dolatry is a prison of the
unregenerate mind. It is the direct result of pursuing or having our
legitimate needs for love, affection, and approval met by someone or thing
through means other than God's providential care. In Matthew 22:36-40, the
Lord expounded on this theme when answering a question about the
commandments. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ Jesus
said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.' ‘This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On
these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’
Idolatry is an
addiction to people, behavior, or things in order to have valid needs met. It
means to be dependent upon someone or some thing instead of solely relying on
God’s provision for our life’s needs. The idolater attempts to control their
life and emotions by controlling people, things, or events. The need to
control is central to every aspect of life. The flesh pattern from a corrupt
nature of the idolater is in control most of the time in order to satisfy
their need.
The goal of this
work is to begin to eradicate the immediate problem of idolatry. The desire
is to prevent damage in the future, to improve the believer’s quality of life,
to make life more manageable, to help people gain control of their lives, to
break the cycle of repetition (iniquity) and to avoid making serious mistakes.
Independent of God,
the false identity we retain from old flesh patterns will do anything to stay
in control. The voice of the false identity is ‘actively’ independent,
causing obsessive/compulsive behaviors without regard to relationship,
behavior, or feelings.
There are
people who depend solely upon their ‘false identity’ to receive the love and
affection they need. The idolater needs to be satisfied by an idol in order
to function in their everyday life. The idolatrous behavior of the family and
the nature of the relationship helps and enables the idolater’s false identity
to stay in control.
Idolatry causes
people to live quiet lives of desperation. The idolatrous false identity’s
nature in control will leave a person lacking a sense of self, hence, a false
identity. The persons true identity, created by God, comes under severe
restrictions. These people do not feel ‘connected’ to God being unregenerate
since they are not under the protective covering of ‘born-again’, regenerate
parents. Anyone the person with a false identity in control are in a
relationship that suffers the consequences of the unregenerate nature.
Often, an
idolater is enmeshed with another person's personality and tragically so when
the need arises to resolve their problems. They preoccupy themselves with the
lives of others. These people are described as emotional vacuums, these
idolaters lives out of other's life experiences.
Like a
magnet, they attract other idolaters and justify each other’s behavior. These
people are enablers. The person can be childishly dependent upon those around
them, and at the same time rebellious and independent toward authority.
Sometimes embittered toward God, they often have no concept of grace and
mercy.
The
obsessive/compulsive behavior that often develops may involve a chemical
dependency or dependency on a person or thing. The substance abuse may
involve alcohol or drugs (illegal or prescription). The object of their
compulsive behavior can also involve things - i.e., money, food, sex, work,
etc..
The significant
other person in the relationship is often a spouse who allows the idolatry to
continue in order to maintain some form of security. The family adjusts their
lives and their whole way of perceiving life to accommodate the obsessive/
compulsive behavior or addictions of the idolater. What they consider
'normal' is abusive; these people cannot see the problem because of their
‘skewed’ perception and ‘world view’. The grid of their own family experience
is all they know.
The
idolatrous relationship continues until exposure of the corrupt nature of a
false identity begins. Exposure to the Truth of our identity in Christ and
total surrender to God will defeat the enemy. The only way to overcome denial
is by shattering the walls used to camouflage the presence of a false identity
and surrender to their new identity in Christ.
The only way to
treat the idolater and the family is to restructure their world view.
Restructuring the way people see God and themselves is necessary. These
people need truth as a basis of the way they see the world. They must be
willing to change and facilitate a brand new family dynamic. Individually,
they need to be re-parented to God.
The predominant
trait of an idolater is the driven state at which they operate. This
performance-based mentality often leads to one or more compulsions. This
often binds and torments the person in a similar way things were in the
dysfunctional family of origin.
The
idolater's self-esteem (and, frequently, maturity) is very low because their
self-worth is based upon another person’s opinion of them. He is certain his
or her happiness hinges on others, while the idolater may feel inordinately
responsible for others.
The idolater’s
relationship with a spouse or significant other person may mar the
relationship by a damaging, unstable lack of balance between dependence and
independence. When confronted, they are often a master of denial and
repression. They may worry about things they cannot change, and may well try
to change them. For these people, extremes punctuate their life. They are
constantly looking for the something that is missing or lacking in life.
The most
significant cause for idolatry in the family is unmet emotional needs through
deprivation of the God-given need to love and be loved. In a dysfunctional
family, satisfying the desires of their false identity preoccupies the
members. In a graceless, dysfunctional family, the parents’ relationship with
God may drain the child of love as well as others around them. Idolatry
throws the way the family looks at things off kilter.
In a normal functional family, both parents transmit
love to the child. In a normal functional family, the bond is mutual love and
respect, a genuine friendship. The parents receive God's love and freely give
it to the child.
Role transference is
transferring the feelings of one relationship to another. In essence a person
attributes the characteristics of their natural father to God as the father
figure. They see God in human terms. The person unconsciously attributes the
same human imperfection to God that they see in their human relationships.
Where the skewed relationships reign in life, people can believe dysfunction
also reigned in the family of origin. The false identity can be exposed when
people understand ‘why’ the dysfunction embraced the family of origin. The
preconceived ideas and vain imaginations of the false identity come from a
skewed perception of reality. The person colors their world from the grid of
their own world view. The idolater only sees through the eyes of the
dysfunctional family relationships. Until God intervenes, as the Holy Spirit
quickens them, they are lost.
The sin of idolatry
in a nominal believer may cause emotional predisposition by idolatrous bonds,
pre-conceived ideas or vain imaginations. The idolatry mutes the prayer life
severely. He or she will be unable to enjoy and appreciate the loving nature
of God, unable to attain an intimate relationship with God, and miss the whole
point of the Gospel -- mercy and grace. The misbeliefs of an idolater will
cause them to have trouble putting their full faith in God. Things are
subject to gross misinterpretation by the person. They cannot hear and
respond to God adequately. The person's perception of God from the family of
origin usually polarizes around the skewed view. The skewed individuals
often locks onto performance-based acceptance as the norm. This contributes
to them feeling bad about themselves emotionally, feeling inadequate and
unworthy. If the home was idolatrous, these people will see God as unloving,
unforgiving, unattainable. Children often have a fundamental sense of
condemnation and try to win God's approval through legalism, perfection,
self-sacrifice, self-abuse, and performance-based acceptance.
In order for healing
to take place we can no longer allow denial. Until we expose the false
identity, denial will exist. Idolaters are masters of denial. They are
people living a lie. Yearning to know God, people fill the days with
pretending and wishful thinking. Idolaters emotionally resist addressing the
past and often have a loss of recollection of their childhood because they
grew up with a skewed view of God. The phenomenon is what we call role
transference. The false identity may not even be aware of God.
There is a warping
effect because of idolatry that keeps people from seeing clearly. They make
the same errors repeatedly, the repetition complex. Idolaters attract each
other like magnets; these people support one another’s corrupted view of
life. The person seldom addresses the visible glossed-over symptoms or
character flaws and the obvious sin.
The only way an
addict can remain in their addiction is if somehow they can maintain their
denial. Denying the consequences or reducing them through magical thinking
make them become manageable. With denial broken for a short time, the
revelations expose the addiction cycles and they see what they are possibly
for the first time.
Another issue with
idolatry is that while the idolater must deal with only their own problem, the
idolater’s family is also dealing with several problems. Denial itself can
become an obsessive compulsion. They become very frustrated and angry blaming
everyone else for their problems denying personal responsibility.
Idolaters build
elaborate relationships, going far beyond the obvious substituting one role
for another in the back rooms of their minds. In a new relationship the
idolater seeks to recreate with the persons available the original family
dynamic, the original family pain, the original family situation. The false
identity habituates toward the ‘normal dysfunction’. This is the iniquity or
tendency to commit the same mistakes from the past. This time around the
mountain, they believe: the problem will mend, the pain ease, and the
situation will be corrected. Unfortunately, until the death of the false
identity the dysfunction repeats.
The relieve the pain
and suffering. The idolater must be made aware of his subjection to the
emotional dynamics of his own family’s idolatry and the roles they play. The
roles people in the family play reveal they have no faith in God or they have
a spurious faith that is really no faith in God at all. These people feel
they need to help, they need to fix things up, and they need to be everything
to everyone. They do not have a personal relationship with God or lack
knowledge and understanding of the providential care of God as their parent.
The healing process
in the family relationship begins with: 1) realization about the past step by
step; 2) resolving the anger over what their past did to them; 3) grief over
the loss; and 4) cleansing through forgiveness that will result in healing.
The tendency to
repeat the idolatrous family of origin’s dynamics is the factor behind the
repetition compulsion. The symptoms are the homing instinct, magical
thinking, wishful thinking, vain imaginations, and the self-made guilt trip.
The homing instinct is a primal need to recreate the familiar, the original
family situation, even if the familiar is destructive and painful. The
symptoms are magical thinking, wishful thinking, and vain imaginations. ‘If I
do 'X', then 'Y' will happen.’ Guilt and magical thinking often play off each
other in the following manner, ‘If I had only tried harder, I wound not have
failed.’ This lends itself to the dynamic of the self-made guilt trip in
which a child takes on the responsibility of another for success, happiness,
etc.; ‘It must be my fault!’
There are three
reasons for the continuation of the repetition compulsion. The first reason
is the erroneous belief that, ‘I can fix it’; or, ‘ I can cure the pain.’.
The second series is that it is their fault, ‘I must be punished. ’or, ‘I
deserve pain.’. The third option is that these people yearn for the familiar,
the secure. The persons who try to recreate the dynamics of the familiar
often perceive an untruth (vain imaginations) to complete the picture.
The roles people
share in the idolatrous family are: 1) the Hero-the one who fixes situations;
2) the Scapegoat - often restless, non-conformist, a free spirit with
unorthodox behavior; 3) the Mascot - the suffering merrymaker, comic relief
is his normal way to ease tensions; and 4) the Lost Child - the nice child,
our miss goody-two shoes. The problem is not in their behavior, but in their
identities. They lack a strong sense of identity, of being their own person.
They don't really know what they need from life.
The dysfunctional
family roles continue because of deception. The deception enables a family's
self-destructive tendencies to continue. The idolatry would no longer exist
if it weren't for the enabler. Enablers support and keep the idolatry in the
family going because they do not know the truth. Illusion keeps the
idolatrous sin secret and deceives the family through lies. By adjusting to
the idolatrous belief system all the family members play the role of the
enabler.
The role’s the
family plays in order to continue are the Placater, the Martyr, the Rescuer,
the Victim, or the Persecutor. The Placater is a born negotiator who is going
to make it all better somehow. The Martyr sacrifices time, energy and
happiness to alleviate the family situation, but they will not be able to make
a difference in the dependent’s habits. The Rescuer administers first aid to
keep the family dynamic going. It is their way to salvage the situation. The
Victim is intensely self-pitying and doesn't feel they deserve or should ask
for anything. The Persecutor lays the blame everywhere but on the self. They
tell everyone what they're doing wrong and why they haven't achieved
perfection.
Physically abusive
parents tend to isolate themselves and show any number of the following
traits. They usually have a poor self-image, lack of sensitivity to others'
feelings, were physically abused themselves, were deprived of basic mothering,
have unmet needs for love and comfort, are in denial of problems and the
impact of those problems, feel there is no one to turn to for advice, have
totally unrealistic expectations of children, and expect their children to
meet their needs for comfort and nurturing. When children fail to meet their
parents needs, they interpret this as rejection and respond with anger and
frustration. They tend to deal with children as if they were much older then
they are. In homes where spouses abuse the wife or husband, witnessing the
abusive events equivocates to the child abuse. The witness is also a victim
of violence and learns to victimize too.
ymptoms of abuse may be
visible with the compulsive thinking and irrational behavior of idolatrous
relationships. The abusive relationships appear in families or in social
organizations and businesses. The relationships usually distort by what
happened before in their family of origin or through life experiences. The
abuse may be overt or covert and often comes in differing forms and methods.
The degree of abuse is measured in severity and by consistency. Love
deprivation is also common. Significant emotional problems bind them and they
can never meet the need for acceptance, nurturance, security, and commitment.
The abuse victim or
idolatrous person may manifest behaviors such as out of control spending or
workaholism. These people must take work home. Their work habits are out of
control and they put off -- time off, they find it difficult, if not
impossible, to relax. Their secret life may involve activities such as
reading skin magazines, erotic videos, pedophilia, slasher movies, lewd
literature, the services of prostitutes, or other illegal activities. If they
marry, they may have obsessive thoughts concerning their spouse. In any other
relationship, the significant other person’s behavior comes under intense
scrutiny. These people may all be using addictive agents or involved with
compulsive behaviors. These activities might include rageaholism, repeated
plastic surgery, gambling, devotion to an organization or cause, television,
computer games and programs, card or board games, sports or other activities
including workout regimens. * This is only a partial list of possible
addictive agents or compulsions.
Forms of abuse may
be active or passive. Active abuse is out-in-front, easy to see, while
passive abuse is covert. Underlying passive abuse is not obvious and includes
deprivation of time, attention, or affection. Active forms of abuse include
beating, battering, sexual molestation, extreme anger or rage, verbal
violence, emotional beatings, guilt trips, and shaming.
Passive forms of
abuse may come from any of the following parenting styles. There is a problem
of over-protection; the child's not allowed to experience personal
responsibility. Then there is the denial of time, attention, or acceptance.
The parent may be emotionally unavailable and physically unavailable because
of alcohol dependence, substance abuse, or workaholism. There is a problem of
perceived abandonment because of divorce, military service, or the death of a
parent, even when it was an accidental death. They perceive events as
constant snubs. The rejection also reveals itself in non-emotional
encounters.
Passive verbal abuse
may also manifest itself in a lack of praise, encouragement, joy or support in
any of our relationships. Passive sexual abuse causes a lack of appropriate
touching. There is no embrace, no holding, no playing, and no sexual
discussion, teaching, or preparation. The parental lack of love and affection
between parents denies their intuitive sexual education. A lost childhood
comes from active or passive abuse. Entire episodes, often significant
portions of childhood in which abuse occurred become lost.
There are other
forms of abuse that may convey overt and covert messages, both spoken and
unspoken. They include character assassination, parental perfectionism,
autocratic or authoritarian control, compulsive behavior or addiction, chronic
depressions, legalism, or ritualistic living.
The Parent/Child
Relationship Abuse is the result of living by the law instead of grace, love
and acceptance. The idolatrous parents only convey acceptance to the child
who performs. The child therefore ‘hears’ estrangement and alienation.
Performance- based acceptance is the norm for the family and was the norm for
the parents as well. The child’s home life sets the standards and Performance
Based Acceptance is considered 'normal' where no one finds grace in any
relationship. Remember ‘normal’ is a ‘subjective’ term. It is also a
setting on the clothes' dryer. What occurred in the home of the child’s
parent was normal for them. Remember! Hurt people hurt people!
The problem of
emotional incest caused by extreme role reversal involves distortion and
transgression of appropriate family roles. The parents drain the love from
the child. The children may also become a sexual substitute, or children
become a parent to the parent. This frequently occurs in the alcohol
dependent or drug dependent family.
The children may
also become unwilling partakers in their parents unfinished business. The
abuse comes in the form of a desire or strong opinion of the parents
transmitted to the children. It is the business never completed by the
parent. The parent wants to live their dream vicariously through their
children. The children in this case are to live out the expectations of the
parents.
There is another
problem for the children in that they will often externalize the parents
internal struggle when emotional incest takes place. This happens when the
parents stay in the marriage and live only for the children. This may happen
when a parent makes a rotten choice for a partner. Then the expectation of
the opposite sex transfers to the child because of the terrible marriage
choice. The children live out a parents’ unfinished dream.
Every idolatrous
relationship produces anger on both or all sides. There are several different
types of anger to resolve in order to end the idolatry. Overt anger is seen
in outward manifestations and covert anger that erupts in a subtle way. Both
examples damage the emotions, and there is possible physical damage as well.
Depression is anger that a person turns inside to ease the pain. It's not the
only source, but it's one of the first causes to look for when there is
depression. Denial by either partner causes anger to hide. Anger may cause
passive aggressive responses -- such as an unconscious action to provide an
outlet for the spate of anger, the pressure relief valve. Sexual dysfunction
is another common response to anger.
The common sources
of anger in an idolatrous relationship often originate from: 1) a lost
childhood - inadequate nurturance; 2) a lack of completeness - a sense of
personal identity; and/or 3) a lack of fulfillment by others - futile attempts
to receive love from others, whose love then draws from another person, which
results in a dry well. (Only God can satisfy our need for love and
acceptance.)
While we hold these
people in contempt, are we blind to the truth about ourselves? Unresolved
anger generates resentment, bitterness, and eventually hatred. When we know
understand these truths we know the way the corrupt nature of the false
identity works in individuals, and only God can set them free from the
iniquity through Jesus sacrifice.