Anxiety-Driven Theology

I started writing this series on idolatry over six months ago.

Ironically, since then, a golden statue of the President of the United States has repeatedly appeared in the news.

I’m not interested in debating presidents, parties, or political tribes. I’m interested in something deeper: the way Scripture portrays idolatry not merely as the worship of statues, but as the worship of inherited systems of security.

In the biblical story, Egypt becomes more than a nation. 

Egypt is Empire. 

It is the prototype of Babylon. It is anti-Eden: a world organized around fear, control, assimilation, economic power, false worship, anti-creation violence, and captivity.

And Israel’s deepest struggle was not escaping Egypt, but learning how to stop worshiping like Egypt.

This blog will make a simple claim:

Anxiety fuels idolatry, and idolatry shapes theology.

In moments of heightened fear, people deify things that have no place in the divine, and Scripture prepares us for that very truth. Ask yourself:

Are you afraid of foreign attacks from hostile regimes?
Are you afraid of powerful people manipulating governments behind closed doors?
Are you afraid of agendas that threaten your children, your family, your way of life?
Are you afraid of authoritarianism? Socialism? Anarchism? Conservatism? Liberalism?

I’m not here to pretend the world is fine. But I do have a question:

Is it possible our theology looks the way it looks because fear is the box we organize it in?

I’d like to spend some time combing through the Old Testament, and I invite you to join me, because Scripture exposes this problem in profound ways. This will be a series of reflections on belief, anxiety, idolatry, and empire.

And the thread tying it all together is this: there is a pagan vision of power and security that constantly tries to disguise itself as faithfulness to God.

We’ll spend a significant amount of time in the Exodus story, where God’s victory over darkness and his patient grace set people free from slavery.

You’ve probably heard preachers say, “God got Israel out of Egypt, but he couldn’t get Egypt out of Israel.” That’s a helpful way of saying that Israel’s deepest problem was not merely external oppression, but internal formation. Removing the Israelites from hegemonic power did not automatically heal the things that power had shaped inside them.

And if that sounds like an over-spiritualization of real oppression, stay with me. The book of Judges will eventually force us to wrestle with that concern too.

But I want to make a more precise claim about the exodus that I think speaks powerfully to our own moment:

Israel did not simply want deliverance from Egypt. They wanted the security of Egypt without the oppression of Pharaoh. They wanted Yahweh to preserve the benefits of Empire while removing its cruelty.

That’s a claim that goes further than simply saying, “God couldn’t get Egypt out of Israel.”

Let’s break it down, starting at the end of Genesis.

Jacob’s descendants establish themselves in Egypt through Joseph’s favor. Joseph is Jacob’s beloved son (Gen. 37:3-4), and eventually Joseph rises to become a ruler inside the machinery of Egypt itself. That positioning is not evil. In fact, Joseph’s authority was God’s provision for preserving Jacob’s family during the famine.

But what we do with God’s provisions is where things get dangerous.

Do we receive them as gifts that point beyond themselves to God’s faithfulness? Or do we slowly begin treating those gifts as ultimate sources of identity, safety, and meaning?

When Jacob’s family migrates, Genesis says they “settled” (yashab, יָשַׁב) in Egypt, “acquired property,” and “became fruitful” (Gen. 47:27). These terms almost never refer to temporary migration or sojourning in ancient literature. The language of Genesis begins to sound less like temporary survival and more like permanence. 

In the face of famine and instability, this craving for rootedness makes complete sense. But it raises a haunting question:

Has Israel begun exchanging covenant inheritance for imperial security?

Then Jacob nears death, and suddenly the tension surfaces.

He tells Joseph:

Promise me that you will deal with me in kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt. When I rest with my ancestors, carry me away from Egypt and bury me in their burial place. (Genesis 47:29-30)

Jacob recognizes something his descendants may already be forgetting: Egypt is not his inheritance.

In the ancient Near East, burial location mattered deeply because it expressed identity, covenant continuity, inheritance, and belonging. To be buried with one’s ancestors declared: “This is my people. This is where I belong. This is the story I am part of.”

Death publicly declared allegiance.

This is why the ancestral tomb matters so much:
Abraham and Sarah.
Isaac and Rebekah.
Leah.
And eventually Jacob himself.

All connected to the cave of Machpelah in Canaan (Gen. 23:19-20).

That tomb becomes more than a grave. It becomes a declaration that God’s promises still stand.

And notice the irony: Abraham legally owned almost nothing in the promised land except a burial site.

The only possessed piece of inheritance was a grave. 

Which means Jacob’s burial request is making a profound theological statement: 

God’s promise is still our inheritance, even if we die before receiving it fully.

Jacob dies in Egypt, materially successful, protected, and honored. Yet he refuses Egyptian burial because Egypt preserved his body, but Canaan preserved his identity.

The book of Genesis ends with tremendous ambiguity. Israel prospers in Egypt. Joseph gains immense political power. The family settles comfortably in Goshen.

On one hand, this is God’s providence.
On the other hand, Genesis quietly warns us that comfort can become assimilation.

Jacob’s burial request functions almost like a prophetic interruption, saying, “Do not mistake provision for inheritance. Egypt saved us temporarily. But it was never home.”

What Jacob embodies here becomes foundational for later Israelite thought: living in Babylon, living under Rome, living dispersed throughout pagan societies. The faithful person may live inside the empire without belonging to Empire. Jacob dies in Egypt, but refuses Egyptian finality.

And we should be careful not to flatten this into simplistic anti-government rhetoric. Scripture is not arguing that society, politics, or civilization itself is evil. Joseph’s rise in Egypt was itself an act of God’s providence.

The danger is subtler than that.

Human beings consistently try to remake God in the image of the systems that make them feel safe. That’s anxiety-driven theology culminating in idolatry. 

That is the real danger of Empire.

Not merely oppressive governments, but the way fear slowly teaches us to trust visible systems of power, security, prosperity, and control more than the promise of the presence of God.

The initial journey into Egypt was good. Necessary, even. God used Joseph’s wisdom, favor, and forgiveness to preserve Jacob’s descendants from extinction during a famine. But temporary refuge slowly became permanent attachment. Genesis describes the famine lasting seven years (Gen. 41-47), yet Israel remains in Egypt for generations before oppression even enters the narrative (Ex. 1:6-7).

Why?

Because Empire had started to feel like home.

And when the powers of Empire eventually turned on them, Israel cried out for deliverance from oppression, but not necessarily from the imagination of Empire itself.

That tension runs through the entire Old Testament, as we will see. It’s most evident in the golden calf.

At Sinai, in Joshua and Judges, and throughout the prophets, Israel repeatedly wrestles with the same temptation: not merely rejecting Yahweh, but reshaping Yahweh according to the vision of power and security they already trust. The security they became addicted to in Egypt.

They want the promises of Eden to migrate with them to Egypt. You could almost say they want Yahweh to displace Pharaoh and take his throne.