The new idolatry of a godless society

Gone are the days when ruthless pagan kings and emperors forced Christians to worship pagan gods. In those days, kings were demi-gods. Not to pay obeisance to the king was tantamount to making a pact with death. A great multitude of Christians faced the gory spectacle of public execution on account of their obstinate refusal […]

Gone are the days when ruthless pagan kings and emperors forced Christians to worship pagan gods. In those days, kings were demi-gods. Not to pay obeisance to the king was tantamount to making a pact with death. A great multitude of Christians faced the gory spectacle of public execution on account of their obstinate refusal to worship the king and his god. For these Christians, no earthly power or principality could assume the place of the One True God. Thus, they bore courageous witness to the truth that “obedience to God comes before obedience to men” (Acts 5:29). Fast forward to the 21st century. In our own day, a new phenomenon has arisen in Christianity. We now live in a society where many Christians have freely given themselves to the worship of other gods – the gods of money, power, wealth, fame and self. In the pursuit of false happiness, poisonous attraction has become the fate of many Christians.
A new idolatry is fast spreading today which turns the worship of God into the worship of self. Instead of worshipping the almighty God, many Christians of today now worship themselves. It is not only today’s Christians who have been held in this spiritual bondage. All over the society, the craze for self-adulation has infested the lives of many people. Modern psychology calls this narcissism. The Apple Dictionary defines narcissism as “excessive admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance; extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” It has to do with the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.
Psychoanalysts have identified four types of narcissism. They are leadership narcissism, which expresses itself in excessive fixation with power; superiority narcissism, which expresses itself in arrogance; self-absorption narcissism, which shows itself in excessive self-admiration; and exploitative narcissism, which is fixated with an undue sense of entitlement. Although most individuals have some narcissistic traits, high levels of narcissism manifest themselves in a pathological form as narcissistic personality disorder, whereby the person overestimates his or her abilities and has an excessive need for admiration. Narcissists typically display most of the following traits: an obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges, problems in sustaining satisfying relationships, difficulty with empathy and hypersensitivity to criticism. They flatter people who admire and affirm them, and detest those who do not. They are fond of using other people for the satisfaction of their wants, and pretending to be more important than they actually are. They brag persistently about their achievements and overestimate their self-worth.
Although this behavioural problem is one of the most visible features of human society, its infiltration into religious and sacred places has cast a dark pall on the quality of Christian conversion and authentic witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who came into the world not to be served but to serve and to give up his life as a ransom to redeem humanity (Mk. 10:45). All over the place, we see Christians who have a skewed mentality with regard to Christian service and good works. Many Christians nowadays are eager to be acknowledged and celebrated for doing good. Ours has become an age where Christians crave for titles, awards, and positions of prestige in the church. Quite sadly, this craving sometimes results in stiff competition, acrimony, dirty power tussles, bribery and morally abominable practices. The apostles of Jesus and the martyrs of Christianity who rendered the greatest service to the faith never aimed for earthly rewards. Their goal was heaven and only heaven. Their good works were done out of love for God and for the good of humanity.
Anyone observing contemporary trends in Nigerian Christianity will be hard pressed to explain why many Christians now struggle for earthly accolades for whatever good they have done. They no longer have the patience to wait on God to reward their good works; they now reward themselves in the name of God with all manner of dubious titles and awards. It is puzzling that in a society where moral decadence and social degeneration have become the order of the day, more and more people are receiving all manner of awards. The more corrupt and morally depraved our society becomes, the greater the proliferation of awards. Many church groups have been torn apart by ethnic bigotry, pecuniary inducements and other shameful practices on account of this. Isn’t that why financial corruption, moral degeneration and spiritual pollution continue to thrive in a society that has been described as the most religious in the world? The near impotence of religion in the face of today’s social upheavals and crisis of values should trouble those of us who call ourselves Christians.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught his disciples not to be like the Pharisees who love to parade their good deeds in public so that people may acknowledge them. If they do this, they receive their earthly reward and run the risk of losing the ultimate reward: heaven. It is not for nothing that this gospel passage is read on every Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of the penitential season of Lent, when Christians are reminded with the imposition of ashes on their foreheads that, “We are dust and unto dust we shall return” (Gen. 3:19; Eccl. 3:20).In Luke 17:7-10, Jesus recounts the story of a steward who after coming back from a heavy day’s work in the fields was not invited to “eat and drink” or to take a short rest. Rather, his master asked him to get his food ready, serve it at table and wait on him. The master does not have to thank the steward for doing his job.
Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the Gospel passage in a homily on October 3, 2010 said that “Jesus makes us aware that, before God, we find ourselves in a similar situation: we are God’s servants; we are not his creditors but we are always debtors in relation to him because we owe him everything; everything is his gift. Accepting and doing his will is the way that we must live every day, in every moment of our life. Before God we must not present ourselves as those who believe that they have done a service and deserve a great recompense. This is an illusion that can arise in everyone, even in persons who do much work in the Lord’s service, in the Church. We must instead be aware that we never do enough for God. We must say, as Jesus suggests: ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty’ (Lk 17:10). This is an attitude of humility that truly puts us in our place and permits the Lord to be very generous with us.”
All of us have been tempted, when we have done a good deed, to pat ourselves on the back. But what should keep us in check is the realisation that it is an honour to serve God, and not to seek to be honoured for serving God. Many times when we expect and even demand gratitude and recognition for our good works when, really, we have done nothing extraordinary other than fulfil our duty, let us remember that God’s logic is very different.
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.