America’s Idols: D.L. Moody’s Warning and the Call to Personal Renewal
Dr. Perry Greene begins with D.L. Moody’s warning that anything loved more than God becomes an idol. From Isaiah’s ridicule of carved gods to Paul’s teaching that believers are God’s temple, Dr. Greene argues that America’s spiritual crisis is not mainly about statues or temples. It is about misplaced allegiance, recurring unfaithfulness, and the personal commitments from which national renewal must begin.
D.L. Moody became one of the most influential American evangelists of the nineteenth century, but Dr. Perry Greene begins this episode before Moody’s public ministry. At 17, Moody was working in his uncle’s shoe store in Boston. His Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, led him to a personal relationship with Christ, and that conversion redirected his ambitions from business toward ministry.
Dr. Greene uses one of Moody’s observations to frame the entire message: “You don’t have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods. America is full of them. Whatever you love more than God is your idol.”
That definition brings idolatry close to home. It removes the comfortable distance created by images of ancient temples, carved statues, and unfamiliar religions. An idol does not have to be made from wood or stone. Under the definition Dr. Greene presents, idolatry begins whenever a person gives something else the love, loyalty, or priority that belongs to God.
Isaiah 44 supplies the biblical image behind that warning. The prophet describes people who take wood from the same tree and use it for completely different purposes. Part of the wood becomes fuel for warmth. Part is used to cook food. The rest is shaped into an object of worship. The person then bows before something made from the same material that was burned in the fire.
Dr. Greene points to the deliberate absurdity of the scene. The created object cannot become the Creator merely because human hands have shaped it and assigned sacred meaning to it. Isaiah’s ridicule exposes the emptiness of trusting a substitute for God.
Dr. Greene also presents idolatry as more than a human mistake. He explains his belief that demonic forces twist the truth and lead people toward cheap imitations of God’s will. Drawing on the work of the late Dr. Michael Heiser, he describes ancient idols as dwelling places prepared for the gods worshiped by the people. In that worldview, the statue was not merely a piece of religious art. It was a place where a spiritual being could inhabit or manifest among its worshipers.
That ancient practice becomes especially significant when Dr. Greene places it beside God’s own words in Exodus. In Exodus 25:8, God says, “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.” In Exodus 29:45, He says, “I will dwell among the people of Israel, and I will be their God.”
God’s purpose was to dwell among His people and be known as their God. They would acknowledge Him, worship Him, and live as His covenant people. Dr. Greene argues that the gods of the nations sought a counterfeit version of that presence. Their temples and idols imitated the idea of a god dwelling among a people, while diverting worship away from the true God.
The issue, then, is not only the physical object. It is the presence, allegiance, and worship associated with it. In Dr. Greene’s explanation, the counterfeit tries to occupy the place that belongs to God and draw human loyalty toward something false.
The biblical theme of God dwelling among His people continues beyond the tabernacle and temple. Dr. Greene turns to Paul’s teaching that the Holy Spirit indwells followers of Christ. He explains that Paul presents this reality on two levels.
The first is personal. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul writes, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” The individual believer is described as a temple because the Holy Spirit dwells within that person.
The second level is collective. In 2 Corinthians 6:16, Paul asks, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” He then writes, “For we are the temple of the living God,” followed by God’s promise to dwell among His people, walk among them, and claim them as His own.
Dr. Greene uses these passages to show that God’s people are His temple both individually and together. This makes the contrast with idolatry direct. The people in whom God chooses to dwell are not to share their worship with rival gods or surrender their allegiance to competing objects of devotion.
He also distinguishes God’s indwelling presence from hostile spiritual influence. In Dr. Greene’s theological framework, evil spiritual beings may literally possess people or direct them away from the “Father of lights.” He presents this activity as another distortion of God’s design. The Holy Spirit indwells believers in order to unite them with God and shape them in faithfulness. Demonic powers seek control, deception, and separation from God.
Modern Americans rarely build pagan temples or carve wooden images for worship. Dr. Greene’s point is that this does not make modern life free from idolatry. The form changes while the governing loyalty remains the same. Something becomes an idol when it is loved more than God or allowed to command the place that belongs to Him.
That can happen through pursuits that appear normal, respectable, or even desirable. Dr. Greene names wealth, health, pleasure, power, prestige, ease, and comfort. None of these requires a carved image. Each can become a ruling desire. Each can shape decisions, demand sacrifice, and compete for first place in a person’s life.
Within the definition Dr. Greene adopts, the problem is not simply that people possess money, value health, enjoy pleasure, hold influence, receive respect, or appreciate comfort. The problem begins when one of those things becomes the controlling love. A good or ordinary desire becomes an idol when devotion to it outweighs obedience to God.
Dr. Greene then applies the biblical warning to the nation. He presents America as a country formed under strong biblical influence and points to religious qualifications found in early state political structures. His emphasis is not that the states always imposed one denomination. Rather, he argues that early American public life expected fidelity to Christ as part of preserving the nation’s intended moral direction.
From there, he compares the American experience to the cycle described in the book of Judges. Israel existed as a loose collection of tribes without centralized national leadership. The book repeatedly describes people doing what was right in their own eyes. For a time, they would remain faithful to God. During periods of security or prosperity, they would turn toward the gods they had been commanded to reject. Opposition would follow. The people would cry out to God, God would raise up a deliverer, and a period of faithfulness would return. Then the cycle would begin again.
Dr. Greene sees a similar pattern in America’s history since Jamestown and Plymouth. Across more than four centuries, the nation has moved through periods of religious seriousness and periods of spiritual neglect. “We’ve been hot and cold regarding the Lord in our Christianity,” he says. “We honored him at times and served idols at others.”
The comparison to Judges places prosperity under special scrutiny. Comfort can encourage people to forget the source of what they have. Success can produce self-reliance. Freedom can be treated as permission to follow whatever seems right in one’s own eyes. Dr. Greene’s concern is that a nation may retain Christian language and memory while its practical loyalties move elsewhere.
His question is direct: “What would you say are our current idols?”
The list he provides offers a starting point. Wealth promises security. Health can become a demand for control. Pleasure can become the chief measure of a good life. Power can replace service. Prestige can make public approval more important than faithfulness. Ease and comfort can make sacrifice feel unreasonable. The specific forms differ, but the underlying issue remains the same: something created receives the trust and devotion owed to God.
Dr. Greene also challenges the assumption that a Christian heritage guarantees continuing faithfulness. He compares America’s relatively short history with places such as Ethiopia, Syria, Italy, Greece, and Egypt, where Christian presence reaches back to the earliest centuries of the church. He also notes that Armenia and Georgia officially embraced Christianity in the fourth century. These countries have faced their own spiritual struggles, and Christianity remains under pressure in many places. Their long histories do not remove the need for faithfulness.
The same principle applies to America. A nation cannot rely only on what earlier generations believed, built, or confessed. Historical memory matters, but inherited language cannot substitute for present obedience. Dr. Greene’s argument is that every generation must decide whether it will seek God or give its loyalty to the idols of its own time.
He points to the Great Awakenings as periods when God stirred people toward repentance and renewed devotion. He also suggests that America may be at the beginning of another awakening. In this message, awakening is not presented merely as increased religious interest. It is a call to repent, renounce idols, and return to God.
That call becomes personal in Colossians 3. Paul begins by directing those who have been raised with Christ to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” A few verses later, he commands believers to put to death what is earthly in them: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
The identification of covetousness as idolatry makes the issue internal as well as external. Idolatry is not confined to public rituals. It can be rooted in desire, appetite, and the refusal to be content under God’s rule. A person can reject carved images while still organizing life around what he or she wants to possess, protect, experience, or control.
Paul’s instruction also moves beyond diagnosis. Believers are told to seek what is above and put earthly idolatry to death. Dr. Greene’s message therefore does not end with a list of national failures. It asks each person to examine personal allegiance. What receives the strongest affection? What is treated as nonnegotiable? What loss would feel unbearable? What promise of comfort, influence, recognition, or security is allowed to outweigh obedience to God?
Dr. Greene closes with a sentence that gathers the entire message into one point: “The end of America’s idolatry begins with each of our commitments to God.”
His conclusion does not begin with a political program, public campaign, or appeal to someone else’s repentance. It begins with the individual decision to seek God, reject competing loyalties, and live as a person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. The national concern remains large, but the first act of response is close and personal.
America’s idols may not stand on stone platforms. They may appear in bank accounts, ambitions, appetites, reputations, comforts, and demands for control. Dr. Greene’s message calls those substitutes by their biblical name and places the responsibility for renewal at the point where worship is actually chosen: in the commitments of each person before God.
TL;DR
Dr. Greene begins with D.L. Moody’s warning that anything loved more than God functions as an idol.
Isaiah 44 exposes the absurdity of making an object of worship from the same wood used for heat and cooking.
Dr. Greene argues that ancient idols represented a spiritual counterfeit of God’s desire to dwell among His people.
Exodus presents God dwelling among Israel, while Paul describes believers individually and collectively as the temple of the living God.
Modern idolatry does not require statues or pagan temples; it is expressed through misplaced love and loyalty.
Dr. Greene names wealth, health, pleasure, power, prestige, ease, and comfort as pursuits that can become idols.
He compares America’s recurring spiritual drift and return to the cycle of unfaithfulness, distress, repentance, and deliverance in Judges.
A Christian heritage cannot replace present faithfulness, and every generation must decide what it will worship.
Colossians 3 identifies covetousness as idolatry and calls believers to seek what is above while putting earthly desires to death.
Dr. Greene’s central conclusion is that the end of national idolatry begins with each person’s commitment to God.
Discussion and Reflection
Discussion Questions
How does D.L. Moody’s definition of an idol expand the subject beyond statues, temples, and ancient religions?
What contrast does Dr. Greene draw between God dwelling among His people and the counterfeit spiritual presence associated with ancient idols?
How do the personal and collective temple images in 1 Corinthians 6 and 2 Corinthians 6 affect the way believers should think about allegiance and worship?
Of the idols Dr. Greene names—wealth, health, pleasure, power, prestige, ease, and comfort—which seems most influential in American life, and why?
Where does Dr. Greene see a pattern like the cycle in Judges within American history, and what kind of response does he believe is needed?
Apply It This Week
Identify one pursuit that most often competes with obedience to God. Write down the decisions, habits, or fears that reveal its influence.
Read Isaiah 44, Exodus 25:8, Exodus 29:45, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, and Colossians 3:1–5. Note what each passage says about worship, God’s presence, and idolatry.
Choose one concrete act of renunciation connected to wealth, pleasure, prestige, ease, comfort, or another competing loyalty. Replace it with a deliberate act of faithfulness.
Pray for spiritual awakening in America, beginning with personal repentance rather than criticism of someone else’s failures.
Prayer Prompt
Ask God to reveal any love, desire, source of security, or demand for control that has taken His place, and ask for the courage to renounce it and seek what is above.