Totalism: Part Four

In Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann offers this definition of totalism:

By “totalism” I mean a system of signs and symbols that make a claim of validity that is all-encompassing, that will allow no challenge or competition, and that will not countenance an act of imagination outside the control of that system of signs and symbols. Such a totalism characteristically has a monopoly on technology and control of the media, so that it sets limits on what can be imagined. It claims to contain all imaginable possibilities and rules all others out of court. Such a totalism, moreover, exercises an invisible authority, so that it is not recognized or acknowledged by those who adhere to it, and in any such case including our own, we are all to some extent subscribers to that totalism that commandeers our imagination and that is inimical to the “image of God” and its practices of holiness, forgiveness, love, peace, and thanks. (pp.210-211)

In my previous article on totalism, we looked at how the American brand of totalism as it relates to wealth and economics has infected the church and eviscerated the message of Jesus. In this article, I want to look at Brueggemann’s wider understanding of the idolatrous nature of totalism. 

He writes,

If we consider this totalism theologically, it is clear enough that the totalism I have characterized worships the idol of the golden calf, the one we know from the work of Aaron (Exodus 32).” (Brueggemann points out that the Hebrew word for calf refers to a young bull. So, we have a “bull of gold.”) “The combination of bull and gold suggests (a) a bull of fertility and virility that spills over into control and power, and (b) gold that reduces everything to a commodity. That combination, moreover, is the icon of Wall Street, an enterprise that now requires eager applause at its dramatic closing every day even if the market has failed to perform well on that day. It is not for nothing that the golden bull, in Exodus 32, is set for us by Aaron as an alternative to the covenantal God of Mount Sinai, who defined reality in terms of relationships of fidelity; it is not for nothing, moreover, that Yahweh, the God of covenant, was profoundly pissed off by the emergence of the golden bull, which contradicted the truth of covenant (Exodus 32:7-10).” (p. 212 in Tenacious Solidarity)

The golden bull story of Exodus has always intrigued and puzzled me. Hebrew slaves who have just been miraculously liberated from servitude to pharaoh by this desert Deity Yahweh now turn to Moses’ brother Aaron and ask him to provide them a god they can see. Aaron takes all their gold, melts it, and fashions it with a graving tool to form a molten bull. The Hebrews then shout, “These are the gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” Aaron builds an altar before the golden bull. The next day the people offer sacrifices to this god and feast before it. Two aspects of this story deserve serious consideration.

  1. How did former slaves who didn’t own “a pot or a window” have enough gold to build a golden bull? Where did the gold come from? Obviously, it came from Egypt (See Exodus 12:32-36). After suffering ten devastating plagues, the Egyptians, so eager to see the Hebrew slaves exit Egypt, were willing to pay them to leave. What was meant to be the spoils of war between the emancipating Yahweh and the enslaving god pharaoh was now used to build an idol to take the place of the Covenant God of Mount Sinai. Gold that Yahweh intended to be used by the former slaves as a head-start in this new stage of their lives was fashioned into a graven image. 
  2. There is a strange ambiguity in this text that is often overlooked. After molding the molten gold into a golden bull and hearing the people shout, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,” Aaron built an altar and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” The word “LORD” in Hebrew is Yahweh. (Anytime in the NRSV you see the word “LORD” with all uppercase letters, the word is a translation of Yahweh.) So, did Aaron and/or the people understand this golden bull to be an image of Yahweh the Liberator, or did they see the bull as another god? It’s interesting that the golden bull as an object of worship appears once more in Israel’s history. 

After successfully rebelling against the House of David and forming the northern ten tribes into the Northern Kingdom of Israel with himself as its new king, Jeroboam I constructed two golden bulls placing one in Bethel and the other in Dan. (See I Kings 12.)  He said to his subjects, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” (The Southern Kingdom of Judah had Jerusalem and the Ark of the Covenant which was related to the exodus. The two golden bulls in the Northern Kingdom would function as a rival to the Ark in Jerusalem.) Did Jeroboam’s words go back to a time when Yahweh was represented as a golden bull? Was there an alternative tradition originating in the mists of yesteryear? Is that why in Exodus 32 we have the phrase “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Notice that “gods” is plural. Is there a connection between Jeroboam’s two golden bulls and the “gods” in Exodus 32? 

For biblical scholars, all these questions are intriguing. But do these observations have any theological relevance for us in the 21st century? If the golden bull was meant to be a representation of Yahweh the Emancipator, I suggest there is a profound relevance. 

These newly liberated slaves wanted a god they could see. Moses had left the people to climb Mt. Sinai in order to commune with God on their behalf. These former Hebrew slaves did not know what had become of him. In their anxiety, they sought the security of a god they could see and, in some way, possess. But Yahweh had already forbidden the worship of other gods and the making of graven images (Exodus 20). The covenant people of Israel were not even allowed to make an image of this desert Deity. To preserve Her freedom and transcendence, this God would not even give Her name to Moses (Exodus 3). Yahweh’s people would know this Emancipator only as they went with Her into the future in trust and fidelity. They could never possess, control, or coopt Yahweh.

The problem with idols is that they give the false impression that God is in our midst in ways which compromise the ultimacy of our Creator. Molding God into a statue is reminiscent of Yahweh’s molding humanity from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2). We create and shape God into our own image to fit our own agendas and goals. God begins to look and act like us and can easily be assumed to affirm our desires and prejudices. A god who can be touched, caged (even in an elaborate temple or sanctuary), and identified with our limited and distorted concepts of deity leads to a most insidious form of idolatry. We may call our idols “God/Yahweh/Jesus” and assume we are being true in our worship and loyalty to these self-made deities. But this desert God will not be controlled, captured, or presumed. Her freedom protects both Her status and our own common good. Idols can take us only so far before betraying us or proving themselves to be woefully inadequate. Since they are humanmade, they can be no better than we are. 

It’s easy for us to see today how Baal, Molech, and Asherah were among the gods Israel should not worship over two thousand years ago. It’s obvious that graven images of them are dangerous and blasphemous idols. But it’s much more difficult for us to recognize the idols we worship and wrongly associate with the true God to whom we profess our devotion. The domestication of God by Israel might be helpful in revealing ways we are tempted to commit this subtle form of idolatry. 

After David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and his son Solomon built the Jerusalem temple and placed the Ark in the Holy of Holies, Yahweh basically became the patron god of the House of David. Davidic kings controlled the priests who chanted royal propaganda and were rewarded with their portion of the booty gained through the oppression of peasants. The priests of the temple basically became court chaplains serving the king instead of serving the real King (Yahweh). 

The kings of the Northern Kingdom made the same mistake as they tried to domesticate the God of the exodus and the covenant. The clearest example of this blasphemy is seen in Amos 7. The prophet Amos, who lived in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, was called by God to prophesy in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to King Jeroboam II that Amos was predicting the fall of the king and Israel because of its injustice and idolatry. With an apparent directive from the king, Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” A lot is presumed in Amaziah’s words. The temple in Bethel was not for the worship and glory of Yahweh. It belonged to the king and was intended to serve the king’s interests. Amaziah also assumed that Amos was a professional prophet who benefited materially from his prophesying. Those close to the king—even those credentialed as anointed representatives of God (and perhaps even with seminary degrees!)—have difficulty understanding the motivation of someone like Amos who is called to speak truth to power without any regard to financial gain. 

Yahweh through the prophet Samuel warned the people of the greed, arrogance, duplicity, and oppression of kings (See I Samuel 8:1-22). Most of that warning was related to economic oppression, extraction, and exploitation. The kings of Judah and Israel behaved exactly as God had warned. And they justified their exploitation and oppression by claiming to be anointed by God. They had priests and prophets on their payrolls to promote this idolatrous propaganda. No one was allowed to challenge this arrangement of totalism with impunity. 

In our day, the golden bull of Wall Street is a fitting symbol of an economy and a nation that has sold its soul to materialism, greed, and exploitation. It is a tangible idol of the real god so many of our people claim to worship. Jesus continued the message of the prophets as he warned of the dangers of worshiping money. Here are a few examples from his teachings:

  1. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE WILL YOUR HEART BE ALSO” (Matthew 6:19-21). My interpretation of that last sentence is “What you value is who you are.” 
  2. “No one can serve two masters; for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MONEY.” (Matthew 6:24) Notice that Jesus says we cannot serve God and money—it’s impossible to do both. But Christians throughout the ages, like devious lawyers seeking loopholes, have pursued ways to serve both. All such efforts eventually end in idolatry. 
  3. The parables of the rich fool (Luke 12) and of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16)
  4. “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:23-25; Luke 10:24-25)
  5. Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus relates materialism and greed to anxiety (The word “anxious” has the meaning of being pulled apart or being broken in pieces rather than being grounded in this Abba God who can be trusted.)

These teachings were spoken in a predatory society where the rich exploited the poor; where injustice was rampant; where the powerful could do violence to the weak with impunity; and where peasants had no rights whatsoever. The entire Roman Empire, including Herod Antipas’ Galilee and Pilate and Caiaphas’ Judea, was a gigantic system comprised of economic, religious, military, cultural, and political parts all working together to increase the wealth and status of the ruling elites. The Roman Empire, like all empires, was a blasphemous and idolatrous example of totalism. The temple in Jerusalem was controlled by Sadducees who were the elites and landed gentry of Judea. The high priest Caiaphas was a Sadducee who was collaborating with Rome in keeping the pax Romana while fleecing his own people. The writer of I Timothy is helpful in understanding this economic dimension of totalism when he writes, “The love of money is a root of all evil.” There is very little evil in our world that is not connected in some way to greed and coveting. 

The golden bull of Aaron and the golden bull of Wall Street may differ in some aspects, but at the deepest level, they both reveal a dangerous form of idolatry—an idolatry made possible when power and gold unite to create a predatory and addicted society.

The golden bull of Aaron and the golden bull of Wall Street may differ in some aspects, but at the deepest level, they both reveal a dangerous form of idolatry—an idolatry made possible when power and gold unite to create a predatory and addicted society. As Clarence Jordan often stated, the love of money is America’s most prevalent and destructive addiction. Addiction very easily can become a form of idolatry. American Christianity with its litany of “God Bless America,” its worship of a flag, its kneejerk identification of our empire’s agenda with the will of God, and its embrace of our culture’s definitions of success and the “good life” has too often played an insidious part in both legitimizing and embracing such idolatry. The privatized form of Christianity so popular in the United States serves quite well the heartless individualism of our ruthless and predatory brand of capitalism. 

Amaziah is alive and well in a lot of churches and pulpits. Regardless of what many profess, too many of our congregations are chapels of the kingdom instead of being churches of God’s Kingdom. Brueggemann is insightful when he writes that such totalism “is not recognized or acknowledged by those who adhere to it.” The seduction of the Big Lie is powerful, a point repeatedly made by John in Revelation who understood so well both the travesty and tragedy of totalism.

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