Unconscious Idolatry:

There is a type of unbelief that functions very similarly to belief. What I mean by that is that we often claim to not believe certain things, but then live as though we do.

It is one thing to wage war with ideas and beliefs that enslave people, and that is obviously necessary, but what we often end up doing is treating these things like they have some sort of being or ontology of their own. We then live our lives fighting these things as concrete objects that have both an existence and subsistence, as opposed to being mere ideas that gain their existence and subsistence only through those who hold them. When we do this, we sort of fall prey to a subtle form of idolatry, an unconscious polytheism in which we understand our Christianity in terms of a protest against a literal evil, with a being all its own, instead of mere ideas that harass and afflict real people. Our Christianity, then, becomes more about fighting evil than rescuing people from ideas that lead to evil, and accidentally, therefore, becomes another vehicle through which ideas with no existence of their own come to gain an existence.

In this sense, while we claim to not believe in the things we live combating, the very fact that we live to combat them shows how much they actually animate our lives. That being the case, our unbelief functions very much the same as belief. It determines our actions, dictates our values, and generally leads us around like a dog on a leash. The insubstantial, a mere idea, comes to exist in the world in the form of our heated opposition to it. We treat it like it has an existence, and so it comes to possess one.

This is a form of idolatry that is, perhaps, the most difficult to discern and detect, for it masquerades as anti-idolatry, or a disbelief in idols. The fact that it makes so much of them, however, reveals that it exists in the same universe as them, making it part of the very same system.

“Children, keep yourselves from idols,” even those difficult to detects types who call you to wage war with them as though they existed. To me, the most effective way to destroy an idol is to dismiss it, and to show others how easily dismissible it is. The more we engage it as though it were a living thing, however, the more it actually becomes one. Those who worship it become incensed at our attacks, and simply dig their heels in, often becoming more radicalized and fundamentalist than they were before.

While it is the opposite of our intentions, we often find ourselves chiseling the very idol we meant to smash with the very hammer with which we meant to smash it.
Jeff Turner