Steve Massey: American culture today self-absorbed, self-worshipping

Do you think we’d all fit in a time capsule?

Let me explain the question: When I was a kid, the nation’s bicentennial prompted grade schools all over the country to bury time capsules stuffed with items that would remind us what our culture was like in the year 1976.

I can’t remember exactly, but I think we filled ours with things like an eight-track tape (Steve Miller wanted to “Fly Like an Eagle” that year), news magazines (Jimmy Carter was Time’s “Man of the Year”), and a sample family budget (gasoline cost just 60 cents a gallon, but most families lived on less than $16,000 a year.)

I’m not sure when the capsule at my beloved Sunrise Elementary School will be dug from the soggy earth of Puyallup, Wash., but whoever’s wielding the spade that day will see what really mattered to folks in the days of Rocky Balboa and Billy Beer.

OK, back to the question: Do you think we’d all fit in a time capsule?

Yes, that’s rhetorical – and ridiculous. It’s just that you and I wedging ourselves into a time capsule might be the best way to help future generations understand what really mattered to Americans in our day. Look around and consider the evidence: What matters most to us is… us.

We are a culture obsessed with ourselves.

Need proof? Let’s browse the news racks.

Time magazine recently announced its Person of the Year and it is – You. A multitude of Americans use the Internet to feed self-obsession via YouTube, MySpace, Facebook or other sites that showcase US, or give ME what I want.

Anyone who opened our time capsule and tapped into our iPods would see that American life is a bit of a drama, and we’re often the stars of the show. In fact, self-worship may well be the fastest growing belief system of our day.

The consequences are severe. Millions of Americans get what they want by spending more than they make – aided by creditors who care more about themselves than their customers. Popular TV shows let us watch people who feel they are ugly get cosmetically reconstructed so they’ll feel like they look beautiful. Both bogus standards – ugliness and beauty – are established by magazines and movies we’ve been consuming like popcorn since our fifth birthdays.

Even the name of one TV’s biggest successes, “American Idol,” rightly proclaims where we’re at as a culture. We have found our idol, it seems, and it is us.

Worshipping self is as old as Adam. It’s interesting to me that the first few of the Bible’s Ten Commandments remind us that God is God, not us or something we’ve contrived.

“I am the Lord your God … You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything … You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:1-6, NKJV).

Self-worship is a subtle thing, a false religion easier to see in others than ourselves. Think about it: We seldom hesitate to look out for ourselves first, but we’re outraged when Dennis Erickson abandons the University of Idaho to coach football at Arizona State. “Really,” we ask, “how selfish can he get?”

Perhaps no more than us. We’re just more discreet.

The Ten Commandments warn us of the life we now live, but also point us to a hopeful way out. How ironic that these same commandments are now being removed from public places. Maybe we don’t want to be reminded how far we’ve strayed from God’s best for us.

They tell us that contentment and purpose are found in worshipping our Creator and serving others in his name, not indulging ourselves.

I’m resolving this year to walk closer to God’s way. I want to see self getting smaller in the rearview mirror. You’re welcome to join me.

The alternative for us is as ridiculous as it is wrong.

I mean, do you really think we’ll fit in that time capsule?