Counterfeit Gods

Timothy Keller's latest book, Counterfeit Gods, was under the tree for me at Christmas along with several other books, so I have happily started the new year with a backlog of new books to read and recently finished this one. I had found his look at the parable of the prodigal son in The Prodigal God to be refreshing and insightful so I was eager to see what this new book might hold. I think overall I garnered more from his prior work, but I thought a couple of his points in this latest work very helpful nonetheless.

The book is a look at idolatry and how idolatry creeps into our lives in subtle ways which we may not recognize. Paul, of course, had pointed out in the first century that greed is a form of idolatry (Col. 3:5) that is much more subtle than offering a dead animal in a pagan temple, but is idolatry just the same. Most idols are 'good' things gone bad, like prosperity, success, liberty, truth, beauty, and intimacy. The greater the good, the more likely we are to think it will fulfill us. His basic definition is that counterfeit gods consist in 'anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living'. He points out the every human being must live for something and for some hope, and when we substitute for God anything else such that it becomes our reason to keep going, then we have an idol, a counterfeit god. Most of us in modern western culture have idols like self fulfillment, individual freedom, financial independence; in Biblical times their idols had more to do with family, passing on the heritage to an heir, and standing in the community. All ages and cultures, though, are prone to their own counterfeit gods.

He takes an interesting look at Abraham and Jacob and how their cultural icons became challenges to their souls as love (for Jacob,Leah) and family (for Abraham) were idols that God had to purge from their lives, but I thought some of his insights into our culture were especially compelling including:

• Political activism: he says 'one of the signs that an object is functioning as an idol is that fear becomes one of the chief characteristics of life...if our counterfeit god is threatened in any way, our response is complete panic. We do not say,'What a shame, how difficult,' but rather, 'This is the end! There is no hope!'. Wow. How descriptive both of how Democrats responded to Bush's election and how Republicans responded to Obama's election! He goes on: 'Another sign of idolatry in our politics is that opponents are not considered to be simply mistaken, but to be evil.' Again, both sides of the political isle are guilty here. Politics has indeed become an idol in our culture, including our churches.
• Enemies: quoting the 17th century English minister David Clarkson he points out that 'many make even their enemies their god...when they are more troubled, disquieted, and perplexed at apprehensions of danger to their liberty, estates, and lives from men' than they are concerned about God's displeasure. Again, for a 17th century preacher he surely described the current 21st century conservative American anxiety over liberalism to a tee.
• Doctrinal correctness: he says, 'Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to the position of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrine for their standing with God rather than on God and his grace...trust in the rightness of their views make them feel superior'. This superiority of views is similar to what causes political idolatry as well.
• Love of your country and your people: in a discussion that began with the French Revolution and how it turned into terror he concludes that 'when love of one's people becomes an absolute, it turns to racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life.' How many times has that played out in the last century, in Russia, China, and the more recent Islamic revolutions?

All of this, he concludes, is due to preferring our own wisdom, our own desires, our own reputation over God's wisdom, desires, and honor.

I, for one, find it too easy to dismiss idolatry as an ancient vice, one not very applicable to me and current times. This book provided a check to that kind of modern bias.

Olympic competition

As I sit in a hotel tonight I have the Olympics on the tv while I do some computer catch-up. They interviewed the American women's snowboard team a few minutes ago and the athletes were talking about how their toughest competition is from their teammates who are also their best friends, whom they travel with, train with, live with. Yet they strive to do their best knowing that if they win their friend does not win. Despite that competition, they love their teammates. The do not 'hate the competition'; they do strive to be the best and do their best.

It was a very good interview in my opinion. One of the things that irritates me enormously in the business world is when so-called experts like Jack Welch talks about things like 'don't fall in love with your team because some of them are turkeys' as well as things he and others say about seeing the competition as the enemy, 'kicking butt' (but more coarsely said than that), and the like. Coming from the likes of Jack Welch makes it all the more irritating. Here is a man who lied to and cheated on his wife, running off with a younger business colleague. Here is a man who played all the same kinds of financial shenanigans as Wall Street did to inflate GE earnings that have since imploded just like Wall Street, which is to say he lied to investors just like he lied to his wife. A friend of mine once told me that a man who will lie to his wife will lie to anyone. Welch is a good example of that truism. So we should listen to him on how to treat employees when he clearly doesn't know how to treat family and investors? I think not.

Any leader that does not love his team even when they are not performing is not a leader, just a tyrant. Welch got it wrong, the snowboarders got it right: we must love our people, but we must also insist on good performance. I think I have read about that somewhere else as well: the gospels. I have been very displeased with much of what goes on in the name of athletics, which has mostly been about extreme narcissism of the athletes and coaches. This group of snowboarders, though, got it right.

Breathtaking!

We hear it used regarding everything from the latest movie to new cars, but driving through the Yosemite valley for the first time gives meaning to the word 'breathtaking'! Three days ago I had the joy of seeing this amazing valley for the first time, and even with significant portions of the park closed for the winter it more than lived up to its billing.



The park stands in stark contrast to the central valley of California, which I traversed to get there. I had been in Palo Alto Monday through Wednesday for business meetings, and after having dinner there with a colleague I drove across the valley to Merced, CA, Wednesday evening. It was a misty and moonless night, so I couldn't see much along the road, though I did get the umistakeable smell of manure wafted my way every so often. The central valley in Califormia is one of the most intensively farmed regions in the world, so I guess I should have expected that. I arrived at Merced for the night a bit after 10 pm and clicked on PBS while unpacking in the Hampton Inn, and sure enough the National Parks documentary was on and the episode about the founding of Yosemite was playing! It was the perfect way to start my visit.




I got underway at about 7 am the next morning for the 1.5 hour drive to the park, and now I could see some of the valley. At first it was mile after mile of orchards on a landscape so flat that it makes the corn fields of central Ohio seem hilly. I would have to describe this valley as the Appalachia of the west, except without the hills and with better productivity from the farms. There are many places I would never want to live, and this is one of them. Farms and food processing plants are the dominant industries, and from the looks of the housing it appears to be home to many of the region's poor.




After about 40 minutes the flatlands slowly gave way to rocky, rolling hills with scrubby trees and cattle grazing. This was more scenic but the land looked very poor. It was getting cloudy as rain and snow were expected that evening, so the mountains were not yet in view, but the road was climbing slowly uphill. Around the town of Mariposa, about an hour into the drive some tall Ponderosa pine trees began to appear and you could start to see some peaks in the distance. The last 30 minutes or so was along the Merced river bank and the terrain grew ever more rough, but still no snow. I arrived at the park entrance by 8:30 am and there was still no snow, the entrance being at about 3000 feet elevation. You could start to see snow on the distant peaks, though.




After entering the park, things changed dramatically. Within a couple of miles I was into snow covered country. The entire Yosemite valley is only about 7 miles long, but driving through it the first time took me about 2 hours. There was no traffic at all. I just had to stop every couple hundred yards to take pictures, walk to a water fall, or just stop and stare. You can almost hear yourself gasp as you go around each corner and your eye lands on yet another breathtaking view. There are a variety of vistas of Bridalview Falls, Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, and Half Dome as you move around in the valley. At about noon I headed up towards the Tioga Road to see the Tuolumne grove of giant sequoias. That road gave still more great views from above the valley. The hike to and from the grove, a bit over 2 miles roundtrip over a snow-packed trail, offered the quiet of a forest trail while the massive trees gave yet another perspective of how unique this place is.



The contrast to the central valley is so stark that it is almost overwhelming. In that way it is like the Grand Canyon and the Tetons/Yellowstone in that the views are so dramatic and in such contrast to some of the nearby flatlands that all 3 of them take your breath away. Just as my reaction to the central valley was that this was a place I would never want to live, these places make you never want to leave. They are very different from each other but they are all awe inspiring.



There are a lot of places I have been and a lot more that I would like to see, though for most of them I would not do everything I possibly could do to get there. Yosemite had been on my list of 'must see' places for quite some time, and it was a joy to finally get there. I hope to return to see some of the areas that were closed for winter, like Glacier Point and the Mariposa Grove of sequoias. It is one of only 3 places for which I think every American should do all that they can do to visit at some time during their life: Yosemite, the Grand Tetons/Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon are unlike anywhere else in the world.