American Idol

1 John 5:21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

We are in a time when idols are alive and well. Biblical history and scripture tells of idols made from silver, gold, bronze or wood; crafted by hand yet worshipped as if real power lived within. Today, they drive expensive cars, live on the silver screen and in our homes via technology and reign on high as some sort of superior beings. Sadly, they have a sort of power that idols of old never possessed. They have the power of communication. This is far more dangerous. They reach far more people sitting on a couch during one interview on a talk show than ever heard Jesus preach in person. Sobering thought, isn’t it?

We have made demi-gods out of actors, musicians, politicians, athletes, and even people whose only claim to fame is that they have money they did not even earn, the rich and famous. We have also included some religious leaders. We elevate them above John Q. Public and watch their every move, hanging on their every word. Entire television shows and magazines are dedicated to reporting any and everything they can about these people. Since that is not often solicitous enough for the hungry smut appetites, they make up more enticing ‘news’ to report.

The dangerous thing is that we given great weight and import to the opinions of these man made idols. Generally, they are neither educated nor knowledgeable about the issues they are spouting off about more than John Q. Public but, because it is one of our idols, we hang on every word as if it were gospel and adopt it as our own because SURELY, if our idol has said it, thinks it, believes it, promotes it….it MUST be right. Oh my!

Part Two of the paragraph above is that some of these idols believe their own PR and feel they need to enlighten the rest of us. They abuse their access to exposure as a personal platform for their pet projects, political views and faith preferences. If Oprah endorses it, people line up to buy it. Willie Nelson has the voice of a toad but huge crowds will stand in the hot sun or pouring rain to see this drug fueled and law breaking performer …. paying big bucks to do so!

Idols made by American people, worshipped by American people, and in direct conflict with God’s holy word are ‘preaching’ on a regular basis. Our culture is not unique in this mentality, neither is it something new on the timeline of man; but because of technology and world wide communication, more and more people are influenced by them. Yet another case where the devil can sit back and watch man facilitate his own downfall!

The Bible very clearly admonishes us to stay away from idols and idolaters; yet we are creating idols out of people that simply chose a profession, in the case of actors, where they pretend to be what they are not; how ironic is that? Then we worship them; making idolaters of ourselves! 1 Corinthians 10:14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Am I saying we should avoid movies and television? No. I AM saying we need to be diligent and pro-active when we see an attitude in our families where this mentality may be taking hold. We are to guard and hold ourselves, our children and other Christian believers to the standard and instructions of the Bible. This is God’s word, not merely suggestions.

If God does not hold one person above another, who are we then to create an idol from another human being?