zubin Mehta became the conductor of the renowned Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in 1968 before he was elevated to Music Director for Life thirteen years later, he refrained himself from including any Wagnerian works in his repertoire as long as there were still living Holocaust survivors among his gifted musicians.

“While there are still numbers on arms, we cannot play Wagner here,” he says. For the full article, go here.

Central to the distaste that the Jews had developed against Richard Wagner was his grand piece called Siegfried’s Funeral Music (from Götterdämmerung). This piece became the quintessential Wagnerian iconography of the Germany of Hitler when it was used as the official requiem of Nazi mourning. Together with Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony – himself another staunch anti-Semite – these were the pieces that were used to commemorate the death of the Führer. Till today, both Wagner and Bruckner continue to be associated with Hitler, a fitting stigma that simply won’t go away.

In decades past, many notable musicians have tempted fate, looking for ways to play Wagner pieces in Israel. Understandably these would lead to impassioned outcries and protests. For a good snippet on this, read Na’ama Sheffi’s published account in his book titled, “The Ring of Myths: The Israelis, Wagner and the Nazis.” Among the many tales, the book also reveals the following:

-         Zubin Mehta

In 1981, Mehta decided he wanted to do something different with the IPO – he in fact wanted to deliver the “Liebestod” (from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”) as the encore piece. But beforehand, he cautioned his audience, offering anyone the chance to leave the hall if they disagreed. As soon as he prepared to conduct the piece, a Holocaust survivor in the audience, Ben-Zion Leitner, who was also a hero of the First Arab-Israeli War, walked to the front of the stage, exposed his scarred stomach and loudly declared, “Play Wagner over my body!”

-         Daniel Barenboim

In 2001, Daniel Barenboim, a very gifted liberal Jew and musician himself, experienced similar public opprobrium when he knowingly conducted the “Tristan” Prelude in Jerusalem despite the predicted outcome.

-         Israel Wagner Society

In 2012, the Israel Wagner Society was forced to abandon a planned concert at the Tel Aviv University following the latter’s withdrawal of consent. Even subsequent plans to shift the event to a nearby Hilton Hotel failed to materialise.

Depraved Educated Minds Go Awry

Even as many of us value education as a means to giving us a head start in society and the opportunity to live a justified existence in this world, there exists a darker side to it, one where, when divorced from noble causes, goodness and the higher reaches of God’s moral codes, can unleash forces of evil so great that they can transform the thoughts of even the most learned minds.

Education, in other words, is in itself meaningless when even the best minds in living history are known to have participated in some of the most treacherous and evil events known to man. It is hard to consider that many of these dark and tragic moments in the annals of history have been committed or brought on by the inspirations of intellectuals and by all means, highly educated people.

One of the most startling examples of how good but godless minds can turn evil is well recorded by Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist who as a tenured professor of psychology at the Stanford University had conducted a socio-psychological experiment in 1971 that became the subject of the much-read book called, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” (Random House, 2007).

The actual Stanford Prison Experiment (Image Sources: psychminds.com) 

In the basement of the campus’ psychology building, Zimbardo conducted a two-week experiment using twenty-four volunteer subjects who were all middle-case, educated, college-age men. They were each paid $15 daily for their participation. To start the experiment, the men were drawn lots as to who would assume the role of the prisoner or the guard.

In the initial stages of the experiment, there were no recordable differences among the participants. However in less than thirty-six hours, the effects were calamitous. Those who assumed prisoner roles were despondent. Some broke down emotionally. Some were driven into deep states of depression. A few others were crying uncontrollably. There was another who flew into a fit of rage. Over the next few days, four of them were released from the experiment after they were found to be emotionally incapable of continuing further.

Image from the actual experiment (Image Source: tumblr.com)

On the other hand, those who took the role of “guards” had developed disturbing traits; traits that reveal unsettling dispensation of power, superordination and supremacy over the “prisoners.” In their role, the inmates were made to obey trivial commands, forced to perform tedious but mindless monotonous works. At times, these were turned into unpleasant that included cleaning toilets with their bare hands. They were also forced to sing or laugh at will, or to completely stop smiling on command.

The removal of freedom and the complete subjugation of one’s control over his ability to express were characteristic of someone who has the power to do so. We must remind ourselves that those who play the role of “guards” were educated participants who began the experiment, aware of the difference between right and wrong.

Called the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” this has become an important study in social psychology. It clearly demonstrates how situations can be more powerful determinants of behaviour than what the participants’ personality characteristics tell us. Here lies proof that abhorrent situations are likely to give rise to abhorrent behaviour no matter how innocent or sane the people are to begin with.

For a more detailed article on the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” click here.

The Holocaust (Image Source: ushmm.org)

More than thirty years before Zimbardo’s experiment, the German Third Reich bore witness to the involvement of countless highly educated people who unstintingly supported Hitler’s ideals and it was their endorsement that partly propelled the Nazi movement. And if we ever needed reminding, the German churches were also Hitler’s early adherents.

“A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history. It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the non-religious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeated failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with – indeed, in the pay of – the Nazis.

Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe, the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.”

Source: Gregory S Paul, “The Great Scandal: Christianity’s Role in the Rise of the Nazis”

For the full article, click here to read.

The post-war emergence of Communism was also “inspired” by many Western world supporters who lent their educated but also powerful minds to the workings of the regimes of monsters like Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il Sung in North Korea. Some of America’s brightest and smartest brains are today condoning the destruction of Israel, lending their collective voice, influence and wealth to support the anti-Israel Arab movement to obliterate the tiny Jewish nation. They have since been joined by large swathes of Hollywood directors, producers and actors.

Image Source: a-w-i-p.com

Despite evidence to the contrary, they have also been bolstered by a seemingly intelligent – but progressive minded – media that is too maligned to see the truth much less mete out fair reporting. Instead we have all been led to believe that it is Israel that has been repressing the Palestinians and the Gazans.

There is more than enough proof today to demonstrate that not even the highest level of education and the most intellectually decorated person is wise enough, kind enough, ethical and moralistic enough to carry out the agenda that God had set out for all of us to obey. When God is removed from the underlying basis of education itself, even the cleverest brain on earth is doomed to evil.

Serious Repercussions

But that’s not all. Remember the two adjunct verses of the Second Commandment? They are the ones that carry an ominous warning of disobedience.

In Exodus 20:5 (NASB), God says, “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me…”

Then in the following verse 6 (NASB), God promises tenderness and consideration towards those who “love Me and keep My commandments.”

Lest we take the matter of idolatry of false gods lightly, God issues a stern and serious warning. He first says that He is a “jealous God.” The word ‘jealous’ suggests a feeling or display of resentment fuelled by suspicion that one is attracted to or involved with someone else. Put another way, God, being our Creator, expects unanimous attention from us. He does not desire that we be distracted or interrupted by anyone else when it comes to who we are to worship. God’s jealousy in this regard underscores His deep hatred and displeasure towards the practice of worship of false gods. In this case then, we must take care not to be the idolaters for the implication is that God’s bitterness and resentment would be aimed at us.

But there also lies another problem – God also views those who pursue false gods as those who have expressed strong hatred against Him (v.5). To those who hate Him, He will exact harsh punishment for three reasons. Firstly when we hate Him we breach His law. Secondly in worshipping false gods, we offend His royalty or His majestic presence. Thirdly by turning our backs on God, we also desecrate His covenant with all of us.

God has spelt out his punishment and most tragically they involve a visit upon the children of those who transgressed. Herein lies the devastating vengeance that He would unleash on the subsequent generation of offspring under the lineage of those who hate Him. In his Commentary, Matthew Henry says the following:

“The children shall be cast out of covenant and communion together with the parents, as with the parents the children were at first taken in. Or He will bring such judgements upon a people as shall be the total ruin of families.”

The ruination that Matthew Henry speaks of will be so comprehensive that those who live long enough to see the three to four generations after them will understand the after-effects of the work of their own hands. They will witness their destruction, humiliation and shame unless the children themselves choose not to follow suit but instead abandon or discontinue the ancestral pursuit of false gods.

No Middle Ground

Image Source: jesus-is-savior.com

It seems incredulous to say this but it is true – the Second Commandment underscores the ethical revolution of the Bible and of the whole Ten Commandments. It would not be remiss to say it defines what ethical monotheism means.

What this fundamentally means is there are two routes for us. The first is to choose to worship the God of the Ten Commandments. When we do so, we will be able to make out a good world because God will simply pave the way and honour our obedience out of lovingkindness and consideration. The second is to forgo Him in preference for one of the many false gods that undergird the secular world. Even in the noblest sense of what we hope to achieve by doing so, we will simply end up completely miserable as we find ourselves plunged headlong into a world of abject evil and unfathomable cruelty.

There is no middle ground. Like a light switch, we have only two positions – either we go with God or we don’t. It’s our choice.

So choose very wisely.