Worshiping America (and other gods)

“So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."”

It’s that simple, and it’s that hard. If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.

It’s hard because Ba’al might be a made-up god but Ba’al is certainly an attractive made-up god. In fact, you might say we have plenty of our own Ba’als to deal with in 2019. There is the Ba’al of wealth, the Ba’al of fame, and the ever-present Ba’al of power. There are plenty of gods out there.

If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Ba’al, then follow him.

It is tough to be a Christian in America today. I’ve heard people say that, and I agree with it, though perhaps not for the reason most say it. It’s tough to be a Christian in America because for the entire history of this nation the Christian faith has been tied to power. From the pilgrims establishing their New Jerusalem to Manifest Destiny and the accompanying Christian justification for slavery and genocide, it has always been a good thing to be a Christian in this country. That hasn’t really changed. It’s tough to be a Christian in this country not because Christianity is becoming oppressed or anything like that. Rather, it’s hard to be a Christian because a few hundred years of history has tied our faith to the concept we call “America” and Christianity is not a faith that weds itself to political power. The great idol of American Christianity is—and always has been—America, whose tenets of freedom have freed us toward allying our faith with power. The American ideal is our Ba’al.

It’s a tough distinction, because on the one hand we should feel thankful that we live in a place (unlike many other countries around the world) where we are free to be Christian without fear of persecution. Freedom of religion is a mammoth achievement that we should be proud of, but our Christian faith does not owe its allegiance to principalities and powers simply because they allow us to be who we are. To be a Christian is necessarily counter-cultural. It is not about receiving; it is about giving. It is not about conquering; it is about submission to a higher power. It’s not about us.

It’s hard to be a Christian in America because we are told it is all about us. Christians can’t be the greatest, can’t be the wealthiest, can’t be the most powerful; it is antithetical to the Christian faith. That is the great temptation we face—the idea that we are exceptional. It’s exactly the idol that the prophets of Ba’al were worshiping.

This incredible scene at Mt. Carmel where Elijah takes on the prophets of Ba’al in a fire-starting competition pits a God who does something versus a god who is all show. Ba’al is a god to rally and cheer around. He is an ideology. We should be careful in our lives that we do not worship ideology but that we worship God. Ideology is a set of beliefs; God is the thing we actually believe in. And it’s so hard because it’s a razor-thin distinction.

We face the persistent temptation to ally our Christian faith with ideologies. It is easy to tie our faith to allegiances that promise us something no different than what Ba’al was promising—prosperity, fertility, wealth. Today we might speak of that allegiance in terms of economic policy or systems that sound little like we are talking of gods, but we are talking about what it is that we trust.

Do we trust God or do we trust Ba’al?

What is it that gives you life underneath it all?

When you worship an ideology, you become like those priests of Ba’al dancing around a fire pit. You worship not the true God but God’s qualities. This is a mammoth distinction we need to make in our lives, because it is exactly the problem with all the things we idolize. We don’t worship money; we worship the quality of money that gives us power. We don’t worship America; we worship the idea that being American makes us exceptional. We don’t worship our children; we worship the idea that they are our immortality. Worshiping qualities of the true God allows us to make God into whatever image we want. This is our Ba’al, and whether we are worshiping ourselves or some other made-up god, its qualities are ones of our choosing.

So what, though? So, we make gods, but who cares? Everybody does it!

I want to finish today by talking about what we do with this knowledge, because I struggle with seeing this as a prescription. The first commandment already tells us “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me,” and since we ignore that every day of the week, I suspect this warning will also be ignored. Nothing can convince you that you are not God if you have decided that you are. Me saying “Don’t have other gods” is cute and all, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have that much power.

The real good news is not that you will figure this out and learn to worship the true God all the time. The good news is that Jesus will catch you when you do not—when you worship yourself and your various ideologies. The good news is that you are saved by grace even when you fail to worship as you should. The good news is that God is God whatever you believe and whoever you worship. One God can do something, the others cannot.

The good news is that God is God, no matter what else we try to make into our gods. God is God. And that is really good news.