Your Own Personal Baal

In the imagination of their hearts, the sky god Baal looked down with longing upon the earth goddess Ashtoreth, overcome with desire toward her, he took her for himself, and through this union--creation sprang forth.


The peoples of Canaan, for their own safety, security, and the fulfilling of their own desires created a system to explain, control, and placate these elemental forces.  Much like we bend nature with technology to satisfy needs and passions, these ancients sought their own religious techniques based upon their own observation of their world.  


If Baal was angry, life, weather, and crops would go bad--so he needed something to soothe his restless heart.  Sacrifice was required to settle Baal and bring harmony once more.  This was not so much as worship as it was manipulation.  


Sexuality, fertility rites, and debauchery were acts that prompted Baal and his goddess Ashtoreth to move in favor toward man.  And Israel was attracted to this and tempted by it, for not only could passions run amok in this system, it provided control and power over ones life.  You had your own god at your disposal to grant wishes and bring gifts upon request, if you knew the right steps and formulas, binding the power of the elements for your own desires.  


Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Moses, and Joshua, was not like this--He was wilder and unable to be domesticated into a beast of burden.  This is harder stuff.  Worship is worship not manipulation.  Worship does not satisfy His wrath, it provides union with Him, but will cost you your life.  Success, fruitfulness, and goodness may come as by-products of this relationship but they are no guarantees, except one--He is your God and you are His people.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Theistic Evolution Orthodox?

Image
Everyday Theology or Speculative Theology? Eagle River Institute, I’m disappointed.  Your institute has produced consistent edifying lectures for the Orthodox Christian. Yet, you allow someone to present on Evolution as if this is the only sensible position for an Orthodox Christian.  It is not! The presentation is upsetting. Maybe you found the arguments edifying for the average Orthodox Christian, but please qualify it. This is a historical aberration and deserves to be contrasted in the light of the historic Christian position. This article stands as a counterpoint to the theistic evolutionary position held by Dr. Gayle Woloschak in her presentation at the Eagle River Institute in August. There are more episodes to come, and depending on their content, I may put together another response. First of all, I am not judging this person’s Christian faith and commitment to Christ and Orthodoxy.  I am not judging her piety or personal holiness. I am judging her ideas about th
Read more

4 Senses of Scripture

Image
Scripture is a critical element in the life of a Christian, but it does not take much effort to see the abuse and twisting that the Bible has endured at the hands of well meaning and not-so well meaning people over the centuries.   To protect against such error, the Bible should be read within the context of the Church.  This means many things but one aspect of context is a particular approach to reading Scripture.   This approach can be summarized as the Four Senses of Scripture.  From early times times, the faithful approached Scripture this way.  Faithful Jews prior to Christ used this method, and it became incorporated into the life of the Church from the beginning.   Later in history these 4 Senses were listed and categorized with helpful labels by St. John Cassian (360-435).  The labels stuck and have been used ever since.   What are they? Literal:   Another way of stating this is literary.  Obviously not every Scripture is meant literally.  Genre must b
Read more

The Problem of Orthodox Culture

Over the past months several Orthodox writers have taken up the topic of Orthodox culture and whether we can create one in this country.  Much of the writing flows out the pens of artists, so I am sure that this is a desire longing for an ethos where there is a richness of art seen in places like old Russia with majestic architecture, beautiful music and haunting works of literature.  I long for this too. What is the critical mass of people for such a culture to emerge?  Evangelicals have had this mass in America for some time, but only recently is there a serious arts movement bubbling up.  Rather than a culture of high art, I propose we are looking for community, and this is the base where we must start. The magnet that draws Americans into the Evangelical world, robust Catholic life, and even stranger American movements such as Mormonism is not theology, but community.  This is a place where you can enter and every part of your life is infected by it.  For these be
Read more