Beloved Friends in Christ,

I can still recall one of the first times I heard the story of the Israelites making the golden calf. Why would they worship it, I wondered? Surely they must have realized how foolish that was-that the calf they had just fashioned was not God.

While making an idol out of gold is no longer a common thing, worshipping a god of our own making still is. People haven't changed. Two cases in point can be found in the July 25, 2007 edition of The Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

The first is right on the front page-an article about the recent national conventions of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. (By the way, there is absolutely no connection between the latter church body and St. Paul's.) At their conventions, both church bodies defeated motions that would have allowed their churches to bless same sex marriages.

While we can rejoice that these motions were defeated, what is sad is that they were barely defeated. Sadder still is that the motions were even considered in the first place. Since when can we decide what God's will is by voting on it?

God is who He is and His will is what it is. Claiming the right to change God or His will with a vote is nothing other than claiming the right to fashion for ourselves a god of our own choosing. The god may not be a golden idol, but just like the golden calf, it will be an idol and not God.

The second case in point is on the first page of the second section of the same newspaper. There, with a full colour photo, is an article about a church's blessing of dogs and cats. When considered together with the previous article, one is left with the impression that God's only purpose is to make people feel good about themselves, their pets and everything else in their lives, and that He cares little about righteousness and salvation.

That leaves me wondering what Jesus was all about. But that's the point. Many people do not want Jesus, nor do they want the Father, nor do they want the Spirit. They just want a god who will let them do as they please, even if that god is as foolish as a golden calf.

In His service,

Pastor Richard A. Frey