{"id":27462,"date":"2026-08-17T08:02:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27462"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:37:19","slug":"27462","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27462","title":{"rendered":"Naming Our Idolatry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I STILL HAVEN&#039;T FOUND WHAT I&#039;M LOOKING FOR by U2 (Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NFcqnaJg4VE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday, August 16, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr describes why the example and message of the Hebrew prophets continue to be important for us today:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My favorite thing about the prophetic books of the Bible is that they show a whole series of people in <strong>evolution of their understanding of God<\/strong>. Like most of us, the prophets <strong>start not only with judgmentalism and anger but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others<\/strong>. Then, in various ways, that outlook falls apart over the course of their writings. They <strong>move from that anger and judgmentalism to a reordered awareness in which they become more like God: more patient like God, more forgiving like God, more loving like God.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout Scripture, the prophets seem to emphasize one sin above all the rest: idolatry, our habit of making things \u201cGod\u201d that are not absolute, infinite, or objectively good. They are also ruthless toward the preoccupations of our private self, which always wants to put itself in the best light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets are<strong> full truth-tellers, not fortune-tellers<\/strong>. They pull back the veil to radically reframe our preferred storyline of history: the boring and predictable narrative of winners and losers, rewards and punishments. They are by definition those rare individuals who s<strong>ee reality in its fullness and dimension, rather than in dualities like totally right or totally wrong, all good or all bad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There must be someone\u2014or several someones\u2014in every age who can tell the faith community, and society at large:&nbsp;<strong><em>Your first egoic glance at life\u2014and God\u2014\u00adis largely wrong! And it is largely engendered by fear.<\/em>&nbsp;\u201cNo one else is your problem,\u201d says the prophet. \u201cYou are your own problem. What you think is goodness is too often delusion, and what you think is bad just might be your spiritual best friend.<\/strong>\u201d In doing so, prophets offer not only criticism but also visions of a more just, more merciful, more peaceful society\u2014and call the people to live into it. Any religion or philosophy that teaches group blindness instead of full seeing is standing in the way of such clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We must be eternally conscious of this fact:&nbsp;<strong><em>For the untransformed self, religion is the most dangerous temptation of all.<\/em>&nbsp;Our egos, when they are validated by religion, are given full permission to enslave, segregate, demean, defraud, and inflate\u2014because all bases are covered with pre-ascribed virtue and a supposed hatred of evi<\/strong>l. This is what the prophets expose in their wholesale assault on temple worship, priestly classes, self- serving commandments, and intergenerational wealth. \u201cBe very careful here!\u201d they keep shouting. The prophets know that <strong>religion is the best and that religion also risks being the wors<\/strong>t. We love to choose sides and declare ourselves sinless and pure and orthodox (\u201cright\u201d), with little evidence that it is true. This is always a surprise to everyone except the prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Task of the Prophets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday, August 17, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>It is the task of the prophet to <strong>bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order<\/strong>. Energizing is closely linked to hope. We are energized not by that which we already possess but by that which is promised and about to be given.<br>\u2014Walter Brueggemann,&nbsp;<em>The Prophetic Imagination<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In 1980, Richard Rohr gave a series of talks on the Hebrew prophets. Here he speaks of the hopeful imagination to which the prophets and God invite us:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets nurture and evoke a new way of thinking. They give us images and words which subvert our system and tell us that <strong>we haven\u2019t seen the whole picture yet<\/strong>. Prophets are not just concerned about social change for the sake of social change. They are concerned above all <strong>with&nbsp;<em>transformation and<\/em>&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>freedom of the heart<\/em>, <\/strong>and then <strong>out of that free heart, the prophet says, \u201cListen.\u201d The prophet creates a new, freeing consciousness which allows us to hear the divine word<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the midst of that freedom, the prophets<strong> plant a promise, an alternative and new vision\u2014but the promise never really gets fulfilled. It both tantalizes and torments us with dissatisfaction\u2014and nevertheless calls us forward!<\/strong> It isn\u2019t that God or the prophets are playing games with us. It\u2019s that<strong> we are energized by the hope of God\u2019s promises<\/strong>. What gives us the <strong>energy and power to keep moving is the promise, the dream, the vision of what could be and what\u2019s beyond the moment<\/strong>. The prophet knows that, and God knows that. In the exodus, God plants the promise in Moses\u2019s heart, and then Moses gives it to the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These promises are not lies. They\u2019re true, but they\u2019re not always what we expect or hope for, and so God calls us a little further. This is the way that<strong> divine love stretches our hearts. This is the real rebirth. This is the way we\u2019re <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">reborn again and again until we enter, through death, the promise of a deeper life.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The established and dominant culture <strong>does not have authentic promises because it seeks to maintain itself. <\/strong>The system has <strong>materialistic and self-protecting promises for more money and a better life; <\/strong>it encourages us to consume more and more. It cannot offer a promise which fills and expands the heart beyond itself to the larger world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>God\u2019s promises energize and expand the heart, deepening our capacity for life and our quality of being in this world.<\/strong> They put the authority inside us. This, finally, is the only overcoming of death, the only answer to the absurdity that this time is going to end. <strong>That\u2019s what the promises of God do\u2014lead us to the experience of deeper life. The Gospel writers call it resurrection.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, August 16, 2026 Father Richard Rohr describes why the example and message of the Hebrew prophets continue to be important for us today:&nbsp; My favorite thing about the prophetic books of the Bible is that they show a whole series of people in evolution of their understanding of God. Like most of us, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27462"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27467,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27462\/revisions\/27467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}