Fun morality & Molech, illustrated

"You went to Molech with olive oil and increased your perfumes.
You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended into Sheol itself.
You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.'
You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.

Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me,
and have neither remembered me nor pondered this in your hearts?

Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?
I will expose your 'righteousness' and your 'works,' and they will not benefit you.
When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you.
The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.

But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain."
-Is. 57

Here's a gem of cultural analysis on the American cult of individualism/consumerism, resonating deeply with the supernatural perspective from Isaiah:

"The effectiveness of the mass media, however, as the key agent of psychological totalitarianism is not based on political or religious ideology. Rather it rests upon a base that I have described elsewhere as the myth of technological utopianism. Unlike religious myths in which meaning was spiritual—nature or the gods —this myth is thoroughly materialistic. Technological utopianism substitutes the perfect health and happiness of the human body for the spiritual well-being of the human soul. This meaning is ineffective because it is based on individualistic consumerism. For meaning to be effective it must be shared meaning that binds people together in common responsibilities and reciprocal moral relationships. Consumerism is a shared belief but it leaves one psychologically isolated, for it is based upon freedom without responsibility. The attempt to create meaning in consumerism, to spiritualize consumerism, fails because its utopian promise of perfect happiness and health cannot be achieved in this world, and therefore happiness and health remain transitory, as anxiety, suffering, and death constantly remind us."

-Richard Stivers, from Ethical Individualism and Moral Collectivism in America
(go read the whole thing; listen for the echoes of Ecclesiastes)


Along with the contemporary fragmentation of our selves (Stivers' description of what a Biblical scholar might see as the sundering of community in the Fall---resulting in distrust of other people and fear of manipulation), our "collection of idols" has become equally fragmented, and as such, far more insidious and difficult to specifically identify. Perhaps it is not too far a stretch to say that our Molech is consumerism, and that which we fear is simply isolation as punishment for non-conformity to public opinion. The lie that real freedom is "freedom from responsibility" directly undermines the promise of a restored, redeemed community which results from taking responsibility and laying down one's life in purposeful sacrifice---the essence of true Freedom is a Choice, yes, but more specifically, it is the ability to choose that which is Good (permanently) versus that which is pleasing or pacifying (transiently). It is this dream of mutuality through sacrificial exercise of moral agency, in purposeful community, not mindless collectivism, that the words in Isaiah hold out to us: "inherit the land and possess my holy mountain."