Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bul l... then call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, ... but there was no voice, and no answer... At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:20–40).
First it was Countrywide Mortgage. Then other lending agencies followed. And then the unthinkable: Bear Stearns, an 80-year-old bastion of American investment, collapsed after its stock tumbled from over $170 to $2 per share in less than a year.
How often have we heard it? “The Market will correct itself.” “The Market will keep us strong.” “Trust the Market.” Even our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has bowed to the Market, reflecting “market values” in the structuring of salaries.
So what has happened to this real American Idol? Is our contemporary Baal off somewhere meditating? Has he wandered away? Or is he asleep and needs to be awakened?
Government officials and financial wizards went scurrying around like the prophets of Baal, trying to awaken “the Market.” Yet afraid to “trust the market,” they allocated $200 billion of our tax dollars to bail it out. In the panic, they continued to reduce interest rates, knowing full well that this would reduce the value of the dollar even further. They began to pray that European financial institutions would help us out by reducing their own interest rates.
It is time we U. S. Christians face up to our divided loyalties. We are among the wealthy of this country, where the gap between rich and poor has been growing for a long time. Unbridled competition, greed, individualism, dependence on the constant acquisition of material things, multimillion-dollar severance packages for CEO’s — even when they fail — are all marks of our contemporary Baal worship.
It is time for all who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ to look again at the focus of our lives, at the values that determine our lifestyles. In short, look again at whether the lord of our lives is the Market or the God made known in Jesus Christ. The Market, dismissive of communal human values that reflect concern for the least of Christ’s sisters and brothers, is an idol.
While we cannot recommend the slaughter of today’s Baal prophets — as a contrite, shamed Israel did — we can name the idolatry that drives this nation and determines so many of our personal choices. And we can reaffirm our loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and enter into new disciplines in terms of what we expect of ourselves and of those who govern us.
Vernon Broyles III is a volunteer for public witness in the Office of the General Assembly of the PC(USA). |
