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Twenty years ago, when I was in seminary, I read all about idolatry: I learned that it only became a meaningful category when Israel emerged as the nation without divine images.  It represents one consistent focus of prophetic literature and the occasion for some truly troubling sexual allegories, and in the New Testament it becomes a broader idea, including abstract realities like greed as well as carved temple-images.  But I didn’t spend a great deal of time wondering what kinds of dispositions and practices might lead to idolatry or away from it. Stephen Fowl’s book Idolatry takes on that task, and Christian Humanist Profiles is glad to welcome him aboard.