When I first joined the church, I felt certain I would have no problem following commandment number 2 of the 10 commandments.

This is the commandment about idols. As the Primary song says, “Before no idol bow thy knee.” By my count, this is commandment number 2 among the 10 commandments described in Exodus chapter 20, although there are other versions of the 10 commandments that state them differently.

Whew! Now there’s a commandment I can keep, I said to myself. I had no plans whatsoever to make a statue of Baal and dance around it like the exhausted wacky priests who try to take on Elijah (see 1 Kings 18 for one of the more entertaining stories in the scriptures).

When I thought of idols, I recalled a Catholic woman I know who prays to statues of Roman saints and the Virgin Mary she keeps in her closet. And I definitely wouldn’t be doing that. So, I could mark that commandment off my list.

Or could I? Well, that same Catholic woman also spends at least eight hours a day sitting in front of the television. So, which is the idol: the television to which she “prays” eight hours a day or the little statues to which she prays a half-hour a day?

It just so happens that when I converted to the church a few years back I spent probably 12 hours a week praying to the basketball, football and baseball gods in front of the big screen Sony idol in my family room. When my teams won, what rapture! And when they lost, I felt just as dejected as those wacky priests who tried to take on Elijah.

The good news about my personal idol worship is that it has been seriously hampered by living in Brazil. I’ve never been much of a soccer fan, and you simply can’t get very many U.S. sports events on the graven image transmitters, er, I mean television sets down here. But I would be lying if I said there weren’t a few Sundays in the last few years when I’ve broken down and searched the internet and the tube for sports scores and even watched a game or two.

But I am publicly repenting, right here on Meridian. I have become convinced over the years that there are many types of graven images, not just the ones in my Catholic friend’s closet or on the high places of Judah and Samaria. And I think I have substantial scriptural support.

Again and again in the scriptures, we are warned about worshipping false idols.

Leviticus 19:4: “Turn yet not unto idols, not make to yourselves molten gods; I am the LORD your God.”

1 Chronicles 16:26: “For all the gods of the people are idols; but the LORD made the heavens.”

Isaiah 2:8: “Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.”

It would appear the issue of idol worship is important. Given the constant repetition of the warnings in the scriptures, it is probably a good idea to expand our definition of what constitutes idol worship. President Spencer W. Kimball wrote an amazing article “The False Gods We Worship” in the June 1976 issue of the Ensign that I think sums it up pretty well:

“Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings. Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer his trust in God to material things. Therefore, in all ages when men have fallen under the power of Satan and lost the faith, they have put in its place a hope in the “arm of flesh” and in “gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know” (Daniel 5:23) – that is, in idols. This I find to be a dominant them in the Old Testament. Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn’t also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry.”

Yikes! This is scary stuff. “Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god.” What does that say about those of us sports fanatics (some of us reformed) who spend hour after hour watching, playing, thinking about and dreaming about the acrobatics of a group of men on a playing field?

But it gets worse. President Kimball continues: “Many people spend most of their time working in the service of a self-image that includes sufficient money, stocks, bonds, investment portfolios, property, credit cards, furnishings, automobiles, and the like to guarantee carnal security throughout, it is hoped, a long and happy life. Forgotten is the fact that our assignment is to use these many resources in our families and quorums to build up the kingdom of God-to further the missionary effort and the genealogical and temple work; to raise our children up as fruitful servants unto the Lord; to bless others in every way, that they may also be fruitful. Instead, we expend these blessings on our own desires, and as Moroni said, “Ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not.” (Mormon 8:39)”

President Kimball went on to quote D&C 1:16, which says of the unrighteous, “They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own God, who image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall.”

So, it appears pretty clear that there are all kinds of idols, not just the ones that look like statues. But the point of this column is not to make you all depressed. I don’t think President Kimball was saying we can never go a sports event or that we shouldn’t care about saving money or that we shouldn’t try to live in nice neighborhoods. I think the point is to look at where our hearts are. And if we examine ourselves, we may find some things for which we need to repent.

This will now become a participatory, interactive column. I’m going to list a few of the idols I used to worship and how I am abandoning them. And I’m going to encourage you to tell me some of the idols you have given up (or will now be giving up). Please send me your input to my e-mail ge******@*****om.br. I will then publish your responses in a later column.

But first, my top mea culpas.

Television. About six years ago, my routine after work was remarkably consistent: I would come home and watch three hours of TV before going to bed. Usually, I watched a professional sports game, but I knew many of the most popular sitcoms. Looking back on that now, I marvel at how much of my life I lost in a daze in front of the black box.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with watching the occasional movie, nature show or broadcast news on the television. The issue is this: you only have a certain amount of time on this Earth. Why spend it all in front of the television, which, by the way, is increasingly becoming the primary transmission medium for sex and violence into the home?

The television is an idol just as evil and pervasive as the perverse statues of Baal, in my opinion. I’m happy to report that my television watching in Brazil is down to less than a few hours a week, and most of that is the news.

Sports. I am embarrassed to admit how many Sunday afternoons I used to spend planted in front of the television watching six or more hours of football games. But even with my absurd behavior, I was restrained compared to many of my friends. They belonged to fantasy NFL leagues, fantasy NBA leagues and fantasy baseball leagues. Every single waking minute except for work was spent thinking, dreaming and fantasizing about sports. Do you think their families suffered because of this?

I would be the last one to stir up a controversy, but I feel compelled to ask: how many people reading this article can think about nothing but BYU or University of Utah football on Saturdays during the fall?

Here’s how I’ve dealt with the sport addiction: I have made myself care less about sports teams. I don’t watch or think about sports at all on Sundays. I remind myself to think about something else if I’m obsessing about one of my favorite teams. I never let sports viewing get in the way of family events.

Narcissism. I exercise vigorously nearly every day, but lately I’ve concentrated on the quality of a workout rather than the length of a workout. There were many Saturdays not too long ago that I would be out for four-hour bicycle rides or three-hour runs. I’ve come to believe this is simply too selfish. The Lord wants us to treat our bodies as temples, but he also wants us to devote time to our families and to Him. Respect for our bodies can quickly become self-adoration and narcissism, and that can be another brand of idol worship. I think this certainly applies to all those people thinking about cosmetic surgery.

True story: you will notice from the accompanying photo that I have a rather large forehead. I am not balding, mind you, I am follicly challenged. A few years back, I tried Rogaine, and in the space of three weeks I had turned into the wolf man. It really, really worked, and it was like magic seeing my hair pop back on my slick dome. But, there were two side effects: one, it was expensive and two, my hands started swelling up. I was really worried about both of these side effects. I mean, was it worth it to have hair on my head and clownish Shaquille O’Neal-sized hands? In the end, the deciding factor to ending my experiment with Rogaine was the narcissistic nature of spending all that time trying to save my hair. Some men go bald. I would just have to deal with it. So, I stopped using Rogaine and a week later all of the new hair (and some additional precious follicles) had fallen like leaves on a windy autumn day. It was great while it lasted.

These are just a few of the idols I’ve recognized in my life. Now it’s your turn to send me some of the idols you have seen in your life. Here’s the e-mail address again: ge******@*****om.br

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