Progressive Ponderings: Our Golden Calf
by Joe Mayer
I was about 8-9 years old, studying Bible history, when we read the story of Aaron who, at the request of the people, fashioned a golden calf from donations of jewelry. “Then they cried out 'This is your God O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt'” (Ex. 32:4). At that age I couldn’t understand how people thought they could create a God.
A few years earlier I had learned the Ten Commandments. This too puzzled me as God commanded, “Do not have strange Gods before me.” Early in the biblical story God foresaw what his people might do and then instructed in his first commandment that they worship only Him.
At these ages I didn’t understand metaphor. I didn’t understand humanity’s desire to make sense of perplexity, its need to have a cornerstone upon which to build life.
Since the golden calf story multiple false images have clouded our vision of Father/Mother/Creator/etc. “Isms” have frequently made the list — imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, patriotism, sexism, racism, fundamentalism. But the two ideals throughout history that have dominated humans’ elevation of false gods have been power and wealth, both products of greed. They play a most prominent role in supplanting a loving and compassionate creator.
Mirroring the golden calf, we modern Americans also have created our own image worthy of God status. We have infused it with legal status. It’s been given the right to own, to buy, and to sell property (even though it itself is property). We have endowed it with Constitutional protections—protected speech and assembly, and the right to beseech (bribe) our government officials. It owns most of our sources of information. We have limited its liability for irresponsible acts. It can sue humans in our courts. We invest it with perpetual life just like any god. We allow (even encourage) it to amass vast sums of money. We exempt it from acting for the common good. We allow it to distort our democratic political process. We have given it so much power and influence that it’s suicidal for elected officials to speak against it. Our churches have embraced its amorality. It dominates our culture. Both of our major political parties bow before its needs and desires. In times of stress we bail it out before we help people. We subsidize it to the detriment of our citizens. We entice it into our communities with tax breaks, infrastructure and training programs. We have launched globalization so that it can offshore our jobs, evade our taxes, and demand concessions from foreign governments.
Our courts have told it that its only mandate, its only objective, its reason for being is to “maximize profits.” This “property” we’ve created has claimed the right to govern. Its economic impact is large enough to dominate every phase of our lives. We’ve recently stated our creation is “too big to fail.”
No Old Testament golden calf can compete with our modern monster god. We call it “body” — corpus. It has many titles in one person — corporation, capitalism, market economy, free enterprise, free market and free trade.
Anything that so dominates every aspect of our lives surely is our God. After the Old Testament God saw what Aaron and the Israelites did in Moses’ absence, he told Moses, “Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved” (Ex. 32:7).
I was about 8-9 years old, studying Bible history, when we read the story of Aaron who, at the request of the people, fashioned a golden calf from donations of jewelry. “Then they cried out 'This is your God O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt'” (Ex. 32:4). At that age I couldn’t understand how people thought they could create a God.
A few years earlier I had learned the Ten Commandments. This too puzzled me as God commanded, “Do not have strange Gods before me.” Early in the biblical story God foresaw what his people might do and then instructed in his first commandment that they worship only Him.
At these ages I didn’t understand metaphor. I didn’t understand humanity’s desire to make sense of perplexity, its need to have a cornerstone upon which to build life.
Since the golden calf story multiple false images have clouded our vision of Father/Mother/Creator/etc. “Isms” have frequently made the list — imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, patriotism, sexism, racism, fundamentalism. But the two ideals throughout history that have dominated humans’ elevation of false gods have been power and wealth, both products of greed. They play a most prominent role in supplanting a loving and compassionate creator.
Mirroring the golden calf, we modern Americans also have created our own image worthy of God status. We have infused it with legal status. It’s been given the right to own, to buy, and to sell property (even though it itself is property). We have endowed it with Constitutional protections—protected speech and assembly, and the right to beseech (bribe) our government officials. It owns most of our sources of information. We have limited its liability for irresponsible acts. It can sue humans in our courts. We invest it with perpetual life just like any god. We allow (even encourage) it to amass vast sums of money. We exempt it from acting for the common good. We allow it to distort our democratic political process. We have given it so much power and influence that it’s suicidal for elected officials to speak against it. Our churches have embraced its amorality. It dominates our culture. Both of our major political parties bow before its needs and desires. In times of stress we bail it out before we help people. We subsidize it to the detriment of our citizens. We entice it into our communities with tax breaks, infrastructure and training programs. We have launched globalization so that it can offshore our jobs, evade our taxes, and demand concessions from foreign governments.
Our courts have told it that its only mandate, its only objective, its reason for being is to “maximize profits.” This “property” we’ve created has claimed the right to govern. Its economic impact is large enough to dominate every phase of our lives. We’ve recently stated our creation is “too big to fail.”
No Old Testament golden calf can compete with our modern monster god. We call it “body” — corpus. It has many titles in one person — corporation, capitalism, market economy, free enterprise, free market and free trade.
Anything that so dominates every aspect of our lives surely is our God. After the Old Testament God saw what Aaron and the Israelites did in Moses’ absence, he told Moses, “Go down at once to your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved” (Ex. 32:7).
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