In prehistoric times man looked up into the night sky and saw the stars and the sun and the moon and the lightning and decided that there must be another world up there with creatures more powerful than he who were controlling everything. Thus man invented the idea of "gods".
In prehistoric times man dreamed and in his dreams he saw other men and when he awoke thought he must have entered a new dimension or reality where "others" could communicate with him and he with them. These "others" soon became the basis for "spirit beings" that eventually became "gods".
Soon, man had invented "gods" for everything. Gods that controlled the weather, and thus the crops. Gods that controlled fertility, and thus the economics of a nomadic, agrarian culture. Gods that controlled the air, the ground, the water, the animals, the plants. Gods that controlled war. Gods that controlled death.
Whether you believe in this "secular" version of how the idea of gods and religion began, or whether you follow a more religious view that there is actually One True God and that throughout history the Devil has deceived mankind into creating and believing in false gods, the reality of life is that there are many "gods".
If you read the Bible, all of these gods are in evidence. Most of the people in biblical times worshiped one of these various types of gods; often they worshiped several of them at once. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshiped Zeus, Hermes, Dagon, Aphrodite, and host of others. Religious and secular texts abound with descriptions of worship to a pantheon of gods. But worship was costly. It wasn't free. The gods and their priests demanded a high price. Some demanded your offspring become servants of the temple. Some demanded the very best of your land or your earnings. Some demanded blood. Some demanded sexual favors (well, the priests and priestesses certainly did). Some demanded death.
When an expected result did not happen, when the worshiper had paid the price, sacrificed what he was told and still got nothing in return, the priests simply said the price had not been high enough, the sacrifice not pure enough, the faith not strong enough, or someone else had paid more or given more and the god had chosen to answer the other person's competing prayer.
In the end mankind learned to hate the gods, and over time came to reject them. This is Atheism at its core. But in order to satisfy our innate need for something or someone to believe in, we substituted gods we could not control and who did not give us everything we wanted, for gods we thought we could control and who we thought would give us whatever we wanted, as long as we worked hard enough and were good enough. And so we created a whole new set of gods and we called them success, wealth, happiness, pleasure, beauty, and power.
Today, our world bows down and worships these gods of success, beauty, wealth and power. Who are our heroes? Who do we idolize? Who do we wish to become? Other people who have become successful or wealthy or powerful. We idolize the "beautiful" people because they have become our new "gods". They are who we want to be like. We idolize them, we talk about them, we read about them, we dress like them, we talk like them, we try to do what they do.
From time to time a genuine hero pops up, someone like MLK or Ghandi, but how in the world are they to compete with Lil' Wayne, Kanye, Aerosmith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Eva Longoria, Kobe, or Ke$ha? Nobody is running out to buy shoes, hats and T-shirts with Ghandi's logo or Martin Luther King's logo. But the success of Kobe and the Lakers? The beauty of Beyonce? The hits of John Mayer or Taylor Swift? The marketing and retail world drools because it knows the the success and wealth of people like these attract far more worshipers than does the soldier who rescues his fallen comrade or the woman who maintains her purity.
And so what we tell ourselves is that if we work hard enough, if we are good enough, if we are really lucky, then we too can become like the "gods" we idolize. We can become little gods in our own right with legions of worshipers adoring us and wanting to be just like us.
In the midst of all of this, the One True God entered our world, entered the world of little gods and false gods, and said "you can't ever be good enough, only I am good enough, so follow me and live in the knowledge that in this life you will have trouble, but don't worry I have overcome the world and one day in the future, I will make everything right and I will right every wrong and I will create a better world for you to live in. So don't try to be like anybody other than me. Don't worry or become despondent if you aren't as holy or perfect or beautiful as you think you should be, because I see you as holy and perfect and beautiful. Don't let the need for pleasure or power or happiness or success be the god you worship because they will always be just out your reach. Instead, allow me to give you the ultimate pleasure, to teach you that true power comes in humility, that happiness is the knowledge of salvation, and that success is measured not in your bank account on earth, but in eternity in heaven."
This isn't considered "sexy" in today's world. People dismiss it as the attempts of unsuccessful and weak people to feel better about themselves. They laugh at pathetic Christian marketing campaigns that try to emulate secular marketing campaigns with T-shirts and bumper stickers that try to be witty and intelligent but usually end up sounding trite, condescending, or bitter. They look at what Jesus offers and they evaluate eternal rewards by temporary standards. They give up a perfect eternity in exchange for an imperfect 80 years (if they are lucky). They are shortsighted because their gods have taught them to be shortsighted.
But honestly, it isn't entirely their fault. Most of these gods and most of these ways of thinking have become so central to who we are as a human race that they have become the new world religion - the new world order - and those of us who believe in the One True God have done little to confront this central way of thinking. We haven't made the revolution that Jesus started meaningful or attractive because we don't really give ourselves 100% to the One True God. He gets a percentage right along with the gods of wealth, success, beauty, relationships, and power. Now, none of these things is wrong in any way. They just cannot be the gods we worship if we are followers of the One True God.
So how does a follower of the One True God live in a world that worships and follows all the other gods? How does a follower of Jesus one the one hand affirm what is beautiful and worthy and good in this world while on the other hand confronting all that is ugly and false and dangerous?
That is what I am trying to figure out.
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