It's Not Political Idolatry. It's Boredom.

Indiana Jones discovers the expulsive power of a new affection.

I’ve used the phrase “political idolatry” before. I know what it means and what most people mean when they say it. And I do think it describes something real: a kind of person whose joy, energy, and will to live orbit around news and activism. But I used to think “political idolatry” was an apt description for a lot of people. Now I’m not so sure. I wonder if what I called political idolatry was more like boredom with everything that’s not politics.

The difference matters. “Idolatry” suggests worship, a deliberate (if subconscious) giving of oneself over to a Greater Thing. My friend Brad East wrote a provocative blog post contemplating what it is that idols offer. He suggests the following four things:

1. Safety

2. Power

3. A future

4. A name

If we use this list, then I think the tension becomes apparent. Of course, it’s true that many modern people turn to political content (let’s be honest, political content is what most people care about far more than actual politics) in hopes of getting these things. If your party is in power, you might feel safer. If the next four years are secured for your tribe, you’re probably feeling optimistic about the future.

But as I said, political idolatry assumes worship, and worship assumes some kind of confidence in the thing being worshiped. You perform the worship, you wait for the thing worshiped to deliver on its promises, and in the meantime you go about normal life. Question: Do the most political content-addicted folks seem confident to you, even when they win? Are they characterized by performing the ritual and then getting on with normal life as they anticipate the idol’s delivering? Or, do they go from urgent thing to urgent thing, unsatisfied even by victory, always looking for the next thing? Are they Jacob Marley: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.”

Worship doesn’t usually look like this. Neuroticism looks like this. Addiction looks like this. Boredom looks like this.

The language of “political idolatry” is nice because it frames the issue in either/or terms. Either you worship Christ, or you worship politics. And that’s true as far as it goes. But, if the line of thinking above is correct, most people don’t worship politics. Their relationship with politics is not worshipful, it’s neurotic. They are not gratefully receiving the promises of an idol, they are restlessly trying to create their own promises.

So my suggestion is that many cases that have been identified as political idolatry are actually cases of pathological boredom with everything that’s not politics. The best explanation for a neurotically restless relationship with political content is not positive (people worship politics), but negative: People disregard other things.

I think Americans in particular disregard a lot that could furnish their soul better than political content can. For example, Americans don’t read.

54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level

45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year.

Americans have few—and increasingly zero—friends:

[D]espite renewed interest in the topic of friendship in popular culture and the news media, signs suggest that the role of friends in American social life is experiencing a pronounced decline. The May 2021 American Perspectives Survey finds that Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for personal support. 

Single Americans are not going on dates.

57% were “Not currently looking for a relationship or casual dates”, 7% were looking for “Casual dates only”, 22% were interested in “Either a committed romantic relationship or casual dates”, and only 13% were interested in “A committed romantic relationship only.”

And older Americans are not having grandchildren:

[A] growing number of Gen Xers and baby boomers are facing the sometimes painful fact that they are never going to become grandparents. A little more than half of adults 50 and older had at least one grandchild in 2021, down from nearly 60 percent in 2014. Amid falling birthrates, more U.S. adults say they’re unlikely to ever have children for a variety of reasons, chief among them: They just don’t want to.

Now what do reading, friends, dates, and grandchildren have in common? They are all attention-absorbent. They fill the heart and the calendar. Yes, it’s possible to be a political junkie and read widely, have lots of friends, be madly in love, and play with your grandkids. But all these things put natural limits on how much you can obsess over the latest White House press conference, or how closely you can follow the allegations of voter fraud/suppression/whatever in the swing states. On the other hand, scrolling the Internet and watching TV—two activities that are not in decline—are very friendly to political gluttony. The obsessive energy that gets called “idolatry” many times is, I think, an inevitable symptom of a bored, listless life.

There is a sense in which this is actually worse than political idolatry. If you call people to repent from worshiping politics, you can lay out Christ and gospel preaching in front of them, and the offer is kind of “take it or leave it.” Worship politics or worship Jesus. And some folks will feel convicted in a vague sort of way and recommit themselves to worshiping Jesus, by which they mostly mean reading the Bible more often than they check social media.

But if the situation is less about idolatry and more like a decrepit attention-life, the solution is far more invasive. You actually have to talk about stuff they think you have no business talking about—their friends, their hobbies, their love life, their choices. If you want to see someone mildly provoked, tell them to stop worshiping politics. If you want to see them legitimately furious, tell them to get married and have babies.

And isn’t it the case that our anger often reveals the true idol? The things we snarl about are the things closest to our hearts. To know what we love we have to know what we clutch. So maybe the way Christians talk about politics and American life could benefit from a realization that the real idolatry is one that is dug down deep into our lifestyles and sense of self. Instead of asking, “What do we love,” maybe we should ask, “What do we not love?” Remember that the Book of Common Prayer actually repents of sins of omission before sins of commission:

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.