Christopher J. H. Wright
Inter-Varsity Press, 2020
Paperback, 167 pp, $18.00/£9.99
ISBN 978-1789742312
There is one true and living God: Yahweh, who is revealed
in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, is incarnate in Jesus the Christ, and
who throughout history is on a mission to work out his sovereign purpose to
redeem people, bringing them away from their idols to praise and glorify him
alone, and calling them to join him in mission. This is the foundational belief
of Chris Wright’s latest volume, ‘Here
Are Your Gods!’: Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times.
If this sounds at all familiar to those familiar with
Wright’s work, it is because the first of this short volume’s three parts is
edited and adapted from Wright’s The
Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Wright is up-front
about this in the preface, and notes that the contents of the remaining chapters
are drawn from a 2017 lecture entitled “Following Jesus in an Age of Political
Turbulence”. This merging of different written and spoken source material results
in stylistic and tonal differences and consequentially a slightly disjointed
feel, but the contents of the resulting volume are nonetheless undeniably of
great importance and relevance.
The first part of the book, “The Lord God and other gods in
the Bible”, offers an excellent biblical survey of Scriptural monotheism and
its missional implications, and an extremely helpful analysis of idolatry.
Wright is very precise as to the nature of gods and the idols used to represent
them. In answer to the question, “are gods – other than Yahweh – something, or
nothing?”, the supplied answer is “both”. They are nothing before Yahweh but
they are something to worshippers, nothing in divine existential terms but something
in human experiential terms. Yahweh alone is God, but the gods nonetheless
exist somehow, as something. They are not divine, but belong to the created
order, either as objects in creation, human constructs of our hands or minds,
or as demonic entities. In these gods, and the idols that represent them, people
have embodied their own sinful attitudes and priorities: Wright mentions pride,
greed, aggression, nationalism, consumerism, and militarism. Yahweh’s name,
identity, or past works may be invoked but in a thoroughly idolatrous way, in
service to human agendas of national aggrandisation, war, genocide, oppression,
economics, politics and so forth. The gods are perhaps far more powerful in our
lives than we would care to admit. We tend to manufacture them, Wright argues,
from things that entice us, things we fear, things we trust, and things we
need. Ultimately, whether these gods are physical in shape or philosophical in
substance, “history is the graveyard of the gods.” But the gods have a tendency
of burying humanity first, depriving God of his proper glory, distorting his
image in human beings, and totally dissatisfying everyone. It is imperative
then, that we join God in a mission against idolatry by engaging idolatry with
theological argument, evangelistic engagement, pastoral guidance, and prophetic
warning.
The second part shifts focus to a very particular manifestation
of human idol-making: “Political Idolatry Then and Now”. Wright, addressing a
largely conservative, white, evangelical, Western audience, does not flinch
from focussing sustained attention on those areas all too often neglected in
the prophetic witness of such a constituency, but which are biblically signs of
terminal decline and divine judgement: the legacy of historic and systemic
violence, increasing poverty and inequality, the rise of extreme forms of
populism and nationalism, sexual confusion and family breakdown, ecological
devastation, and the war on truth. Wright demonstrates from the Scriptures how
God is passionately concerned about all of these things and therefore has
standards for those who govern: modesty, integrity, and justice. When these are
rejected, we embrace idols: prosperity, national pride, and self-exaltation,
which bring God’s judgement.
The idolatrous world Wright describes is not only that of
the Ancient Near East, but is very much our own, today, in the 21st
Century English-speaking West. While Here
Are Your Gods! is filled with obvious contemporary implications, part three
ties everything together with reflections on “God’s people in an idolatrous
world.” Two chapters outline what it
looks like for the church to be “A People Shaped by the Living God” who are
committed to “Following Jesus in Turbulent Times”. At the heart of these
chapters is the shift from making gods in our own image to submitting to the
creative work of God remaking us in his image. At a minimum, we must be shaped
by God’s word, sharing his mission, and living under God’s kingdom. This
results in being distinctly different in thought, word, and deed from the world
around us – regardless of its political ideologies or personal idolatries – and
prayerfully committing our world and its leaders to the Lord in prayer. Here Are Your Gods! is not an argument
for withdrawal from politics but rather for more distinctively Christian engagement
that is not concerned with supremacy in politics - as though that will help us advance
God’s kingdom or as though his kingdom is of this world! In an idolatrous
world, this distinctiveness poses conundrums – not least in the voting booth.
Wright maintains that people in such desperate situations can justifiably choose
between who they believe to be the “lesser of two evils” with careful, private
consideration and reach different conclusions to other brothers or sisters. But
then he hammers home the truth: “Less justified is the celebration of such
individuals by Christians showering them with accolades that overlook their
moral depravity and fail to hold them accountable.”
Here
Are Your Gods! has no intention of being a cold academic analysis
or collection of abstract theological musings. It is polemical and practical, and
only the totally ignorant or wilfully blind could be in any doubt about the
particular constituency he addresses or the very real idols he is intent on
tearing down. This does however result, I believe, in a few unfortunate
missteps and imbalances. Wright consistently makes excellent points about
nationalism and populism, but unhelpfully and imprecisely conflates the xenophobic
“America First” mantra of Trumpism with Brexit. This comparison is very common
- not least in popular media metanarratives – but ultimately falls short at a
number of critical levels beyond the surface. Wright’s concerns about
nationalist isolationism are correct, and I have often addressed them very
similarly to Wright both in my writing and from the pulpit. He does not, and I
believe would not, turn the same prophetic spotlight on globalism. Despite his
faithful and necessary critique of the evils of colonialism and imperialism,
Wright does not seem to see the colonising and imperialistic tendencies of
modern day “Babels” like the United Nations and the European Union, and naively
seems to think of them as mostly good, in their present form. From the Preface to the Epilogue, it is clear that he believes certain happenings in the political world represent idolatry and incur God's judgement, and he is at least partially right, but what if these happenings are God's judgement? What if the events his world seems so shattered by are themselves instruments in the hands of the Lord to break down other idols? Does this
inconsistency expose Wright’s own idols? I do not believe it is whataboutery to
ask the question, just consistency. This is not so much a problem of what he
says (forgiving some inaccuracies, as well as less than charitable perspectives, here and there), as what he doesn’t say.
Further to the point of what Wright doesn’t say, when
discussing sexual confusion and family breakdown in chapter five, he is uncharacteristically
subtle and bizarrely makes no direct mention of the LGBTQ+ movement, the
redefinition of marriage, or pornography, and only barely mentions abortion. Perhaps
though, like his silence on globalism, this is not entirely without reason, considering
the audience this book has most in view. Wright is less concerned with the
idols of general society as he is those that have taken root with greater
prominence and less critique among theologically conservative and evangelical
Christians and churches. Nonetheless, especially in a UK context, these
particular subjects are criminally under-addressed or poorly addressed, if at
all.
A long-standing disagreement I have with Wright’s work goes
back to when I first read The Mission of
God a decade ago and resurfaces here. I believe that Wright defines “mission”
too broadly and thereby “missions” can become pretty much anything done in the
name of Christ, from proclaiming the gospel to charitable work, social action,
or creation care. Wright’s holistic vision is in reality far more nuanced and
Christ-centred than that, but it is nonetheless a danger that concerns me – as someone
who is equally very concerned about some Christians’ “just preach the gospel”
language and social inaction. I would rather not confuse the mission –
proclaiming Christ as Lord, pursuant of making disciples – with the ministries that
feed into and flow from the mission. When everything is “mission”, nothing is.
Nonetheless, everything Wright brings under the category of “mission” –
evangelism, teaching, compassion, justice, creational responsibility - are
necessary components of the Christian life and he is very clear that these must
be God-centred and built around the central gospel truth that Jesus is Lord and
we are to obey him. I can then bear with him, even while encouraging others to
stop conflating the mission with those activities that might in some way be
missional!
Any aforementioned concerns notwithstanding, I seldom have substantial quibbles with what Wright says in Here Are
Your Gods! – more, as I have mentioned, what he does not say! It is quite
possible that our political leanings would be in different directions, and our
priorities might well be ordered differently. But this accessible work of
public and political theology is well worth a thorough read and fair
consideration. Wright is at his best when he is dealing with the clear teaching
of Scripture, and as this book is saturated in explained, illustrated, and
applied Scripture, there is much in it that is excellent and worthy of
commendation.
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