“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:3-4)
Moses could not have imagined how that divine admonition might apply to our contemporary American culture. Ph.D. candidates and future scholars ought to analyze the American way of promoting certain celebrities into the category once shared by certain Roman emperors—those like Caligula and Diocletian, foolish and egocentric enough to take seriously accolades from the fawning parasites who lauded them with empty titles. We have no official royalty in America, and for good reason. Yet is there some emotional or psychological vacuum that needs to be satisfied? Who in our nation achieves such a lofty status and why?
Some politicians qualify, but only those with presidential status. Governors and senators are still fair game for journalists keen to flush them out in some moral or financial scandal. A president surfboarding on the waves of popularity will be winked at and deemed a playful rascal, but not impeached or brought down while in office.
A public yearning to worship idols creates them from the ranks of athletes and entertainers. Once called stars, that term overworked, they are now “icons.” We Orthodox take exception to an abuse of that precious term because we consider it as identifying those in whom we perceive the authentic deity manifested. For athletes, it’s possible that to “get away with murder” is not a trite cliché. It’s standard for a professional athlete to earn more in a year than any normal person could possibly spend in a lifetime, and yet they continue to clamor for more; loyalty is not to a team or a city but to whatever will pay them ever more millions. They rule. Wherever they go, they hold court. After a game or contest, the hero will discard some article of the uniform which becomes a priceless treasure especially prized if it holds the most perspiration of the “icon.” Lesser objects with marks of the great athlete can be purchased commercially.
But politicians and athletes retreat into the group photograph of America’s apotheosis. They share the edge of the spotlight focused on our entertainers. This is where there are no limits to the manifestation of our nation’s adulation. Begun a half century ago with Frank Sinatra, it is now peaking at a time when the basic need to worship some transcendent being is evidently not being fulfilled from the conventional religions. The apex was Michael Jackson’s funeral. Not even the idolatry surrounding Elvis Presley could match what we have now witnessed. Both were self-inflicted victims of drug overdose, but Elvis was only a lounge warm-up act for Michael. Icons, by the way, need no surname for identification. For both, as for all American’s idols, the normal standards of morality and life style do not apply. Their devotees ignore, overlook, explain and justify the ethics that Christians, Jews and Muslims decry as sinful. America’s idols all carry an invisible pass that exonerates them of all rules that normal folks are made to abide by. Our culture gives new meaning to the ancient Greek deities who adorned Mt. Olympus. Ordinary persons can only look askance with pity, envy or unconcern. For the celebrities, sexual promiscuity or deviation is considered natural or arrested development. Drug abuse is their way of dealing with the price they pay for entertaining the hoi polloi, the cursed gifts they were endowed with to appease and satisfy lesser mortals.