When values become idols

A great workplace should offer meaningful challenges and a stimulating environment suitable to promote edifying interactions supportive of happy lives. This concept frequently drives a career-ambitious flock through the babble of "alignment of values" uprooting self-beliefs. It is fomented in offices and meeting rooms, conveyed through corridors of social protocols into slaughterhouses of genuine character. These so-called values can amount to the stuff of brainwashing idolatry rather than gears of self-reflection and meaning.

Branding mottos – corporate-driven or self-enacted – drown out well-meaning people awash in social etiquette. "Modern times" conventions insulate the inner being either in the anonymity of "politically correct" and "all-inclusiveness" or in the isolationism of "privacy protection" and "respect for the individual". Frames of convictions around so-called values become an end in itself, trapping those people into shallow idolatry.

The tricks of corporate bragging, personal false modesty or professional parroting won't take anyone too far. If you have the character and courage to tow yourself away from "values" clichés, as well as from the "we’re different" anti-clichés, you may positively turn your life, both at work and not, into conveyor of real significance and fulfillment.

Consider taking a short self-evaluation. See if you recognize yourself caught up in one of the idolatries in the list below—examples of so-called "values" taken to excess. If you do, consider finding your way out and beyond them. This exercise will not benefit only yourself, but also those who live and work with you, as well as the organizations you are part of or interact with.

This list of idolatries was extracted and adapted from brilliant references and works by Tim Keller, Dick Keyes, Dick Kauffman, David Powlison, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Eric Geiger and others. It is long and yet not exhaustive, nevertheless notice how it can be summarized or represented by the first four "root idolatries" at the top of the list. See which of these in particular resonate with you.

• To have power and influence (power idolatry)
• To be appreciated and respected (approval idolatry)
• To have pleasurable experience and quality of life (comfort idolatry)
• To be able to master own existence (control idolatry)
• To be productive and getting a lot done (work idolatry)
• To be recognized for own accomplishments (achievement idolatry)
• To be recognized in social or professional groups (inner ring idolatry)
• To pursue a particular look or perception (image idolatry)
• To have wealth, possession and financial freedom (materialism idolatry)
• To be protected and kept safe  (dependence idolatry)
• To be free from obligations or responsibilities (independence idolatry)
• To have dependent and needy people (provider idolatry)
• To live or be with loved ones (individual person idolatry)
• To sustain family happiness (family idolatry)
• To win people looked up to (relationship idolatry)
• To inspire political, social or religious causes (ideology idolatry)
• To adhere to moral codes, or oppositely, to self-made morality (morality or (ir)religion idolatry)
• To consider ascendant race, culture or religion (racial/cultural idolatry)
• To endure in suffering worthy of love or guilt (suffering idolatry)
• To have fun (entertainment idolatry)

 
Recognize yours? Most do. Furthermore, many overrate the happiness of a "well balanced life" amassing many of the above beliefs in a single "value bundle".

Don't get me wrong, the above list, as well as all words in quotation marks herein, are not to be doomed. On the contrary: they can be part of a healthy work and life style. The issue arises when those beliefs become over-bearing to the point they become indispensable. It transpires when people sadly swamp their ambitions and sense of purpose in them (regardless of success accomplishing those beliefs), becoming hostage of themselves, unable to re-emerge from the quicksand of human idolatries.

Much boldness of character is needed to acknowledge the "values" leading the way to overdependence. Even more humility is needed to emerge from the respective addiction and let be enlightened by divine light. No metaphor here: I am suggesting that we should be aiming spiritually higher. 

We distract ourselves in the money-and-career-driven world, by manipulative acclamations of leadership and savoir-faire in the quest for access to, and influence over, resources, people and opportunities. We should instead challenge ourselves with the pursuit of truth and submit ourselves to contemplate higher. This cannot be done without humbleness and I share the approach I found of unparalleled significance.

The initial challenge is to detoxify from innate personal pride nurtured by self-centered gravitas, science gloat and go-with-the-flow rhetoric. This allows to embrace the miracle of life and the fact that mass, energy and life couldn't have possibly appeared out of nothing without an absolute creator ultimately engendering them. The next thing to do is to recognize the authority of the book co-authored with a single comprehensive story line fulfilling countless foresights within a span of around 1500 years inspired by the same source. That book cross-references the past and the future providing insightful evidences of the purposefulness of work and life vis-à-vis what happens when mankind holds itself captive in the wisdom of its own "values".

I’m speaking up here for God and the Bible, as inappropriate and "politically incorrect” as it may seem. They both hold a treasure we cannot allow to cowardly disguise in current precepts of religious "parity" (or indifference really), "privacy" and "respect" for the individual. Respectfulness is indeed required to share legitimate inner values harbored in profound personal beliefs. We must be able to reflect genuine light with healthy apologetics shaking off wishy-washy dumbness while on the other hand avoiding stubborn (often litigious) fanaticism.

If only we were able to go back to toil in the garden of Eden in that primeval time before mankind decided to defiantly pursue its own way and its idols, as it is inherent in all of us to do as the list above suggests. In that once real now metaphorical garden, you too can find the meaning of true fulfillment and fruitfulness. To understand how this is pursuable, grab the aforesaid all-times best seller dusting in your bookshelf, or acquire one, or download one on your digital device. If you already use the Bible, start reading it submissively without prejudice. You will be amazed how much insight and everlasting values can reward you as well as your workplace or wherever you lead or serve.

In conclusion, the point is to not limit our goals or development to “idols”, when real values permeate our universe. And when we are the only vehicles to universally express and engage in them. This article just scratches the surface but will hopefully stimulate reflection and disruptive renovation. If you need, I will be happy to reach back to you one-to-one indicating further readings or experts I know depending on your honest inquisitiveness regarding the "values" you’re hooked on.