Idolatry and Ethics in the Reformed Tradition

Idolatry and Ethics in the Reformed Tradition – with Douglas Ottati

By W. Travis McMaken - October 07, 2024

I’ve never much liked how many people characterize the Reformed theological tradition. Talking about “the 5 points of Calvinism” or “TULIP” might work for some people as a starting point, but it breaks down really quickly – at least if you’re a true inhabitant of the Reformed tradition and not a reactionary (either as a peripheral hanger-on without connection with a historically Reformed church or as a member of a splinter group within that historical family). Other folks talk about the importance of God’s “sovereignty” in Reformed theology. This isn’t wrong, but it’s also very closely connected with the “5 points” business.

Together, these approaches set up a picture of God as some kind of all-powerful, supernatural potentate that must be obeyed unless you want to risk dire consequences. I don’t find this image particularly compelling, either on its own merits or as a reading of the Reformed tradition. And, honestly, it makes me think of the line from Jesus Christ Superstar when Jesus sings in a quiet voice full of regret: “[None of you] understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all.”

In other words, I think these ways of talking about the Reformed tradition ultimately come down to an exercise in idolatry - which is rhetorically convenient, for my present purposes, because that’s what I think the Reformed theological tradition is ultimately about: idolatry – what it is, how to spot it, and how to avoid it.

Furthermore, I’m tempted to think that idolatry is the besetting sin of our time. Well, of all times, really. But in our day we have a particular version of it, especially in the West, that is taking up a lot of space and driving a huge share of the cultural zeitgeist. Or, perhaps better, once again openly doing these things. It’s been around a while, kind of went underground for a bit but never went away. That exercise in idolatry is American Christian Nationalism, “Americanity,” or whatever else you may want to call it.

What got me thinking about this? There I was, minding my own business, not thinking about the rank idolatry of American Christian Nationalism, and reading along in Douglas Ottati’s very interesting and engaging book, Living Belief: A Short Introduction to Christian Faith, and I came across the following passage. I’ll leave it to you, gentle readers, to connect the dots between Ottati’s trenchant reflections and my forgoing reflections. As always, bold is mine and any italics are in the original.

Idolatry is the fashioning of a god in our own image or presumption. To paraphrase John Calvin, we imagine a god and then fashion a likeness or representation of it with our own hands. The idol, then, is the product of our wants and preferences; it embodies, guarantees, and not surprisingly, also legitimates them. Or, again, the idol is a false deity whose purposes, so long as we adhere to the correct formulas, we may manipulate to accord with our own interests and aims. But if this is so, the idolatry ruins the ‘objectivity’ of the deity’s ethical demands in the sense that they no longer stand ‘over against’ us and our wishes. (Perhaps, then, we should refrain from killing and be truthful only when it suits us and our aims to do so. Perhaps a community should uphold impartial course of law only when impartiality serves a ruling groups aims and wishes.) Often enough the purposes of such a god are simply identified with those of our own group or nation and its typical interests and practices - a temptation to which, as the prophets saw, Israel and other nations succumb to repeatedly. Idolatry, in short, results in a loss of divine transcendence. The lost of transcendence leads, in turn, to an erosion of norms and values, such as the worth of persons and justice (especially for the vulnerable) – values that might otherwise enable us occasionally to take a critical view of our own desires, as well as of the practices of our own group or society. Indeed, the humane treatment of aliens and the poor will probably be one of the first things to be compromised. (p. 162)

Ok, I can’t resist one quick bit of commentary.

“But wait (says the reactionary)! If our position is a form of idolatry, your liberal / progressive / woke / (call it what you will) perspective is too! If we’re not allowed to think that God totally agrees with us, then you’re not either!”

True. The big difference in this whole thing is that one side seems to want to provide humane treatment to those on the margins of society, and the other sides thinks that “humane treatment” means convincing or coercing those on the margins to conform to their sensibilities, go elsewhere, or otherwise get out of or be removed from the way. For my money (and Ottati’s book can walk you through some of this, as can many others), the biblical witness to Jesus Christ around which Christians should gather comes down pretty decisively in favor of the former rather than the latter approach.

Anyway, if you want to read more posts on the same broad topic, I offer you the following:

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