God has assigned a task to the Church in the world, and that task is to throw down all idols, and to establish the right worship of God throughout the earth, from the River to the ends of the earth.
But looking around, we have to come to grips with the fact that idolatry in our culture is camouflaged idolatry. For those who have traveled in overtly idolatrous countries, or who know something of the overt idolatry in our past, our secular culture may not look idolatrous at all.
Secularism is as idolatrous as the ancient paganism ever was, but because of the influence of the Church it has learned to deny what should be obvious, at least upon a moment’s reflection. To dispense with the candles, the shrines, the statues, the offerings of food, the incense, and the names of devotion, is not to dispense with the idol itself.
The worship of the ancient idols is, in various parts of our culture, as robust as it ever was. The ancient idols were worshipped in a very particular way—Diana of the Ephesians, for example. But now, the same forces are honored, worshipped, and practically served, but just not openly acknowledged. The story that Jesus told about the two sons, one saying he would go while not going, and the other saying he would not go while going anyway, has a perverse and idolatrous parallel. There are idolaters who say they will not and do not serve idols, and yet their behavior shows them to be devoted.
Consider the homage that Aphrodite receives in our day—on countless billboards and broadcasts, and in the corrupt decisions of our homoerotic judiciary. Consider the energy that is expended in pursuit of Mammon. Consider the worship of Gaia, mother earth, and all the pantheistic environmental heresies that come with that. Consider the worship of Mars, the god of war, the worship of Vulcan, the god of arms manufacturing. And of course, tying the worship of many of these gods into a bundle, we always find the worship of Caesar.
Now our task, as a Christian people, is to figure out where these idols are being worshipped, and to establish the worship of Jesus Christ there, in those places. But some worry—there might be casualties. There might be collision. There might be a war. Of course there will be. But if we do not do this, there will be a continuation of something far worse—desertion, cowardice, treachery, and a false peace with false gods.