A Sunday Morning Walk Through Athens

Our pastor yesterday did a little preaching on Acts 17 and then sent us out the door for about thirty minutes to walk around  and see what idols existed in our little Athens, Lancaster City, Pennsylvania.

I didn't see any fertility goddesses or cows walking around. Instead, I witnessed a whole of closed stores, parked cars, and passersby. Although, there was a purse snatching later in the day at a cafe right next to where our church meets, and the criminal was chased down and tackled by ticked off citizens.

What I observed most were beauty salons. Not sure what that says about our society. Appearance idol?

Besides those who are trippy spiritually with New-Agey tenets minus the more ferocious beliefs of Karma, or Buddhism-light without the worldly renunciation, spirituality has taken on  "here and now" philosophy--whatever gets you through the day type of deal. Our idols are real, but they pass as routine. They are still deadly mind you, but more by negation. We worship dully and not wildly. Most of us.

In previous eras, there was a lot of blood shed in Christendom towards those who did not hold the same tenets, both internally (Protestants and Catholics) and externally (Catholics and Muslims). Our Founding Fathers had good reason to not enshrine a state religion propped up by the power of the Federal Government. They were considerably closer historically to the recent religious wars in Europe. In the spirit of Enlightenment, best personified by Jefferson, they declined orthodoxy, while still wanting  the stability to Civil Society that religion provided without all of the baggage.

(P.S. Only time well tell if the Muslim world will resolve the schism between Sunni and Shiite. This conflict shows no signs of resolution  and instead is continuing to devolve into a battle to the death of many all to willing to die for the cause).

No, the United States is now at a place where we have a Lowest Common  Denomination of sorts where the gods have gone into hiding and the religious sphere is just bland. More reminiscent of a Wal-Mart rather than the marketplace Agora. Eat, drink, and watch television (or other media) for tomorrow we die type of deal.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses 

One of the great challenge of the day is for Christians to explain that the hunger that we humans have inside of us cannot be satiated, instead only sedated, by the world. That life is more than just getting by and just to do the same thing again tomorrow. We are made for more than this.