"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

With those words, the apostle John closes his beautiful first epistle. As if it is a most important afterthought, John gives this little postscript admonishing us to keep ourselves from idols. It almost seems out of place to me. And impertinent. After all, this is America, almost 2000 years after idolatry fell by the wayside. Right?

Maybe not. Maybe we sophisticated Americans still need to pay attention to that first of the Ten Commandments to have no other gods before Him. What idols could we possibly have?

It doesn’t take much reflection time to realize that we have many idols as a society: movie stars and musicians, money, pleasure, self, possessions—the list goes on. We even have "religion" words for many of these idols: humanism, materialism, hedonism, narcissism, existentialism. Our society even worships sub-gods within these idols: science, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Consider the highest authorities that news agencies quote in order to verify truth: "Scientists say . . .," "According to a recent article in the journal of the American Psychology Association . . .," "The most recent poll says that 6 out of 10 Americans believe . . .." Our source for truth is, in effect, our god.

In the church, too, we have our idols. For example, when we choose music or set our image to try to impress people, I think we are guilty of idolatry. We become men-pleasers, and that is the sin of idolatry. We also sometimes choose things that please ourselves: doctrines that scratch our itching ears, buildings that make us comfortable, programs that spoon feed us, worship that gives us that spiritual goosebump. We can be saying the right words, but really we can be guilty of humanism or hedonism or narcissism, but with a Christian glaze coating.

Here is a question: Can we worship without music? Or is music also an idol for us? The early church had no hymnals, no instruments, no buildings and no programs, and they did just fine, thank you. So if we only feel like we have worship when the keyboard music swirls around just right, or when the guitar drone sets the mood, could we be guilty of moving our worship from God to a form or style of music? God deliver us from such bondage!

It is all too appropriate that John ends his little letter with that important final word: little children, keep yourselves from idols.