Weekly Web Roundup (10/1/16)

Photo Credit: Brook Ward

Here are some interesting stories from around the web that I've seen during this past week:

4 Principles for Political Witness in our American Babylon by Bruce Ashford (The Gospel Coalition)

"Similarly, evangelicals shouldn’t submit to the false political gods that flourish and abound in the United States of America. How do we identify the “false gods” in our own nation? We look for anything raised to a level of ultimacy that God alone occupies."

Is Columbus Day Going Extinct? by Lizzie Crocker (The Daily Beast)

"Businesses in the entire state of Alaska, however, will be closed for Indigenous Peoples Day, after Gov. Bill Walker renamed the holiday last year. The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, will also celebrate its first Indigenous Peoples’ Day, after the City Council voted unanimously in June to change the name of a holiday whose namesake, they decided, was not worthy of celebrating."

Black Women Are Leaning In And Getting Nowhere by Emily Peck (The Huffington Post)

"Part of the problem is “invisibility,” Purdie-Vaughns writes. When the average person thinks of a “woman leader,” she argues, the image that comes to mind is a white woman ― like Sandberg. If you picture a black leader, you’re more likely to think of a black man than a black woman. “Because black women are not seen as typical of the categories ‘black’ or ‘woman,’ people’s brains fail to include them in both categories,” Purdie-Vaughns writes. “Black women suffer from a ‘now you see them now you don’t’ effect in the workplace.”"

Yes, You Should Say Something: Overcoming Awkwardness with Grieving People by Nancy Guthrie (The Gospel Coalition)

"It’s not up to you to say something that answers the significant questions they’re asking. Those take some time to work through, and if they sense your willingness to linger with them a bit in the midst of the questions rather than offer simplistic answers, they’re more likely to want to explore them with you down the road. It’s not up to you to recommend the book they need to read, the counselor they need to see, the drug they need to take. You don’t have to provide a framework for thinking and feeling their way through their loss. Really, you just have to show up and say little. What they need more than someone with a lot of words is someone with a willingness to listen without judgment, someone who seems to be entering into their hurting world for the long haul of grief."

How Should Universities Atone for Their Past Mistakes? by Alia Wong (The Atlantic)

"While black enrollment at colleges and universities has increased dramatically in the last two decades, the share of students at top-tier institutions who are African American has actually dropped. Fewer than 4 percent of students at the most competitive colleges in the United States come from the nation’s lowest socioeconomic quartile. Statues, seals, and buildings continue to honor people who embraced slavery and sought to keep these kinds of students out."

How Did Hitler Rise to Power? : New TED-ED Animation Provides a Case Study in How Fascists Get Democratically Elected (Open Culture)

How Idolatry Leads To Spiritual Slavery

Photo Credit: Leslee Mitchell

I'm currently reading Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. Keller does a brilliant job of unpacking how often the good things in our lives can subtly turn into ultimate things in our hearts, usurping God's rightful place in our lives.

In the second chapter entitled "Love is Not All You Need", Keller shares the story of a beautiful woman he met while he was a young pastor and makes the correlation between idolatry and slavery:

"In the early days of my pastoral ministry, I met a woman named Sally, who'd had the misfortune of being born beautiful. Even in childhood she saw the power that she could wield with her physical attractiveness. At first she used her beauty to manipulate others, but eventually others used it to manipulate her. She came to feel that she was powerless and invisible unless some man was in love wither her. She could not bear to be alone. As a result, she was willing to remain in relationships with men who were abusive. 

Why did she endure such treatment? She had come to look to men for the kind of deep affirmation and acceptance that only God can provide. As a result, she became a slave to love. Nowadays we may hear someone say, "Oh, my boss is a slave master," but that is only a loose metaphor. Some bosses can make things hard on you, but real slave masters know no boundaries. They can literally do anything they want to you - beat you, rape you, or even kill you. In the same way, we know a good thing has become a counterfeit god when its demands on you exceed proper boundaries. 

Making an idol out of work may mean that you work until you ruin your health, or you break the laws in order to get ahead. Making an idol out of love may mean allowing the lover to exploit and abuse you, or it may cause terrible blindness to the pathologies in the relationship. An idolatrous attachment can lead you to break any promise, rationalize any indiscretion, or betray any other allegiance, in order to hold onto it. It may drive you to violate all good and proper boundaries. To practice idolatry is to be a slave."

Anything in our life can become an idol when it gets elevated from just being a good thing into an ultimate thing. Whether its a relationship, work, money, food, comfort or any other host of things, idols are those things that take God's place in our lives. And once something becomes an idol in our heart, we then become a slave to that idol.