It is a mistake to think of idols as statues of foreign Gods. The deadliest idols are the sense images derived from our own traditions that replace our reason, creativity and ethical principles.
Idolatry is when someone waves an American flag as they assault democratic principles protecting unpopular minorities. Idolatry is when patriotism becomes an assault on the weakest members of our one human family.
Idolatry is when the cross is lifted up as a symbol of political power instead of sacrificial suffering for others. Perhaps the biggest idol in the church today is the bible itself understood literally.
For many, scripture is a vital bridge to the experience of our ancestors. It is a bridge back through the ages to the great questions that have haunted humankind since we lived in caves. Scripture allows us to live in a longer story than our own brief span permits.
It is the height of idolatry to turn the Bible into a finished relic instead of a living conversation reaching back through time. No one really loves the Bible who pretends it is a flawless book that can be understood literally. ALL human speech is contextual and ambiguous by nature.
It is a lie to say the bible is one consistent manuscript that has been passed on unchanged through the centuries. What we call the bible consists of thousands of partial and often conflicting fragments woven together by human committees into a best guess of what the text originally said. No existing manuscript represents the original bible word for word.
Originally, the bible was not divided into numbered verses and so people naturally focused on the great themes found in the ancient stories. When the text was divided into individual verses, people began to gravitate toward the triviality of their own interpretations.
Literalists forget the ancient questions that makes scripture helpful in the first place. Once the bible became a sacred object consisting of neatly dividable verses, the ancient conversation it represented was lost. At that point the “living word” became, for many, an idolatrous relic as dead as a dissected frog.