American Idolatry, Part the First

A post that I made on the forum at the Bible Quiz forum board (now, unfortunately lost due to some technical difficulties) started me thinking on idolatry and some of the ways that American Christians practice it. To start off, we'll define terms, specifically idolatry. Merriam Webster gives us this:

1 : the worship of a physical object as a god
2 : immoderate attachment or devotion to something

I think most Christians get to the first definition and then stop. They think "I'm not worshiping idols or a tree. I don't believe this rock is my deity, so I'm out of the idolatry woods." This may very well be true, but it ignores the second definition, and there's where the real problem lies. In a Christian context, we should probably ammend the second definition to be:

2+: immoderate attachment or devotion to something other than God

Idolatry occurs when someone places anything above their worship of God. Sure, you might be a pious Christian on Sundays (oops, forgot about football, Sunday mornings, when the morning game isn't interesting), but where does your allegiance lie during the rest of the week? Do the Republicans really tick you off? How about the Democrats? Do you drop everything to watch your favorite sports team? If you find yourself more concerned about yards per carry than the state of your neighbor's relationship with God, you might just be an idolater.

More later.