This is a repost from July 7, 2008

Again this was from a CRC Voices discussion continuing the discussion of emotional worlds. Tim Keller has obviously influenced a lot of my thinking along these lines. Idolatry is a large element of Tim Keller’s theological and pastoral framework and one that I have found to be immensely helpful. He appears to have gotten these notions mostly from Martin Luther with some help from Kierkegaard.

An idol for Keller is something that we attempt to build our lives on apart from God. One of the best articulations of this from the story of the fall actually comes from Greg Boyd in a sermon on Jesus’ log and speck.  The illustration is in the first half of the sermon. I didn’t find the second half of the sermon to be very remarkable. He’s a long preacher too.

A third source for my thoughts on idolatry come from our own Rod Hugen in one of our late night GR talks sessions that I value so much. He was teaching me about spiritual warfare with the demonic and he mentioned that we make oaths about ourselves and these are what demons use as entry ways into our hearts. An oath might be “I’ll never be an alcoholic like my father”. Keller’s illustrations about idols work similarly: “If I can get that job then my life will matter” or “If I can lose 30 pounds and look like her then my life will be worth living…” Things like that. These self-oaths become defining, foundations for our lives, they then become organizing frameworks for our perception of the world as in your piece on glasses/contact lenses. They also begin to determine what we see as “good” and what we see as “bad”. Larry Crabb notes that we then take God’s role in defining the world rather than live within the definitions given by God.

These idols deep in our psyches then become formative for our emotional worlds as well. If I base my perceptions of self-worth on my physical appearance words that affirm my appearance please me greatly and critical words or even greater beauty possessed by another cripple me. Now of course all of us care about a good many of these goods like security, approval, being seen as smart, moral, wise, correct, etc., the difference is that if we make an idol out of these things they become masters of our emotional worlds. If you tell me I’m overweight, my hair is falling out and I wouldn’t win any beauty contests I wouldn’t feel great about it but it wouldn’t bother me. If you start poking around negatively around an idol I possess you’ll probably get a much more vehement response from me. I’ll be angry or depressed about your comments. By following the trail of our strongest emotions we begin to discover the idols below the surface.

Keller deals with these things in terms of the language of the heart and the affections of the heart. These idols hold our affections and we need a stronger affection to displace them. He follows Thomas Chalmer’s sermon: The expulsive power of a new affection:

If you find you have overwhelming emotions in this framework, the way to deal with the is by exploring your idols and through worship and spiritual disciplines invite Jesus to displace your idols and become the center of your heart. The problem could also be an absence of emotions that should be there. The devil is smart and know how to hook us.

After reading my post I thought of something  to add that might clear up confusions. Previously I said that emotions come from pre-conscious experiences, genetics and absorption of cultures. In this post I said they come from idols and oath taking. Both are true. Think about Forrest Gump. Forrest learns early on that he is stupid. This gets reinforced by many others. He internalizes this: “I am stupid”, he gets defensive about it: “Stupid is as stupid does” and he forms an idol about it: about his son “Is he smart?”. A little girl might get the message she is ugly. She takes on self-loathing “I am ugly” AND she develops an idol “I’ll be worth something if I am seen as pretty or desired by men.” Over time these things grow like vines around our hearts and our “selves” (Identity) and get twisted up in our relationships, our religions and our behaviors. Given a couple of decades and they become very deep parts of our selves and our habits and difficult to address directly. It’s like trying to remove a brain tumor by surgery, you can get big parts of it but it has metastasized and infiltrated our system. This is sin. It infects our conscious minds and our non-conscious selves. It takes even God time and history to undo what time and history have created.