Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller

Author:Timothy Keller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, General
ISBN: 9781848948532
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2010-09-16T17:10:44+00:00

The great danger is to single out some aspect or phenomenon of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain in the drama of human life. . . . This “something” has been variously identified as . . . the body and its passions (Plato and much of Greek philosophy), culture in distinction from nature (Rousseau and Romanticism), institutional authority, especially in the state and the family (much of depth psychology), technology and management techniques (Heidegger and Ellul). . . . The Bible is unique in its uncompromising rejection of all attempts to . . . identify part of creation as either the villain or the savior.66

This accounts for the constant political cycles of overblown hopes and disillusionment, for the increasingly poisonous political discourse, and for the disproportionate fear and despair when one’s political party loses power. But why do we deify and demonize political causes and ideas? Reinhold Niebuhr answered that, in political idolatry, we make a god out of having power.

The Idolatry of Power

Reinhold Niebuhr was a prominent American theologian of the mid-twentieth century. He believed all humans struggle with a sense of being dependent and powerless. The original temptation in the Garden of Eden was to resent the limits God had put on us (“You shall not eat of the tree. . . .”; Genesis 2:17) and to seek to be “as God” by taking power over our own destiny. We gave in to this temptation and now it is part of our nature. Rather than accept our finitude and dependence on God, we desperately seek ways to assure ourselves that we still have power over our own lives. But this is an illusion. Niebuhr believed this cosmic insecurity creates a “will to power” that dominates our social and political relationships.67 He observed two ways this works itself out.

First, said Niebuhr, pride in one’s people is a good thing, but when the power and prosperity of the nation become unconditioned absolutes that veto all other concerns, then violence and injustice can be perpetrated without question.68 When this happens, Dutch scholar Bob Goudzwaard writes:

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