It is not a difficult thing to discern the nature of someone else’s god. Some people carry their religion on their sleeve, advertising their spiritual commitments on bumper stickers or t-shirts. You can tell the Amish by their clothing, even as you can Hasidic Jews or even Hare Krishnas. When a man throws down a mat, faces Mecca and begins to pray, one need not guess to whom he is praying. On the other hand, the world is full of hypocrites. Self-reports about ones religious commitments may not be wholly accurate. Sometimes we fool ourselves, and sometimes we are fooled by others. A better test than what we wear, or even what we say may well be this- who is our law-giver? The “Christian” who argues that God wants him to be happy, and therefore sanctions his adultery may say he worships God. Instead he worships himself, for he is a law unto himself.
Of course in our day the most widely held and passionately affirmed creed is this- there is no true and false, no right and wrong. Everyone decides these things for themselves. And so one could argue, rightly so, that the God of this culture is this mythical creature I call “God-to-me.” Relativism means we can each define God for ourselves. We can make up our own religion because in the end we are our own god. As soon as we speak this strange god’s name, God-to-me, we are affirming not that we are God’s creatures, but god’s maker. It matters not what follows in our actual description. (Interesting to note, however, everyone’s personal god is rather similar to everyone else’s. The name usually is followed with these kinds of attributes- “God-to-me is gracious, kind, forgiving, wants us to be happy…” How come no one ever says, “God-to-me is a consuming fire, filled to the brim with His just wrath at every sin and sinner”?)
I’m afraid, however, that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of our culture’s sundry forms of idolatry. For when we begin to challenge the clear, obvious foolishness of relativism, especially as it applies to our theology, we find there is another god ready to step up in God-to-me’s defense. If we challenge this nonsense, “Well, God-to-me says your god is silly, foolish and false, and if you don’t bow down to him you will perish forever” what do we hear next? We are reminded at this point that we are in America, and in America we have freedom of religion. We have the first amendment. The truth is that here in America the first amendment trumps the first commandment.
The broader culture has come to understand the First Amendment to mean not that any and all religions are equally legal in this country but that all religions are equally valid in this country. And that is where our deeper idolatry is made known. We seem to think that the state can not only determine what is legal, but in making this determination, can determine what is right or wrong. Legality is morality. In the absence of any true transcendent source of law or revelation, we will usually find the state filling that vacuum. Because men disagree, man cannot determine right and wrong, true and false. Instead that is determined by the closest we can come to collective man- the state.
The first amendment, so understood then, creates here in America the same situation that ruled in Rome. The Roman empire, like the American empire, did not particularly care what religion those within its borders practiced. This is why they could get along with the Jewish authorities during the life of Jesus. You could worship Yahweh. You could worship Juno. You could worship your own dog for all Rome cared. They had only one ultimate requirement- that you swear absolute loyalty to Rome. You could indeed have other gods before, in the sense of being in its presence, the god of the Roman state. You just could not have any god before, in the sense of having a higher loyalty, the god of the Roman state. The Christians who went to their deaths under the Caesars went not because they didn’t have the right theology, but because they refused to confess the one great creed of that culture, Caesar is Lord.
In our day the state is not quite so easily identified with its leader. No one, so far, is required to bow before the President. Increasingly, however, we are being told that our highest loyalty must be to the state. We may not fly any flag, including the Christian flag, higher than the federal flag. While we may not publicly pray to the Lord Jesus in the government’s schools.
The broader culture hates uncompromised Christians for this very reason. We are condemned as radicals, fundamentalists, extremists precisely because at the end of the day our loyalty is to the Lord of heaven and earth, because we will allow no gods before Him. We are a dangerous breed, not because we don’t share their convictions, but because we don’t share their loyalties. For us the First Commandment trumps the First Amendment. For them it is just the opposite. Two competing Gods are seeking our attention, our devotion, our worship. And the Word of God, through Joshua, and through Elijah calls us to no longer waver between two opinions, to choose this day whom we will serve.
