On September 17 of this year, the American Theological Seminary, in New York, prayed and confessed their sins to a bunch of plants in a Chapel Service. (see photo) (BTW, this is no joke.)
The Theological Union recently brought plants into their Chapel Service, at which point their faculty and students bowed down before the plants and confessed their sins.
Later, one student wrote, “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honour.”
Many people have made fun of their ‘plant-worship’ on Twitter, but the seminary has also received defenders who are happy to see plants idolized as gods.
This is a sad story that we’ve actually heard of before. When Israel came out of Egypt, they made the mistake of bowing before a golden, baby-cow-shaped idol (called a calf), and, under King Solomon, idol worship again reared its head, which led to a split in the kingdom. The leaders of the northern 10 tribes then set up 2 idols for the Jews to worship, instead of going to worship God at Jerusalem.
The Catholic church has also taught its people to worship people: Mary, Joseph and a host of human saints.
Whether it’s plants or animals or people, it’s ‘all’ idol worship, and God HATES idol worship.
Isa. 44:6 “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God”.
But how does this affect Christians?? Col. 3:5, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
This may be why the Apostle John wrote in 1Jn_5:21, “Little children,
keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”