Dead Idols Instead of the Living God
Notes on Theology’s Great Temptation
About the author: Sara is the McDonald-Agape Research Fellow in Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen. She is working with Professor Tom Greggs on the Ecclesiology After Christendom project. Sara recently completed her PhD on the concept of divine personhood in Karl Barth. She is passionate about theological study, especially modern and contemporary doctrines of God, and its import for the life of the church and world. She currently lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with her husband and two daughters.
Am I worshipping God or an idol of my own making? As someone who spends her days engaged in the theological task, trying to think and reflect on God and all things concerning God, this question is always lingering in the background—haunting my thoughts, writing, and teaching:
Have I shaped God into what I want God to be? Have I made Jesus of Nazareth an ideal that fits neatly into a theological or ideological system?
The task of discerning whether the Jesus Christ to whom I think, worship, and point is the living Word of God or a dead idol of my own making is, in my estimation, the great and perennial challenge of theology and the Christian life. If I ever stop wrestling with this question, this worry, then I should stop calling myself a theologian. If I fail to question my theology and bring it under critical scrutiny that means I have stopped continually listening to the Word of God and made myself the source and center of my theology. I will only hear my own sinfulness magnified and justified rather than hearing the witness of prophets and apostles to the incarnate and living Son of God. I would be a false prophet ultimately pointing to myself and my ways.
Karl Barth recognized the human tendency to morph the command of God’s Word—in this particular case the command to preach and share the gospel with all—into the content of one’s own making:
It [human sophistry] always tries to change the content of the divine command into the content of a self-chosen programme, and the service of God into the service of an ideal and idol of one’s own making. The hearing of the Word of God can be made into this kind of programme, and what is heard as the Word into this kind of ideal and idol.1
Barth’s description provides a helpful indicator of how we might know if our theology and worship has slipped into idolatry. Barth equates self-chosen programs and ideals with idols. It is ideals and programs that seek to freeze the living and active God personally encountered in Jesus Christ through the Spirit into a dead idol. In an interview late in his life, Barth warns that we “should be on guard against all words ending in ‘ism’”2 because they become rigid and inflexible. They ultimately make us the center of the world and the source of truth.
Programs and ideals are predictable. They fit into our expectations. They sit comfortably amongst our way of life. Programs, ideals, and idols do not challenge or surprise us. The Jesus Christ encountered in Scripture is a challenging figure for the religious leaders and his disciples and followers. He defies everyone’s expectations of the Messiah—he does not affirm the religious leaders’ understanding of the law and worship nor does he meet the disciples’ hopes for a political leader. Christ touches the unclean, violates contemporary Sabbath regulations, affirms the Syrophoenician women and Roman centurion, eats with sinners, rebukes Peter for trying to hinder his mission, and calls religious leaders “whitewashed tombs” and a “brood of vipers.” How could I ever expect this Jesus of Nazareth and his Spirit not to challenge and surprise me?
If the Father, Son, and Spirit in my theology and worship are all too easily affirming everything in my life—every political belief, every action, every purchase, every attitude, and every relationship—then I can be assured that this is a God of my own making. A God who effortlessly slots into my life is not the God who confronts me with grace. For Barth, the living God is separated from idols by divine grace:
Fundamentally and decisively God distinguishes Himself from the creature by His grace… Therefore it is not simply that we may, but we must establish as a criterion whether we have found and are worshipping a God or an idol, the following: whether we have found grace—not grace in general or in any arbitrary sense—but grace before Him and in His very presence; whether it is grace which we have learnt to venerate and worship as God.3
Vitally, divine grace and mercy are never separated from divine holiness and righteousness.4 This means the encounter with God’s gracious “Yes” to us in Christ is never devoid of God’s decisive “No” to our sin, our ways, our belief that we can know God from ourselves, our self-righteousness that seeks to earn God’s favor, and our conviction that we are right. An ideal, program, or idol seeks to tame and manage this God’s grace.
As someone working in academic theology, the temptation is to theologize to advance my career. This means that I would be putting God to work for me and my benefit and would only encourage an intellectual “works righteousness.” The God of a theology suited to the demands of the academy would be an idol and not the same God encountered in the Word.
I also think of our current election cycle in the United States. Although I have the luxury of the Atlantic Ocean separating me from the constant campaign ads and vitriol, my social media feed is filled with political statements from across the spectrum that are supported by theological claims. The Christian God gets put to work for a variety of political agendas—left, right, and center. In no way am I claiming that the gospel does not have political implications, but it is not a political program. The moment we start using God as part of a political agenda or an “ism,” we should be wary of the possibility of idolatry.
There are two questions I can ask myself while seeking the Spirit to guide my thoughts as I attempt the theological task:
Is the God of my theology one of grace all the way down? Does this God challenge and surprise me?
This in no way guarantees that I recognize my own self-deception—a God of my own making. However, I trust that God wills to reveal Godself in Christ and the Spirit and can break through my own pride. For this very reason, I think Barth’s reminder that the theologian must always remain modest in her thinking and speaking is a wise and fitting conclusion: “And this modesty includes the realisation that in God’s light we are shown to be darkness, in God’s judgment we are exposed as liars, and that we shall think and speak the truth always against our own selves.”5 It is this message that we must hear ever anew each day. However, this judgment is the grace of God that calls us to the love of God shown definitively and finally in Christ—the Son of God who resists all my attempts at idol-making.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4 vols. in 13 pts, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75), 1I/2, 846.
Karl Barth, “Liberal Theology—An Interview,” in Final Testimonies: Other Writings, ed. Eberhard Busch (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977), 22.
Barth, CD II/1, 357, emphasis added.
Barth, CD II/1, 351–405.
Barth, CD I/2, 884.
An excellent cautionary reminder to us all. Thanks.
Thank you for a very fine article indeed.