“There are two kinds of idols. One must be demolished entirely, ground into powder at the brook Kidron, and used to desecrate the graves of the people (2 Kings 23:5-7). There is to be no quarter given to this kind of idol—for example, a statue of Tash in your backyard, to which neighborhood puppies and kittens are sacrificed. That is not the sort of thing that can be gradually opposed. But there is another kind of idol, where natural and good gifts from our Heavenly Father have assumed a wrongful place in the heart loyalties of an individual. He might be greedy for money, which is idolatry (Col. 3:5), and yet after repentance he must still purchase things. He might love his father and mother in such a way as to keep him from becoming a disciple of Christ (Matt. 10:37; cf. Luke 14:26), and yet true repentance does not mean that he needs to shoot his father and mother, and bury them in a desecrated graveyard at the brook Kidron. Rather, it means demoting them from the god shelf of his heart, and honoring them in the proper way more than he ever did in his life before.”
American Milk and Honey, pp. xii-xiii