{"id":364,"date":"2010-09-13T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2010-09-13T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html"},"modified":"2010-09-13T14:00:19","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T14:00:19","slug":"follow-up-on-idolatry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html","title":{"rendered":"Follow Up on Idolatry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks for the many insights and comments on the post &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/christianity-and-culture.html\">Idolatry in America, Idolatry in My Life<\/a>.&#8221; I wanted to make one follow up point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Let&#8217;s start with an analogy. If you realize that you are addicted to alcohol and want that to change, you abstain from alcohol. But if you realize that you have an eating disorder, you can&#8217;t abstain from food. You have to reorient your relationship to food so that it no longer hurts your body, your psyche, your relationships, etc.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;s similar with idolatry. Worshiping God as God does not mean that we can&#8217;t do anything else. Rather, it means that everything else is infused with the purpose God gives it rather than becoming an end in itself. So if you have idolized work, getting rid of that idol doesn&#8217;t (necessarily) mean quitting your job. It means reorienting your priorities and relationship to work in such a way that it honors God. I went through a spell in college where I idolized my then-boyfriend. Getting rid of that idolatry didn&#8217;t require a breakup. But it did require radical changes in our relationship. We began seeing our relationship as a way to serve others rather than simply a way to meet our own needs. And we began to recognize that our ultimate worth and security needed to come from the Lord and not from each other. Many years later, we are now happily married, and we still try to allow our love for each other to reflect the love of God in one another&#8217;s lives. We still try to keep God as the center of our family, not our marriage, not our children.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>When we find idols in our lives, we need to bring them to God, willing to relinquish them altogether, or to put them in their proper place.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks for the many insights and comments on the post &#8220;Idolatry in America, Idolatry in My Life.&#8221; I wanted to make one follow up point.&nbsp; Let&#8217;s start with an analogy. If you realize that you are addicted to alcohol and want that to change, you abstain from alcohol. But if you realize that you have&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Follow Up on Idolatry - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Follow Up on Idolatry - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thanks for the many insights and comments on the post &#8220;Idolatry in America, Idolatry in My Life.&#8221; I wanted to make one follow up point.&nbsp; Let&#8217;s start with an analogy. If you realize that you are addicted to alcohol and want that to change, you abstain from alcohol. But if you realize that you have&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-13T14:00:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Follow Up on Idolatry - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Follow Up on Idolatry - Thin Places","og_description":"Thanks for the many insights and comments on the post &#8220;Idolatry in America, Idolatry in My Life.&#8221; I wanted to make one follow up point.&nbsp; Let&#8217;s start with an analogy. If you realize that you are addicted to alcohol and want that to change, you abstain from alcohol. But if you realize that you have&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-09-13T14:00:19+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html","name":"Follow Up on Idolatry - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-13T14:00:19+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-13T14:00:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/follow-up-on-idolatry.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Follow Up on Idolatry"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}