Another NYT Letter
I wrote the following letter last Friday:
The devotion that supporters have
shown to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s statue of the Ten Commandments
demonstrates a peculiar irony. It seems to me that in their abject adoration of
the statue, Moore and his supporters have violated the second of those very
commandments: “You shall not make for yourself any idol…. You shall not bow
down to them or worship them…. (Exodus 20:4-5)”
I grant that the numbering of the commandments varies if you’re Jewish
or Roman Catholic, but I was raised Protestant, so it’s the second for
me. And frankly, most of these people are Protestants, too, so
I’ll speak their language.
If you’re interested in the numbering aspect, this page has more detail than you might have ever been aware existed. Interesting, in its own way….
Ecto blogging software
31 August 2003 at 11:44 am.
There should be another commandment, thou shalt not quote biblical verse using keyword search 🙂 If you actually read Exodus in it’s entirety, you would have inevitably understood what is meant by ‘making any idol and worshiping them’. It is doubtful that they are worshiping a monument in place of God, and hence the fine biblical quote does not apply. However, if you are going to heckle the editor, it’s probably more plausible to accuse the good people of being legalistic, since they could potentially be giving more value to following the letter of the commandments rather worshiping God. Who knows why I am correcting a failed attempt to find hypocrisy… blech…
31 August 2003 at 12:28 pm.
Actually, I have read Exodus in its entirety. And I stand by my assertion that these people have replaced God, at least in part, with the Ten Commandments statue. An idol is anything that we substitute for God or to which we pay such attention that we neglect God as the full focus of our attention. This is more than legalism, I think.
Let me quote Peter J. Gomes, preacher to Harvard University (and acknowledged by many to be among America’s best preachers), from his book The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind.
“In the absence of a visible God, the temptation is to make a god of whatever is visible and related in some proximate way to the real thing. At its best, we call this symbolism….
“This symbolism has always been a difficult concept for people of faith, for faith ought not to depend for its veracity upon what people can see. The inherent risk in symbolism is that the symbol becomes a substitute for what it is meant to represent. The means becomes an end in itself, and the worship and devotion which the end requires, when devoted merely to the means, becomes a form of idolatry and an exercise in fraud.”
Sure, these people don’t intend to substitute something in the place of God. But in the devotion to a stone that a judge put in a courthouse, underhighly inaccurate justification, they begin to “exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator….” (Romans 1.25)
And, it seems to me that legalism, in this case, is related to idolatry. If one gives “more value to following the letter of the commandments rather [than] worshipping God,” that seems to me like one has actually set up an idol. Granted, the idol is God’s commandments, but that’s not God.
Thanks, BiblePimp. I enjoyed your comment. Keep checking back, if you’re so inclined.
31 August 2003 at 9:09 pm.
I am glad you enjoyed my comment 🙂 I usually don’t comment on web logs but I just happen to catch the title of yours and thought it was interesting.
I like the quote, and while it is valid logical reasoning, I just believe it’s too general to justify your belief about the people 🙂
There are many examples of idolatry in the bible and within the context of Exodus idolatry was in Exodus 32. These were prayers and offerings to the golden calf for ‘Gods’ to go before them and protect them. In essense the people had abandoned their One True God for the ‘Gods of the idol’. The question is, does that specifically apply to the monument? The other question is, how can you conclude that the people have abandoned God in favor of a monument of the ten commandments?
I believe if you were honest about it, you would agree that there is no conclusive proof that idolatry is occurring there. Unless you have the proof of their hearts and minds? 🙂
I just find it hard to believe that you can absolutely conclude (based on what evidence?) that the people are now idolators because they are angered about the removal of the monument, and wish to prevent it.
Of course the legalistic comment was more sarcastic than anything. That whole episode stems from an aetheist group (I believe) spouting about the separation of church and state when the reality is essentially that congress should not interfere with religion, not that religion cannot be present in some form within the state. Oh well, eventually the word God will be outlawed just because some people can’t stand the thought that the word exists. It will be like Harry Potter, ‘the-one-who-must-not-be-named…..” 🙂