Idolatry through Fear

Lamenting as a way forward

My confirmation class covered the first commandment a couple of weeks ago.

You shall have no other gods before me.

In Luther’s explanation of this commandment he writes,

What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

In our confirmation class we talked about the things we loved, the things we trusted. And we talked about the things we feared.

It is easy to see how an idol can be created through love and trust in something other than God. We look to money to solve all of our problems. We invest too much into a person who disappoints us and shatters us. But what I began to realize as I talked with my confirmation class is that fear can create an idol just as easily as love or trust. And in this cultural moment, fear has taken center stage.

Political leaders can become idols in every nation and across the spectrum of political thought and belief. Those who are loyal, love the leader and trust them above all else. They are willing to do whatever their leader says to maintain their positions of power and influence. If you want to be on the winning team, it means falling in line and allowing the leader to do whatever they want.

In a book I’m reading, one of the most powerful people comments on how one of the curses of power is that nobody will tell you the truth, even when you need to hear it. That’s fear. When the leader has gathered too much power, then steps over the line on something, loyalists and friends have no ability to stand up and critique the leader. If they dare to, they are out. The fear of being cast out from the presence of power means people end up defending (either actively or passively) things that they truly don’t agree with as good, right, and salutary. What starts out as love and trust, fear poisons until all that is left is fear.

That’s what an idol can do. As we look to an idol for good, as we trust an idol to deliver what we want and need, we lose our ability to understand what is actually good. We equate goodness with whatever the idol gives, even when what the idol gives is poison.

But it is not just those seemingly on the tyrant’s side who are in danger of creating an idol through their fear. Those who oppose the leader are in just as much danger. Perhaps you are not in danger of loving or trusting your president, prime minister, governor, bishop, pope, or king above all things.

But perhaps, like me, you are in danger of fearing such powerful people above all things, investing so much of your fear in them that you stop recognizing God’s power and authority over all things.

Please understand, fear has its place. Just as love and trust are appropriate for family and friends, fear is the appropriate response to danger.

But also, just as we can warp love in such a way that a good gift of God becomes an idol, so can fear warp our hearts to turn danger and evil to the thing we pay more attention to than anything else in the world. Fear can demand too much of an investment of our heart, body, mind, soul, and strength.

Such fear prevents us from holding God in the proper place. Such fear holds the harmful power so highly, that God becomes secondary.

Whether we are loyalists to the powerful or rebels against the powerful, our fear can reveal our idolatry. As loyalists, it might be the person we are idolizing. As rebels and critics, it is not the person we are idolizing, it is their power. We want to seize it away from them.

Love and trust may drive us to do whatever somebody wants to make them happy. Fear may drive us to do whatever somebody wants to prevent their anger.

But fear also may drive us to do whatever we can to stop the powerful. We may even use the tools of our enemy to seek to defeat them (like Luthen in Andor).

My fear of what has happened and what could happen in our world reveals something I don’t want to admit, even to myself: I have spent very little time lately in fear, awe, wonder, love, or trust of the Lord. I have spent all my attention elsewhere, in fear, away from God.

I am fearful of how power is being wielded in the political and religious realm. I am fearful for my neighbors and friends who are being mistreated. I am fearful for the people who will lose their lives or livelihood in the name of efficiency or purity. I am fearful for parks and forests and oceans. I am fearful of war. I am fearful of secession and splitting. I am fearful that saying anything will damage my reputation or get me in trouble.

All this fear is commanding my mind and heart constantly. Which means my mind and heart are constantly turned away from God.

I am not saying this to try to persuade you to stop being afraid. I am not trying to downplay the danger you feel. Perhaps you have a better balance in your heart and mind than I do. All I am saying is that I realized for the first time how capable I am of creating idols that I do not love or trust, but only fear.

I don’t know how to offer a way forward that isn’t in danger of being trite. There are Bible verses about the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, about setting our minds on things above, about focusing our attention on what is good and honorable and worthy of praise, about love casting out fear. Maybe for you some of those might help a little. But if I’m being honest, those verses are not the medicine that cures the illness of soul I’m struggling with.

For me, the only words that ring true are words of lament.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1-2).

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted (Habakkuk 1:2-4).

Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God (Psalm 69:1-3).

These are the words of Scripture that ring truest now. These are the words I am going to pray. That’s where I am.

And it feels to me like lament is a simultaneous confession of sin and of faith. It is me turning away from my fear and turning toward the Lord. The very act of prayer is a confession of faith, even if that prayer is something like, “God? What the hell? Where are you?”

Andy

p.s. Others are in a different place with their fear. I found this piece to be an alternative way forward that I think is probably the next step after or alongside lament.