Idolatry II

Please see Dana's quote in "Idolatry I." It's very helpful. Stephen Charnock believes we make idols out of things that we use to supplement our happiness instead of focusing in and relying on God (for our happiness). Or, perhaps, we supplement God with others things in order to create a hybrid chief good, instead of believing that God alone is the chief good.

The reason I'm leery to go this route, however, is because I distinctly remember hearing something that the Rev. Dr. VanReken (Calvin Sem) said about the first commandment. He cautioned us on accusing the alcoholic of making alcohol his god, or the billionaire of making money his god. A sort of popular notion of an "idol" is anything we "worship." Thus, it's natural to jump to the conclusion that since the alcoholic spends all his time, money and energy on that next binge, he "worships" alcohol--alcohol becomes his idol. However, alcohol is not a god for the alcoholic in the same sense that the golden calf was a God for the Israelites. Nor does the alcoholic worship the alcohol in the same sense that the Israelites worshipped the idol.

When the Israelites took off their necklaces and rings and built a golden calf, this is what they said: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." They attributed their salvation to the object that the priests had designed for them and Yahweh was joined with the calf, worshipped together as "your gods."

The reason for Dr. VanReken's caution was that the command to not have other gods besides God is in direct reference to other actual gods, be they imagined, created or demons. The alcoholic does not believe that his alcohol is a god, or that the alcohol carries his salvation. In fact, most recovering alcoholics I know felt under bondage to alcohol and despised their addiction to it.

If having other gods is strictly a matter of having other actual gods, are we in the secular west safe from breaking this commandment?