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The Uses of Idolatry
In The Uses of Idolatry , William T. Cavanaugh offers a sustained and interdisciplinary argument that worship has not waned in our supposedly “secular” world. Rather, the target of worship has changed, migrating from the explicit worship of God to the implicit worship of things. Cavanaugh examines modern idolatries and the ways in which humans become dominated by our own creations.
While Cavanaugh is critical of modern idolatries, his argument is also sympathetic, seeing in idolatry a deep longing in the human heart for the transformation of our lives. We all believe in something, he we are worshipping creatures whose devotion alights on all sorts of things, in part because we are material creatures, and the material world is beautiful. Following an invisible God is hard for material creatures, so we-those who profess belief in God and those who don't-fixate on things that are closer to hand.
Ranging widely across the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and cultural studies, Cavanaugh develops an account of modernity as not the condition of being disenchanted but the condition of having learned to describe the world as disenchanted. For a better description of the world, Cavanaugh turns to scriptural, theological, and phenomenological accounts of idolatry as inordinate devotion to created things. Through deep explorations of nationalism and consumer culture, The Uses of Idolatry presents a sympathetic but critical account of how and why we sacrifice ourselves and others to gods of our own design.
While Cavanaugh is critical of modern idolatries, his argument is also sympathetic, seeing in idolatry a deep longing in the human heart for the transformation of our lives. We all believe in something, he we are worshipping creatures whose devotion alights on all sorts of things, in part because we are material creatures, and the material world is beautiful. Following an invisible God is hard for material creatures, so we-those who profess belief in God and those who don't-fixate on things that are closer to hand.
Ranging widely across the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and cultural studies, Cavanaugh develops an account of modernity as not the condition of being disenchanted but the condition of having learned to describe the world as disenchanted. For a better description of the world, Cavanaugh turns to scriptural, theological, and phenomenological accounts of idolatry as inordinate devotion to created things. Through deep explorations of nationalism and consumer culture, The Uses of Idolatry presents a sympathetic but critical account of how and why we sacrifice ourselves and others to gods of our own design.
504 pages, Hardcover
Published January 16, 2024
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137 people want to read
About the author
William T. Cavanaugh
30 books101 followersDr. William T. Cavanaugh, Ph.D. (Religion, Duke University; M.A., Theology and Religious Studies, Cambridge University) is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 3, 2025
I would write my own little review, but honestly it would end up sounding exactly like the one Bram wrote so just go read his, haha!
I did, however, give one more star just because this book opened me up to the writings of Charles Taylor which then has opened me to political philosophy and religious social science. This book was a gateway drug to a wider world even if I don’t exactly find the book to be the best offering. If Bacote is seeking to use this book as an introductory type book for the field, then I can see it being an excellent classroom book. 4/5
I did, however, give one more star just because this book opened me up to the writings of Charles Taylor which then has opened me to political philosophy and religious social science. This book was a gateway drug to a wider world even if I don’t exactly find the book to be the best offering. If Bacote is seeking to use this book as an introductory type book for the field, then I can see it being an excellent classroom book. 4/5
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January 31, 2024Need to re-read Taylor to evaluate this better.
November 28, 2025
This book is really a recitation of quotes from other scholars, with occasional commentary from Cavanaugh. If Cavanaugh chose to center his own views more, he could spare readers a good 200 or so pages.
The thesis itself is interesting, but I’m not sure I’m entirely sold. Perhaps the enchantment/disenchantment distinction needs to be complicated, but I don’t want to erase it.
His suggests for how to avoid idolatry at the end were anticlimactic. There were some good suggestions (e.g., avoid the dehumanizing of commodities by buying from markets which bring you into contact with producers), but many of them were vague, characteristic of a do-gooder who doesn’t appreciate the complexity of issues such as economics, immigration, etc.
His best contribution was on the difference between idols and icons: one is an attempt to the grasp at the divine, the other an attempt to receive it.
I don’t regret reading this book, but I don’t plan on returning to it.
The thesis itself is interesting, but I’m not sure I’m entirely sold. Perhaps the enchantment/disenchantment distinction needs to be complicated, but I don’t want to erase it.
His suggests for how to avoid idolatry at the end were anticlimactic. There were some good suggestions (e.g., avoid the dehumanizing of commodities by buying from markets which bring you into contact with producers), but many of them were vague, characteristic of a do-gooder who doesn’t appreciate the complexity of issues such as economics, immigration, etc.
His best contribution was on the difference between idols and icons: one is an attempt to the grasp at the divine, the other an attempt to receive it.
I don’t regret reading this book, but I don’t plan on returning to it.
March 4, 2025
Political theology may seem like an oxymoron to many. It is an incredibly complex subject, but the more you read of it, the more you realise that it's an unavoidable one for theologians. The question of the Christian disposition vis a vis the state and negotiation of that tricky relationship is something that has been written about and debated since the early Christian communities were formed. With Christianity now marginalized, the question is more muted from public discourse.
In this impressive, sweeping tome, Cavanaugh convicingly argues that what we commonly refer to as the secularization of Western societies is, in fact, a migration of the holy and sacramental elements of human life to spheres other than religion. Humans, he maintains, are made for worship, and will find ways to do it one way or another. What we commonly refer to as 'secularization' is in some cases the creation of idols that satisfy our need for sensual worship through materiality. He argues equally convincingly that the US state is a religious institution, citing laws that regulate in massive detail how the flag is to be handled ceremonially. He maintains that humans, as material and sensual creatures, need to worship through the medium of the material world, noting that Catholicism has recognized this over many centuries.
For the sake of this book, Cavanaugh focuses on nationalism and consumerism as the idols. He is careful to point out that professing Christians are equally as susceptible to such idolatry as atheists or those from other faith traditions. Idolatry, he maintains, is more a matter of behaviour than which creed one claims to follow. He draws from aspects of the thought of various philosophers and theologians to make his argument, including Augustine and other Church Fathers, Max Weber, Charles Taylor, Marx, Nietzsche, and many others. He is obviously an incredibly learned and conscientious theologian.
As a fan of Alasdair MacIntyre's book After Virtue, it was surprising to see that this wasn't cited, as to me it seemed relevant, but Cavanaugh does draw from other work by MacIntyre, including this gem of a quote from him: ‘The modern nation-state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable institution, presenting itself on the one hand as a bureaucratic supplier of goods and services, which is always about to, but never actually does, give its clients value for money, and on the other as a repository of sacred values, which from time to time invites one to lay down one’s life on its behalf…[I]t is like being asked to die for the telephone company.’
Of course, the divinization of the construct of nation and of consumer goods is one of the major hazards of modernity. There's no disputing this. Cavanaugh writes poetically on the way in which he thinks the Eucharist and a focus on the Incarnation is an alternative to this idolatry. However, it's difficult to get a handle how he sees this playing out in concrete terms, and as someone who has taken the highly DIY approach to these things, as it were, by doing a ploughshares action, it does seem like we need something more tangible than a commitment to Fair Trade purchasing and reflections on the sacraments to remedy the state of the world. After all, there are many who argue that Fair Trade in itself is a form of elitism, these products being beyond the means of the poorest, though obviously those who can afford to buy goods with an ethical stamp should do so.
For a person who is already middle class and salaried, like many of us in the developed world, there is no real penitential aspect to buying Fair Trade. Something only becomes pentiential, surely, when there is genuine sacrifice involved: doing something that risks life, reputation, freedom, respectability, career, and/or social acceptability within the dominant culture. A few hundred dollars extra on one's monthly expenditure may do some good, but it's a massive stretch to call it pentitence - in some circles, it qulifies as an upper-middle-class status symbol, signalling that although you don't need to shop in the bargain store, you're prepared to be magnanimous about that fact (again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't support Fair Trade, it just means that motivations are relevant and they vary between people). On the other hand, someone who is struggling, yet still buys Fair Trade occasionally due to concern for the welfare of the Other, is like the widow putting her penny into the Treasury, so to speak.
With the rise of the strongman ethic in the US and a crazy technocrat sidekick trying to destabilize the EU over his social media playground, Twitter, purchasing clothes made ethically isn't really going to cut it. (To clarify, the so-called strongman ethic is almost never enacted by men who are genuinely strong - the latter don't typically need to display their power to the world with the narcissistic displays we're seeing now, which are generally a means of masking weakness.) That said, arguably, it's not the job of a theologian to lay out a concrete roadmap for how to aid the heralding in of the Kingdom, and some might argue that such an overarching roadmap would be a dangerous project by definition. After all, that's what cults try to do.
There were a few places in the book where the logic was a little lost on me, but in many respects that could be my own lack of background in the areas being discussed. For example, the sections on Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of the idol versus icon, which included theorizing about 'saturated' idols and icons, left me somewhat perplexed in places. However, as Marion was a pupil of Jacques Derrida, then this might explain it (though not particularly proud of this, I once threw a Derrida book across a room in frustration in my undergraduate youth, and frankly, it narrowly escaped defenestration). That said, this book is a hugely impressive achievement from someone who is clearly a profound theological thinker.
In this impressive, sweeping tome, Cavanaugh convicingly argues that what we commonly refer to as the secularization of Western societies is, in fact, a migration of the holy and sacramental elements of human life to spheres other than religion. Humans, he maintains, are made for worship, and will find ways to do it one way or another. What we commonly refer to as 'secularization' is in some cases the creation of idols that satisfy our need for sensual worship through materiality. He argues equally convincingly that the US state is a religious institution, citing laws that regulate in massive detail how the flag is to be handled ceremonially. He maintains that humans, as material and sensual creatures, need to worship through the medium of the material world, noting that Catholicism has recognized this over many centuries.
For the sake of this book, Cavanaugh focuses on nationalism and consumerism as the idols. He is careful to point out that professing Christians are equally as susceptible to such idolatry as atheists or those from other faith traditions. Idolatry, he maintains, is more a matter of behaviour than which creed one claims to follow. He draws from aspects of the thought of various philosophers and theologians to make his argument, including Augustine and other Church Fathers, Max Weber, Charles Taylor, Marx, Nietzsche, and many others. He is obviously an incredibly learned and conscientious theologian.
As a fan of Alasdair MacIntyre's book After Virtue, it was surprising to see that this wasn't cited, as to me it seemed relevant, but Cavanaugh does draw from other work by MacIntyre, including this gem of a quote from him: ‘The modern nation-state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable institution, presenting itself on the one hand as a bureaucratic supplier of goods and services, which is always about to, but never actually does, give its clients value for money, and on the other as a repository of sacred values, which from time to time invites one to lay down one’s life on its behalf…[I]t is like being asked to die for the telephone company.’
Of course, the divinization of the construct of nation and of consumer goods is one of the major hazards of modernity. There's no disputing this. Cavanaugh writes poetically on the way in which he thinks the Eucharist and a focus on the Incarnation is an alternative to this idolatry. However, it's difficult to get a handle how he sees this playing out in concrete terms, and as someone who has taken the highly DIY approach to these things, as it were, by doing a ploughshares action, it does seem like we need something more tangible than a commitment to Fair Trade purchasing and reflections on the sacraments to remedy the state of the world. After all, there are many who argue that Fair Trade in itself is a form of elitism, these products being beyond the means of the poorest, though obviously those who can afford to buy goods with an ethical stamp should do so.
For a person who is already middle class and salaried, like many of us in the developed world, there is no real penitential aspect to buying Fair Trade. Something only becomes pentiential, surely, when there is genuine sacrifice involved: doing something that risks life, reputation, freedom, respectability, career, and/or social acceptability within the dominant culture. A few hundred dollars extra on one's monthly expenditure may do some good, but it's a massive stretch to call it pentitence - in some circles, it qulifies as an upper-middle-class status symbol, signalling that although you don't need to shop in the bargain store, you're prepared to be magnanimous about that fact (again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't support Fair Trade, it just means that motivations are relevant and they vary between people). On the other hand, someone who is struggling, yet still buys Fair Trade occasionally due to concern for the welfare of the Other, is like the widow putting her penny into the Treasury, so to speak.
With the rise of the strongman ethic in the US and a crazy technocrat sidekick trying to destabilize the EU over his social media playground, Twitter, purchasing clothes made ethically isn't really going to cut it. (To clarify, the so-called strongman ethic is almost never enacted by men who are genuinely strong - the latter don't typically need to display their power to the world with the narcissistic displays we're seeing now, which are generally a means of masking weakness.) That said, arguably, it's not the job of a theologian to lay out a concrete roadmap for how to aid the heralding in of the Kingdom, and some might argue that such an overarching roadmap would be a dangerous project by definition. After all, that's what cults try to do.
There were a few places in the book where the logic was a little lost on me, but in many respects that could be my own lack of background in the areas being discussed. For example, the sections on Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of the idol versus icon, which included theorizing about 'saturated' idols and icons, left me somewhat perplexed in places. However, as Marion was a pupil of Jacques Derrida, then this might explain it (though not particularly proud of this, I once threw a Derrida book across a room in frustration in my undergraduate youth, and frankly, it narrowly escaped defenestration). That said, this book is a hugely impressive achievement from someone who is clearly a profound theological thinker.
April 25, 2024
Har inte läst alla kapitel än (den är väldigt lång) men av dem jag läst så är det första och sista samt kapitlet om Augustinus och Marion mest intressant. Bra sammanfattning av Marions tankar om ikonen och avguden samt en bra samtidskritik av kapitalism och nationalism som moderna avgudar (idols).
December 23, 2024
Essential reading for a misenchanted age! Cavanaugh provides a lot to reflect upon. Eager to interact with this work going forward!
December 6, 2025
A brilliant, ambitious, illuminating multidisciplinary work that holds important voices in conversation to discern a more complicated, honest, compassionate understanding of modern idolatry.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews