What are idols to us?

[VickiY]

I've been thinking about this issue a lot, going into the Great Fast. Idols in the past were clear-cut.

However, I got to thinking of our Western Consumer Culture...and began wondering.

We are all aware from reading many excellent guides for preparing for Confession that today's idols can be material idols. We spend more than we can afford for designer clothing, the latest fashions, the latest technology, sports, cars, etc.

We set up ideals such as environmentalism, patriotism, liberalism, conservatism, and many more -isms as idols as well.

We focus on these things, and work toward the goals we have set each other concerning these material goods and ideals.

Do we strive towards the ideals Christ gave us equally as much? Do we spend several hours a day working toward the goals He gave us? Planning how best we can teach ourselves humility, and modesty, and how best we can love our neighbours as Christ loves us?

Do we strive to keep ourselves debt free, so that no mere external job fears can keep us from worshipping God at the services of Great Lent, or any other time? Or do we say "Well, I can't tell work I need personal time, because I really need the overtime because I spent more than I should have this Christmas"?

Do we need to see the opening night of movies more than we need to visit friends and loved ones and shut-ins who may be quite well fixed for material things themselves, but are desperately lonely?

How much is the cost of striving to make a better physical life for ourselves becoming an obsession?

Is the Western life style an idol in itself? If so, how can we best identify it, and place our physical lives back into the proper relationship to our spiritual lives?

[Knowledge3]

Idols are created objects of worship used in place of a single Supreme Deity.

Example:Israel and the Golden Calf.

There are also passions of the flesh; being pride,envy,lust,quarrels,jealousy,sloth,gluttony, and being godless.

[Anhelyna]

you are partly there K3 - but you are using an old meaning for idol :(

Nowadays it has a different meaning - please re-read what VickiY has posted - many folk do worship fashion etc

[repentant]

I think k3 is all the way there. God describes an idol as an object or something other than God, that is worshipped as a god. Even though we live in a society where people have to wear designer clothes (I myself have some) it doesn't mean they worship them. Even if some people think they are very important and mean something. But I wouldn't say fashion is an idol, at least not in the sense of what God described an idol to be. I have yet to see people bow down to fashion, and call it a god.

Now money, that's is totally different. People do crazy and evil things for money..

[Sacrum Silentium]

I have yet to see people bow down to fashion, and call it a god.You're right, there, but, I don't have to see many people bow down and worship Satan to know that they are.

I agree with where Vicki is going on this. You see a lot of it everywhere. Heck, in the Bible belt, you even see the KJV as an idol in some cases. "You ain't gonna find the Lord nowhere but here" is a dangerous thing to say.

And while having a designer shirt isn't idolatry, if you spend more time in front of a mirror or browsing through Gucci than you do in seeking God, you've got an idolatry problem. Anyone can say "Clothes aren't my master", but if that were the case, why spend more time with them than the true Master? Apply that to money, or video games, or food, or anything, and it comes out to the same end: They are replacing God, and that makes them an idol.

[Mytheodos]

Idolatry in Marriages?
Idolizing our children?
This is a serious problem today.
In the fourth century St.john chrysostome declares,
There are two reasons for which marriage was instituted...to bring man and woman to be content with
one (woman/man),And to have children but it is the
first reason that is most important.As for procreation,it is not required absolutely by marriage.. the proof lies in
the numerous marriages that cannot have children.
The first reason of marriage is to order sexual life,since
now that the human race has filled the earth.
I believe we focus too much on our children..and not enough on god...idolatry?
When christ says for a marriage to bear fruit,he meant...charity,help the needy,the sick..bear good fruit!
Remember..our sole aim in this world is to know,understand,experience our god,and ultimately...achieve theosis.

[drpepper101]

I suppose one of the things that draws me to Orthodoxy is the emphasis on getting these sorts of things worked out with a spiritual father. When the books of the Bible were written there was a pretty simple two tiered society, the rich and the poor, in place. Things are a little more complicated than that now. If you're driving a BMW and giving away 50 percent of your income to the poor are you still making the car an "idol" just because it is a finer thing than some would reckon neccessary?

[jckstraw72]

alcohol

[Annoula]

i believe that we can idolize anything nowadays (maybe it was always like that, but the old testament gave a more specific point of view)

money, passion for fashion, for food, for anything materialistic but psychological as well. we may get passionate over politics, philosophy anything.

i believe that we need to keep a balance between what we "like" and what we become "obssessed" with.

[MichaelArchangelos]

For many people these days, they have put their jobs in God's place, concentrating everything on their career.

[VickiY]

I've been a retail manager, and I can tell you that there are many women who spend literally hours and hours (as in going several times a day) trying on clothes, looking for designer labels, and baragains. Then when asked to help at Church, there is reluctance. Is that idolizing status symbols?

I've been a banker for many years, and I can tell you that many people in financial difficulties are paying auto loans that are over $800 per month, PER car, and they've more than one. Would you not think that the sensible thing to do is to get a less expensive car, and be able to sleep at night knowing that you are now able to make your mortgage payments? I've seen it over and over and over. When the passion (K3 labelled it correctly) overwhelms us to the extent that we feel being seen to possess a THING that will grant us esteem, or better jobs...haven't we begun to idolize it?

Do we feel that if we only buy this designer's clothes, or this technology, we will be accepted by others as "in"? Are we not effectively saying "This item has the power to make me accepted in society, so I will have more friends, more money (from opportunities) and more social status?" Isn't that what people did? Prayed to those golden calves and pagan idols for wealth, esteem, and food?

How many people buy books ONLY because a celebrity wrote or recommended them?

We tend to follow fashion blindly, whether that fashion is technology, clothing, or other status symbols. What we ask of those symbols is that they confer on us the same sorts of things people used to ask of the pagan gods and idols...financial and social security and status. If we buy this, we are accepted, aquire social status which gives us more of an "in" than others, so we look better, and get more job opportunities, etc.

In the case of someone who gives half his income to charity, but drives a BMW, no, I'd not call that idolizing, just a preference for exceptionally good engineering. ;) But if someone is willing to give that much of his income to charity, then wealth would not seem to be a stumbling block to him. Remember, Christ was not against wealth, but against wealth becoming a stumbling block to and blinding others to their need for salvation.