When Is It Idolatry?

By Alan P. Medinger

One of my strategies in dealing with my own weaknesses, or in trying to help others overcome theirs, is to find the sin. Behind most of our brokenness, most of our destructive behavior and attitudes there lies buried a sin. Even the obvious physical sins such as fornication, are often sustained and supported by more subtle sins in our hearts. To become whole, to gain victory over sinful behavior, it is often necessary to discover this deeper sin.

Some of these deeper sins, like pride, we simply don't want to own up to. Others we would acknowledge if we were made aware of them. Our ignorance of certain sins may not reflect so much our emotional self-protection as it does where we are in our spiritual growth. Idolatry falls into this category as regards its undergirding of homosexual sin. Until it is suggested to them, most Christians battling same-sex attractions or sexual addiction do not see idolatry as a part of their problem. Fortunately, however, when people in our ministries start to understand the roots of their sexual sin problems, they become open to acknowledging the idolatrous dimension of their same-sex attractions or sexual addiction.

On the other hand, I have also found that some people who have moved well along in their healing see idolatry where it doesn't exist, and this works to their detriment.

In this article, I am going to explore the connection between homosexuality and idolatry, and then I will address the risks and problems that occur when we falsely accuse ourselves of idolatry.

Homosexuality and Idolatry

The idolatrous dimension of homosexuality has been clear to us since the first of our ministries were established more than twenty-five years ago. Looking at Scripture this is not surprising. One of the best known references to homosexuality in the New Testament is Romans 1:25, which tells us that "they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever! Amen."

Homosexuality as Idolatry

Generally, in people with same-sex attractions, this worship of the creature takes one of two forms. Although men and women can succumb to either type of idolatry, one form is more common in men and the other in women. In men the idolatry typically involves the worship of those things that exude the masculine: muscles, physical strength, authority, male genitalia. Whether he is longing for a masculine contact that was denied him in childhood, he feels empty in the place where his own sense of manhood should dwell, or both, he longs to make contact with-see, touch, smell, be encompassed by, even be entered into by-that which he feels exemplifies the true manhood.

In women the idolatry is more likely directed towards a specific person, that one woman who the hurting or empty woman believes can meet all of her needs. Sometimes this is rooted in childhood deficits in the mother relationship. In other situations women who were deeply hurt in their earlier life-usually by a man-are left with extraordinary needs to feel protected and secure. They crave someone to meet these deep needs in their heart, and they develop patterns of looking to other women to meet them. Each new woman who meets certain criteria becomes the one who can answer all of these needs. She becomes an idol.

In Scripture, the pagan people's idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, were regularly berated for their impotence, their inability to meet any of the needs which led the people to worship them.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Psalm 115:4-7

But the people kept going back to these inanimate, powerless objects. Why was this? I believe it is for a reason that most people don't recognize. Idols do meet our needs-in the short run. While the Jews were dancing around the golden calf (Exodus 32:19), I am sure that they felt that they were in the presence of a power that would protect and provide for them. They were feeling secure until Moses came down from the mountain and brought them back to reality.

The same can be true for homosexual idols. Most homosexual relationships are to some extent rooted in fantasy. The same-sex attracted person makes the other person whoever he or she needs them to be, makes them his or her idol. This works best at two times; when first getting to know that other person, and when being physical with them. The lesbian woman, not yet knowing the others weaknesses and neediness, imagines that the other woman truly can provide the love and security she needs. In the midst of passionate sexual acting out, the homosexual man imagines he is with a "real man" rather than with another whose manhood is as empty and undeveloped as his.

Eventually reality breaks through and the idol's feet of clay become too obvious to ignore and the worship ceases. But the idol did meet needs for a time, and not knowing any other way to go, the needy person doesn't abandon idolatry but simply seeks out another idol.

Most Christians, when they see the idolatrous dimension of their homosexual attractions are ready to confess and repent of them. Sometimes this brings a sudden and lasting change. Acknowledging the sin and laying it before the cross, they have found victory over it.

But, as all of us sinners know, one repentance and confession does not usually solve all of our problems. Many of us go back to the same sin over and over again. As I have just described, worshiping the creature does provide short term benefits and, unable to find any other way to experience the same benefits, we may repeatedly fall back into the sin.

But repentance and confession is the way to go-the only way. It does clean up our accounts; the blood of Jesus does cleanse us. And seeing the idolatrous aspect of our sin can bring us to a place of clearer thinking as well as give us another weapon in our battle against the sin: "I will not worship that woman!" or "I will not worship that man's body!" And as we grow in our relationship with the real God, and as our deep hearts grow in grasping the idolatrous nature of our people worship, we will be changed.

So it is important-to God and for our healing-to recognize the sin and deal with it appropriately. But there is another side to be examined with respect to homosexuality and idolatry. It may not be as important as recognizing the sin, but it needs to be considered if we are to move fully into our healing.

False Convictions of Idolatry

Brad is a man overcoming homosexuality. He has moved quite far in his healing, but he is continually troubled by his interest in men's chests. Whenever he would be skimming through cable TV channels and would catch a scene of a man's bear chest-especially if it were the chest of a big strong man-he would stop and look at it. Just looking at the man's chest gave him great pleasure. He didn't fantasize that he was resting his head on the man's chest. He didn't get sexually excited and masturbate. He just liked to look.

Brad was concerned that this was idolatrous, that he had made an idol out of a part of a man's body, that he was worshipping the creature instead of the Creator.

Was Brad committing idolatry? Maybe not. Let's look at the whole situation.

Brad was conceived out of wedlock, and the man his mother lived with as Brad was growing up showed little interest in the boy. He seldom played with Brad, or offered any advice, or served as his protector when he felt vulnerable. Brad grew up with a huge father deficit in him. He developed a tremendous desire for some man to love him, to accept him, to provide him with some security in a cruel world. He fantasized about such a man, and he pictured himself resting his head on the man's bare chest. The man's hairy body, his strength, the warmth of his body, all gave Brad a wonderful feeling of security and of being valued by a man. When he got to be about thirteen, Brad started to sexualize these images, and this would inevitably lead to masturbation. Associating the images with the pleasure of sexual arousal and masturbation made the images all the more profound and desirable.

But in later years, as Brad sought and found the Lord's healing through ministry and counseling, the power of the images diminished. His own manhood awakened and started to grow, and the thought of sex with other men became less and less attractive. He rejoiced in his new found freedom, and saw himself growing more and more towards heterosexual relating.

But the desire to look at men's chests remained. Always, he saw it as vestige of his old homosexuality. And there was the thought of idolatry. Was he still offending God by worshipping the creature?

I think not. For Brad, a male chest symbolized the love and security of a father, something he had never experienced. There was still an empty place inside him, one that he had not yet found that Jesus could fill. Brad was still reacting to his unhealed state, but he was not acting sinfully, unless you consider looking at a man's bare chest in and of itself as sinful, or unless Brad was consumed with looking at chests or was using the images to lead into sexual fantasy and masturbation..

All attractions are not idolatrous. Attractions exist on a scale from mild interest to wild obsession. Something becomes idolatrous when it approaches the wild obsession end of the scale. Idolatry starts when something becomes so important it starts to crowd out other better things in life, things like God or healthy relationships with other people.

Just because an attraction is abnormal-like a man's attraction to another man's chest-does not mean the attraction is idolatrous. It may not be an attraction that most people feel, and it may be a sign that further healing is needed, but its abnormality or the developmental deficits it may reveal do not make it sinful.

It is not easy to measure where on the scale from mild interest to wild obsession something becomes idolatrous, but here are some questions you might ask if you are concerned that some of your attractions might be idolatrous:

Is it truly compulsive? That is, is it something you must follow through with when it enters your mind?
Is satisfying the attraction usually the first step in a ritual that leads to sexual fantasy and masturbation or other acting out?
Are you taking risks or sacrificing truly good things to satisfy the attraction?
Are you feeding the attraction in order to meet needs that could better be met through the Lord or through relationships with other people?
Are there times when satisfying the attraction is more important to you than God?

This is not a "3 yes's and you are an idolater" kind of quiz. These are questions to take before the Lord in prayer if you are concerned that your attractions might be idolatrous. Brad considered these questions, prayed about them, and decided he was not being idolatrous. He found great freedom in this.

Satan is the accuser of the faithful and the father of lies. He likes nothing better than to bind us up in guilt for a sin we are not committing. Such false conviction serves his purposes in a number of ways. It deprives us of some of the joy and freedom that we can rightfully enjoy in Jesus. It can lead us to deny the great healing that the Lord has already done in our lives. And of course, there is that quirk in many of us that makes that which is forbidden even more desirable. And finally, in keeping us focused on false sins, it can keep us from focusing on the real ones that should be dealt with as the next step in our healing and sanctification.

For the man or woman coming out of homosexuality, some abnormal attractions (that is, attractions that most men or women don't share) are apt to linger for a long while. Some of them may never go away. Seriously seek the Lord as to whether or not the attractions are idolatrous. If you discern that they are not, forget about them and move on to better things.

For freedom Christ has set us free . . . .
Galatians 5:1