Tim Keller adds to a recent string of excellent books with his latest entry, Counterfeit Gods. After sharing his wise, pastoral insights on the most logical way to make sense of our world (The Reason for God) and opening up the fantastic lessons to be learned from both brothers in Luke 15:11-32 (The Prodigal God), he returns to give us excellent counsel on assessing our lives to find out what we truly serve and worship.
Keller does takes some basic, obvious truths that should be taught with regularity in the church and expounds on them with significant depth. The introduction, subtitled The Idol Factory, gives a solid outline for the points to be made throughout the rest of the book. Keller takes the time to identify what idols are, what idols are prevalent in our society, how we can identify our idols, and what can be done to place those idols where they truly belong. The tone is gently corrective, piercingly insightful and overtly pastoral. Dr. Keller delivers on a lifetime of faithful service with meat for even the most experienced believers. Keller focuses on big issues like love, money, power and success while taking time to place other areas of idolatry into these major themes. Two quotes from the introduction really give us a framework for the entire book:
We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. p.xvii
With the global economy in shambles, many of those idols that we have worshipped for years have come crashing down around us. This is a great opportunity. p.xxiv
Keller starts with a chapter, All You’ve Ever Wanted, that lays out a basic reasoning for why we are susceptible to idols. He argues, from Romans 1, that the we inevitably create idols as God allows us to not only pursue, but achieve, our greatest desires. The next four chapters are focused on the major areas of idolatry one at a time. Chapter six starts the work of exposing the hidden idols in our lives such as profit, race, and nationality while taking some shots at typical “American Dream” issues.
Things like honesty and commitment to one’s workers and environment must be embraced as goods themselves–equally important as profit–or integrity will not be maintained. p.128
Jonah had a personal idol. He wanted ministry success more than he wanted to obey God. Also, Jonah was shaped by a cultural idol. He put the national interests of Israel over obedience to God and the spiritual good of the Ninevites. p.136
Racial pride and cultural narrowness cannot coexist with the gospel of grace. p.139
We are so enslaved to our idols that we don’t care about people who are Different, who live in the big cities, or who are just in our own families but very hard to love. p.153
Chapter seven focuses on the account of Jacob being injured while wrestling to show that ending our idolatry often requires a significant loss of self-reliance. We get back to the current financial climate and the tremendous opportunity it affords us. The epilogue gives practical steps for finding and replacing our idols. Keller focuses on for basic areas to find our idols: our imagination, our spending habits, identifying our daily functional salvation, and our uncontrollable emotions. The final point is simply that we must replace idols to get rid of them.
If you uproot the idol and fail to “plant” the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back. p.172
Another excellent work from a phenomenal pastor. Wisdom is hard to come by and it is always great to have those who are humble enough to share it in a meaningful way that equips believers to grow into that wisdom.
