god idols

God idols


The word I’m most interested in is “idol.” I describe an idol in the book as any 
object that we treat as if it will make us whole and complete and satisfy us and 
rob the sense of loss in the core of our being. It could be money, going out with a 
certain person, looking a certain way or having a certain job or worshiping a 
certain God. It plays to something very deep in our psychology. We all want 
something that will make everything okay. Everywhere we turn, advertisements tell 
us “consume this,” or “buy this product,” or “look this way and you’ll be happy.”

So wholeness is not really the goal?
What happens can be structured like a magic trick. A vanishing trick has three 
parts. There’s the pledge, where you present an object, like a rabbit. Then there’s 
the turn, where the rabbit disappears. It’s put behind a curtain and then it’s gone 
when the curtain is pulled back. Then there is the prestige, which is the return of 
the rabbit. You pull it out of a hat or something — and, of course, it’s generally 
not the same rabbit. The other rabbit is somewhere else. What I’m arguing is that 
in life we have a similar structure. You see this in the Garden of Eden where you 
can basically eat any fruit, but a prohibition comes in that you can’t eat of that 
one tree. The question is: why is that tree magical? Because it’s prohibited. 
Everyone who has a kid knows that. As soon as you say you can’t have the puppy, 
then you really want the puppy.