“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
“And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
This is the second of the Ten Commandments of God. Isn’t there something odd, something creepy about this Commandment? Scholars don’t tire of commenting that this God is a loving God, a compassionate God, a merciful God, a forgiving God. As one scholar put it, “Forgiveness is ultimately the great theme that permeates the Bible. Men sin. God forgives”. (Kenneth C. Davis in his book “Don’t Know Much About the Bible”; Avon Books, Inc., New York). But can one see any semblance of love or forgiveness in this Commandment? If one commits a sin or mistake or whatever, the “children unto the third and fourth generation” will be punished, even though they may be righteous persons in their own rights! Isn’t it what it says? What sort of God is this?
Or, is it possible that God is saying, as an extension of the First Commandment, that if one entertains and indulges in bowing to the images like wine, women, wealth etc, they will end up damaging their family lives to such an extent it will have a deleterious effect for generations to come?
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” says this commandment. Kenneth C. Davis says in his very illuminating book: “Some Christians, particularly those Protestant denominations that emerged during the Reformation, rejected elaborate church buildings and certain religious practices in favour of a “purer” religion devoid of symbols and statuary – that’s how the “Puritans” got their name. To them, the religious statues and the magnificent cathedrals built to display these artistic works contradicted the commandment and the spirit of Jesus’ teachings.” Jesus Christ added for good measure, according to Matthew 6:5-6, “And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites: they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and so pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” Obviously what God says is to avoid all ostentation, pomp and show. As Kenneth C. Davis puts it, “One of the clearest themes in the ministry of Jesus is his contempt for outward expressions of empty piety in favour of the importance of inner, spiritual wealth”.
Just look at the specially designed huge altar that was put up in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi for the Pope’s mass on the 7th November 1999. It had some other props too like an elevator to raise the Pope from ground level to the pulpit, a special loo for him on one side of the dais and so on. Surely it must have cost a pretty penny. Don’t these things count as “graven images” or idols? Isn’t the entire Vatican a great showpiece, a super idol? Isn’t the Pope himself, with his regalia and paraphernalia, a great showpiece, a great idol? What about the huge expensive Basilicas, Cathedrals, Churches, Chapels and so on strewn all over the world? What are they if not idols which “the Lord thy God” frowns on? So, people who do not want to understand and follow their own God’s Commandments plot to entice some other persons to give up their own God and embrace this 'Christian' God. What an ethical thing to do indeed!
The Christians, as well as the Muslims, have the habit of commenting that the Hindus are idol worshippers, and that this is not in conformity with what Christianity and Islam preach. I believe it is Swami Vivekananda who gave an interesting demonstration of what idol worship means. When the Swami was in the USA, a host, brought up in the Christian faith, raised this issue. The Swami just looked around the room they were in, picked up a framed photograph of an elderly gentleman and asked the host as to whose picture it was. The host replied it was his father’s photo. The Swami, without any hesitation, dashed it to the ground, and it lay in a mangled ruin, with glass pieces strewn all around. The host was aghast, and shouted at the Swami why he was behaving like a mad man. The Swami was very cool and replied something like this: “This is the answer to your query. You have seen your father in person, have moved with him closely for a number of years, and you ought to be having his features etched sharply in your memory for ever, so much so you should be able to visualise his features and feel his presence any time you want. But you are unable to do so and you need a prop like a photograph to remember him and feel close to him again as before. This is precisely what idol worship is all about. Nobody has seen God in the physical form and no one knows what He looks like. But when one prays, the human mind naturally looks for something to hang on to. It is impossible for the mind to focus on a blank space or vacuum and pray. It needs a prop which is what the idol provides. When you pray looking at the figure of a God, you are not just looking at the stone or metal it is made of and admiring the skill of the craftsman who made it, but you are imbuing it with the spirit of the God and you make obeisance to that God you see in it.”
It is obviously something like this which “the Lord thy God” means when he speaks out against idol worship. Don’t reduce your Cathedral to a showpiece, making it an item of curiosity in the itinerary of conducted tours where the tourists run all over the place gawking at the figures and stained glass windows, clicking away to glory with their cameras, and go away after making a contribution toward its upkeep. This reduces it to just a dead idol with no semblance of the Divinity or Spirit or Life associated with it. The Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, the celebrated pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York, who has written scores of books on positive thinking, has reported about a practice he used to follow in his Sunday prayers. After the sermon was over, he would invite the congregation to bow their heads and spend a couple of minutes in total silence, when they were asked to feel the presence of God among themselves, and unload their minds of all the burden they were carrying, and leave them in the hands of God to help them with an answer. If this is the way the idol, the Church or Cathedral, is used, then it turns into an abode where God lives and answers your prayers. On the other hand, if it is just a social meeting place to spend a couple of hours on Sundays, it is only a dead idol.
Do the Muslims fare any better on this count? Their mosques are all idols. The Crescent one finds on top of every dome of the mosque is an idol. The great Black Stone in the middle of their Great Mosque in Mecca is nothing but an idol. And they talk deprecatingly of the Hindu practice of idol worship! Isn’t it rather sly on their part to do that?
Far from thinking of the idols as being only in the physical form, here is a different concept presented by Kenneth C. Davis. He says, “In his insightful book, Biblical Literacy, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin offers a useful insight on this commandment:
From Judaism’s perspective, idolatry occurs when one holds any value (for instance, nationalism) higher than God. Thus, a person who, on the basis of “my country, right or wrong,” performs acts that God designates as wrong, is an idolater; his behavior makes it clear that he regards his country’s demand to do evil as more binding than God’s demand to do good. Such a person’s claim to worship God – an assertion that was actually made by S.S. officers who worked in concentration camps – is plainly false; the person is an idolater, not a follower of God.”
My goodness! What a mind-blowing definition! Hasn’t he demolished the Pope, the Vatican, the Holy See, the entire Catholic Establishment, and blown them all to smithereens with these few simple words! In the name of the Crusades, how many millions have they killed and how much of property have they destroyed? On the basis of their stand that their interpretation of Jesus Christ’s teachings is the only correct one, and they will not tolerate anybody expressing a dissenting viewpoint, how many persons have they burnt at the stake as heretics? What are the Inquisitions, if not idols, which have caused millions of deaths? For Pope Pius XII, Nazism was an Idol to hold out against Communism; and he blessed, or at the least kept his gaze turned away from, the holocaust which exterminated millions of Jews. The Protestants had already experienced a similar fate way back in the 16th century, even though the casualty figure was much lower. Far from fighting for a reformation in the church, the Protestants found they were struggling for survival against a Catholic church whose cruelty and violence seemed to know no bounds. No wonder that Rabbi Telushkin has blasted the Catholics out of this world by saying that they are idolaters and not followers of God. And the Pope, who heads these idolaters, thinks of Hindus as ‘pagans’ and ‘heathens’ and ‘idol worshippers’ and wants to convert them to his sort of ungodly religion. What Irony!
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