Role Models—The Hollywood Invention

All things were made by God, and for God (Col. 1:16); as a result, we all have a craving for transcendence. The desire to worship, whether directed toward someone or something, is ingrained in human nature. American writer David Foster Wallace wrote: “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

In the end, yes, we all worship something. When you serve and worship the true God, He makes you complete in Him. Those who don’t know God, or who turn their back on Him, still seek to fill the emptiness of their hearts. In many ways, this is the essence of idolatry, ancient and modern.

Today, some people make idols out of power, wealth, and pleasure. Some idolize celebrities, making mini-gods out of them and absorbing the worldviews and values that they promote.

Talking about idols, Psalms says that “those who make them are like them” (Ps. 115:8). In other words, we become like what we worship.

That’s scary, especially when we think of Hollwood’s influence on society. Researchers have found that the depiction of alcohol consumption in media strongly influences young people to drink. The more images a young person sees portraying alcohol use, the likelier it is that they themselves will start and continue drinking. From alcohol and drugs, to greed, war, and promiscuous sex, the media normalizes self-destruction, and you don’t need to be a biblical prophet to see how, when we idolize the ones who do these things, we are more likely to do them ourselves and, hence, become like them as well.

Yes, we all worship something, and we never rise above what we worship, either. That’s why Scripture call us to worship the only one worthy of our worship, our Creator and Redeemer.