On Idolatry

I think it's an obvious fact that many Asian American students and families have an academic idolatry. But tonight was the first time in awhile that I remembered how alive it is in our churches. At the high school senior Grad Seminar, a handful of questions were asked about balancing life, how to handle academics, where to put your time. There was a variety of answers: figure out your goals, choose your priorities, put God first. etc.

It wasn't till I drove home that I realized what was bothering me about our panel responses: when we talked about grades, we talked about it like it would be our choice. If I failed, it's because I didn't prioritize it enough, I didn't manage my time, or I didn't care enough about it. Nowhere did we say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord takes.." Nowhere did anyone say, "You might study all you can and still fail."

We are still in the grip of the idol, thinking we can control it. I'm churning thoughts off of Andy Crouch's Playing God as he talks about idolatry, how it "embodies a false claim about the world's ultimate meaning." And we think that the world will work right and in our favor if we study correctly. Nowhere does our Chinese Church narrative tell us that following God will leads us to an F.

Now, there are a lot of idols our churches have, a lot of things that are in the Bible that are missing in our teachings. But tonight this whole thing about good grades and academic success leads me to success. Because idols (again, borrowing from Crouch) will ask for more and more, while giving less and less, until eventually they demand everything and give nothing.

I remember this in undergrad. I remember when a low result on a midterm drove classmates to give more and more for their time, but to no avail. Individual classes or semester loads that demanded friends to give everything--all their time, energy, emotion--to their grades, and then gave nothing. In one case, the "nothing" turned out to be failure still: not passing, not making it, not understanding material regardless of hours put in. In others, that "nothing" came in other forms: withered relationships, tired people, purposelessness and depression.

In all honesty, it is the first case of "nothing" that I irked me: as I started this post, I wished that these incoming college freshmen knew that academics and grades were not in their control. They are not guaranteed success no matter how they put in. Try as they might, they may get an F. But as I write, I am convinced that that second "nothing" is all the more terrifying yet invisible: that they could walk out with the grades after they put in and not realize that it will demand more of them. We've seen it: the bigger idolatry of success transfers easily from academics to career and position.

These thoughts are incomplete. It's been awhile since I've paid attention to this idol in my community. But tonight the language and our illusion of control over this has given light to it yet again.