The Gods of the Land
Hello again, brothers and sisters. It's time to examine ourselves. 🔎
It is only in the past few years that I stopped viewing my liberal arts (history to be precise) education as a unique asset rather than something of a liability. The change happened once I realized that being able to draw the lines of commonality between the present and the past is a vital skill, something like fullstack development for ideas and societies. Or perhaps each generation recognizes the pendulum occurring in their lifetime and begins to long for the skills their generation no longer values, only to watch their children do the same thing in the opposite direction. In any case, let's try and apply some antiquated ideas to the world of today and see what we learn. Maybe the way to see what we've been missing is by dusting off the ideas that many have left behind.
So let's look at an idea that seems to have arrived in extremely recent times, when compared to the sweep of history. Beginning around 400 years ago (I am dating this to slightly before the accepted Enlightenment, of course historians will quibble variously because that's in the job description), human beings began developing the thought technology of atheism. I call this a thought technology because I think it helps us to view the pursuit of a godless life as a uniquely modern enterprise, distinguished starkly from the rest of human existence. Of course from the beginning of time there has been questions, doubting and disagreement over the nature of divinity and exactly how we could hope to please God Himself ("Has God really said..." whispered the satanic serpent to the first person he was able to chat up). But no human society that I am aware of has attempted to progress beyond the concept of directing their worshipful awe towards at least some being or beings beyond themselves. Ancient pagan tribes, medieval feudal kingdoms and 1500s Saxony shared almost nothing in common except their belief that the correct human posture towards the unknown and the spiritual was to propitiate the divine. Because we are immersed in a society which believes itself in many ways to have progressed beyond this attitude, we struggle to recognize our remaining idolatry even though it permeates our being. Idolatry is the biblical term for the making of gods. And we humans have never stopped doing it.
It's easy for us to recognize it when it's the ancient peoples of the Chaldees or the Levant, immolating their toddlers and buying and selling the bodies of war captives to call down rains and defend their borders. Such primitive ignorant people we scoff, or we used to before such sentiments became incorrect and our contempt became silent and coded. But we aren't so different, the generations of futuristic wealthy savages who fill today's suburbs and highrises. Children still perish and sex workers are still brutalized in every sleepy borough of the heartland, but the gods just have different names. Self-Fulfillment, Personal Improvement and Independent Wealth are every bit the greedy masters that Moloch, Chemosh and Astarte were. And just like the pagan gods of old, our household idols, acceptably diluted throughout culture until few even recognize them as worship receptors, transform us slowly into their image.
It's a core tenet of religious practice that human worship of God changes us. It is, in fact, the reason that believers of any kind choose to direct their faith and practice towards their understanding of the divine. We hope to be changed. And I believe that this is true for all people, regardless of whether they feel themselves to be religious or spiritual or not. I see in our society the telltale signs of religion everywhere. Where do we use the words "believe," "trust," "hope" and "love?" These are our altars and our temples. Who do we look to to change the desires of our hearts and heal our decrepit bodies? These are our priests and shamans. And we make our sacrifices and perform our alms and prayers and rites, even those of us who sincerely think that there is nothing in the universe but the rattling of atoms and the song of the void.
Now some of you are concerned for my soul at this point, but please don't be. I write things things precisely because I believe, in a place deeper than my belief in any other thing, in the exclusive truth of the Christian faith. My reasons for this belief are many, some personal and others assenting to timeless and ancient realities. But this discussion of idols and religions is not even necessarily intended to convince the rest of you, the ones unconcerned for my soul but perhaps a little bit angry at my way of describing modern humanity, of these truths. At least, not all at once. What I'm trying to do is put my finger on something that seems to be eluding our pundits and commentators. Why are people so angry? So quick to plunge into all-encompassing theories and ways of being that seem self-evidently to contradict the facts of the world around us? Why are those so fiercely devoted to the reign of naturalism also beginning to experiment again with the star chart and the spellbook? Because we are all deeply spiritual people, and we are in the process of fashioning for ourselves new gods to believe in.
Today, in this letter, all I'm trying to persuade you of is the possibility that every human ever born is a worshipful creature, a soul seeking a deity to adore. If this concept seems to accurately describe us, if we recognize the human passion for total sacrifice, even if offered to ourselves...what does that tell us? I think it immediately demands that we begin making conscious decisions about our worship. The lesson of both history and futurism is that people, without a force outside our understanding, do not really change. Therefore, I'm not sure we can accurately describe humans as people who can have no god. And I admit with sorrow that those who believe they worship the all-powerful and true creator and sustainer of the universe may often still collect tiny demigods in the corners of our mind.
At the end of a year, as the world starts to prepare for it's next slingshot through the heavens, we naturally begin to review our lives and plan for our future. What better time for us to look to our hearth, relight the lamps, examine the dark corners and discarded the collected idols that we have made. If all of us are believers, then are we so sure that the gods we serve are true?
WGMI 😎
There are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance. ~ Neil Gaiman, American Gods
They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. ~ Psalm 135:16-18
Great piece!
Recently I overheard somewhere “Old gods say they love you. New gods say you should work more.” P.S. I’m not a religious person but this quote seem to be true enough.