I recently finished reading Counterfeit Gods
by Tim Keller. It is not quite the book that Keller’s New York Times bestseller The Reason for God was, but that is no slap in the face. Though a shorter book, like The Reason for God it is (un)apologetically written for a popular audience, and a book certainly worthy of reading. There were many things in the book which I found to be helpful. Among them, I would like to mention these in particular:
- Keller functionally defines an idol as “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination mote than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” In light of this, he reminds us that idols are often not bad things, but rather good things which we have turned into ultimate things.
- Keller makes a helpful delineation between surface idols (such as money, our spouse, our children) and deep idols (power, approval, comfort, control). The surface idols tend to be more easily observed in our lives, but they are usually symptoms of deep idols that need to be dealt with at the heart level.
- You can not simply remove your idols. It is necessary that they be replaced (with the love of Christ, of course) otherwise the idols will come back like weeds.
4 comments:
Having read Keller's other books The Reason for God (which I loved) and The Prodigal God (which I thought fell a bit flat), I grabbed Counterfeit Gods during a time of personal crisis and felt that God really spoke to me through the pages of that book.
I especially identified with Keller's portrayal of the Jacob-Rachel-Leah love triangle and the idols of sex, love and romance. I was challenged by this book and found it very helpful in recognizing some things that I was perhaps putting too much importance on, to the detriment of my complete reliance on the saving grace of my savior and Lord, Jesus.
My only quibbles with the book were that I felt that Keller made a couple of minor theological "stretches" regarding Abraham, Jacob and Jonah. Other than that, I felt like this is a very important book for today's follower of Jesus.
I pretty much agree with you on all three Keller books.
One of my only complaints with him (and mind you, I think he is INCREDIBLY gifted and I have been amazingly blessed by his ministry) is that he seems to sometimes make assumptions ("stretches" as you put it) that I don't necessarily see, and sometimes outright disagree with. Having read your comment, I remember having that feeling in some of the same places you did.
All in all, though, I am very thankful for his ministry. My former pastor in Webster Groves (Scott Sauls) is now on his pastoral staff at Redeemer in NYC.
"I pretty much agree with you on all three Keller books."
I think we already established that we are probably twins that were separated at birth in the Kurt Warner-Neil Lomax-Heck of a Year discussion (nevermind our similar penchant for sitcoms in the Seinfeld/The Office vein). It's no surprise that here 38 years later we are reading the same books and coming to the same conclusions.
"he seems to sometimes make assumptions that I don't necessarily see"
Exactly.
I not only like good books, I especially like good book dedications. My favorite of all time is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the dedication of which brings a tear to my eye every time I read it.
I say this all to say I recently got a book by R. Scott Clark. In it's dedication he wrote, "To Darryl, who says what I would think if I had thought of it." I liked that.
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