Chapter 4: How to Treat a Snake

Truesdale says, “The transition from instrument to idol is subtle and deadly. Usually, we don’t see it coming” (58). Those words form the foundation of this chapter about Hezekiah and his on religious reform. Often, though, religious reform becomes difficult and painful. It sometimes requires changes that folks aren’t willing to make. And sometimes it requires changes that are so radical that it seems like something essential is being destroyed.

In this chapter, from the perspective of a successful businessman, we can see one such radical call to change that Hezekiah intends to bring about. He was going to destroy an idol. But not a pagan idol of Baal or Asherah, this was something from their past given to them by Yahweh. And the people weren’t happy about it. In their mind, Hezekiah intention was “to disrupt our sacred past, to destroy something essential for our worship of Yahweh” (63). By destroying the bronze serpent Moses fashioned in the Wilderness wandering, Hezekiah was destroying “an irreplaceable reminder of God’s presence and guidance, a sure sign of his salvation” (64). But Hezekiah tells the people that the bronze serpent is at the center of their transgression (66), that they had turned “what was supposed to be a transparent sign [into] a concrete idol” (67).

Once again it seems the meaning is ostensible for the church today, poignantly reflected in the cracks of division that appear along pressure points where past and future converge in the struggle for new and germane meaning. Too easily we can turn transparent signs into concrete idols. Think about some of those things from our “sacred past” that have been for us signs of God’s salvation. Now think about the ways we tend to turn those signs into objects of worship.

Chapter 3: Worship or Manipulation

Chapter 3 invites us into the courtroom scene that takes place in the book of Micah. God brings charges against Israel. They had forsaken the covenant. They had forgotten what it means to be the people of God. Their worship had become self-seeking, a tool to “put God in an agreeable and rewarding frame of mind” (48). Al Truesdale points out that “The commandment not to take the name of the Lord in vain (Exod. 20:7) is a warning against using God’s name for contrived human purposes” (48). A danger in any age.

A couple of key charges God makes against Israel stand out for me. The first is that they have forgotten what it means to be his people (54). I think this is a crucial failure. Understanding what it means to be God’s people can drastically change how we understand what it is to be the church as well as redefining the mission of the church.

The second key charge is that Israel and Judah had failed to “connect worship with love for neighbor” (55). It is somewhat ironic to me that the idea of “worship wars” is even an issue within the church, let alone that it can become so divisive, causing such inimical behavior among those who call themselves family. Perhaps if we could make the connection between worship and love for neighbor, our worship could become truly transformational.

Finally, God asks, “Why do you boast of your religious zeal, when your lives contradict my character?” (56). I suppose this charge sums up the others. Religion, worship, being the church, they are all supposed to reflect God’s character. It’s not a matter of cognitive assent to a particular set of propositions. It’s not a matter of doing this and not doing that. It’s not a matter of which church we go to. It’s simply a matter of as a body of believers, do we reflect God’s character (and it is significant to remember that this is not about individuals, but about communities. We can only be the people of God with others, never as individuals or even as a collection of individuals, only as community.).

So what does God expect? What does it mean to be the people of God, to connect worship with love for neighbor, to reflect God’s character? The answer God gives is startling. God says, “I want you to practice justice, show my kindness of love to others, and walk before me in genuine humility” (57).

Chapter 2: The Baal of Mechanical Piety

In this chapter Al Truesdale brings the prophet Amos into the story of Israel’s seduction to false worship. The focus is on an outward, “mechanical piety.” And the sort of mindset that understand worship as something to placate God and gain a reward. Indeed, in this chapter we see clearly how the Northern Kingdom saw their social, political, and economic prosperity as evidence that God was rewarding their impressive ritual of worship.

They seemed to be doing everything right: carefully nurturing the Mosaic tradition by “observing the great sacrificial ceremonies, feasts, and fasts;” teaching the people “the great convictions of Israel’s faith” (37); religion in the Northern kingdom was squeaky clean, not missing a thing. And the people were responding. Both centers of worship were full as people took their worship serious. From all outward appearances, God was responding favorably to the religion of the people.

But that’s when Amos shows up saying that they “completely misunderstood God’s special calling,” that “apart from covenantal faithfulness, election meant nothing” (40). And Israel had abandoned its responsibility to justice. They were “corrupted by opulence,” their greed was unchecked, they “trampled on the heads of the poor.” For all their attention to worship and religion, their “professed faithfulness to Yahweh did not translate into justice executed on behalf of the defenseless” (42). And so Amos declares that God hates and despises their feasts and solemn assemblies; their praise is little more than “hollow songs” (44). What God truly desires is that “justice [will] pour across the land like a flood, and righteousness [will] flow like and unending stream” (44).

I suppose, for me, the take-away thought in this chapter is that in every age we can allow our worship to become something perfunctory and mechanical. When it becomes an end in which we seek to ingratiate God in order to gain an advantage, the worshipers becomes elevated above the one who is worshiped. Control is wrestled from God, who becomes incidental as the worshiper assumes control.

I realize I’m probably opening a can of worms here, but as I read this chapter I couldn’t help but think about all the rhetoric I have heard (mostly from the “religious right”) about how the only way for America to return to its former prosperity is to regain its former practices of worship. I couldn’t help but wonder if this isn’t exactly where the Northern kingdom was coming from.

Chapter One: The Troubler

Chapter one recounts that very familiar story from 1 Kings 18 when Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The unique feature of this chapter, though, is the walk with Jubal. Jubal is a (fictitious) 9th century BC farmer from the Northern Kingdom. What makes this walk with Jubal unique is listening to his explanation of why this showdown is so important, and why the Northern Kingdom has found it so easy to worship both Yahweh and Baal. I think I would like to highlight two aspects from this chapter. The first is why worship Baal. And the second is the idea of compartments.

In this chapter, Al Truesdale did a good job showing us that the worship of Baal was not due to the fact that the people were backward and ignorant. Nor were they simply perverted in the lust. We need to remember that all myths (and by myth I do not mean false) about local deities are in their essence a way of explaining the workings of the world. Today we seem to think that because of the elevation of reason during the Enlightenment, and the proliferation of science and scientific discoveries, that we have the tools to really understand how things work. But in reality, our science functions in exactly the same way as did the myths that informed the people back in Elijah’s day. Baal was the best science of the day. It explained how the world worked. And besides that, up until this point, it was effective.

There is something anachronistically arrogant when we dismiss these myths as stupid. Of course, that doesn’t make them right or okay for the people of God, because God told them not to have any other God and not to worship anything or anyone but Yahweh. They knew better, not because they had better science or more intelligence, but because God told them. We are told that it really wasn’t a problem because “it is all matter of respecting boundaries. Some parts of life belong to Yahweh, and some to Baal” (27).

It seems to me that this is the open door that invites idolatry. Whenever we allow our lives to be divided into compartments where God either plays no role or that role is held to a minimum, an idol of some sort will always come around to fill that space. One of the most telling ideas in this chapter for me was when our companion Jubal tells us that Yahweh is the God of power and deliverance, the miracle-working God of the desert. “But that has little to do with the everyday affairs of life such as receiving rain, growing grapes, and paying bills” (27). Today we call that “being relevant.” It made me pause and wonder if the whole idea of being relevant has become an idol. I have a feeling it has.

Into the midst of all this comes the Troubler—Elijah. He tells the people that they cannot have compartments. Yahweh is not a God with boundaries. He gathers everyone on together on Mount Carmel and a showdown. We know what happens. Fire falls, consuming Elijah’s offering. Yahweh is God, Yahweh alone.

I guess the question for me is twofold. Where have I created boundaries/compartments? And where have I allowed the myths of our world to infringe on my exclusive worship of God?

The Scheme

Today I’m just going to look at the introduction, or what the author calls “The Scheme.” Here he sets out the basic premise behind the book: “If Satan can get us to insert inferior interests and motives into our worship, then the Conspiracy will accomplish its goal” (10). And, in short, its goal is to defeat God (10). In order to accomplish this, it “plays upon our blind spots. All of us are vulnerable” (10).

Of course, one has to wonder: can God be defeated? And I suppose that would depend on how you view God and God’s providence. Perhaps another way to say this is: Can God’s will be thwarted, or does God always get God’s way? Or to narrow it down even more: Do humans really have free choice? Does creation have freedom to choose? If we answer that ‘yes,’ than God’s will can be thwarted, and in that sense God can be defeated. Think of it this way: every time someone chooses against God, God suffers a defeat. So in this way God can be defeated; and that is the goal, Truesdale says, of the Baal conspiracy. And “[t]o achieve its goal, it tries to enlist the people of God—those of us who sit in church on Sunday morning or Saturday night—as its agents” (10).

He brings us to Elijah, and how easily Israel became beguiled by the conspiracy. After all, it is what “passed for advanced agricultural science” of the day (12). It explained how things grew, why crops flourished. It helped farmers increase their yield, offering “the key for success in everyday life” (12). Seems innocent enough, but in fact it had a deleterious effect.

Truesdale purposes in the 10 chapters that make the body of the book to expose the nuances of this conspiracy and how subtle it finds its way into the church. He will do so using a sort of historic fiction, bringing us into the lives of the people who made up the events of the Old Testament.

What I would really like to emphasis, though, is his “Word of caution.” We can either read these chapters with a fatuous confidence, noting how these words describe so well everyone else. Or we can read these words in a way that serves to examine our own lives, helping to drive out those furtive idols that linger in our own blind spots. Personally, I want to engage the book in this way and I hope you do as well.