Daniel 14:26. "But if you, O king, will give me permission, I will slay the dragon without sword or club." Daniel is speaking to the king of Babylon, to whom he has become a trusted advisor. Daniel has just proved to the king that the Babylonian god Bel is a fraud, and the king counters with the fact that there is also a great dragon in Babylon, and surely Daniel must agree that it is a living God. Daniel does not agree; says he only worships the Lord, the living God; and says he can slay the dragon without sword or club, if the king will grant him permission. The king does grant permission, and Daniel makes cakes out of pitch, tar, and hair which the dragon eats and then "bursts open." (Daniel 14:27). (I wonder what kind of animal the dragon actually was? Some apparently think that it was a large snake, which makes sense, but I like the translation to "dragon" a lot!)

All of our idols really are this easily slain when we let go of our attachment to them, but it is that letting go that is the most difficult part. The dragon was an idol, a false god, something the king and the people had given so much respect and power to in their own minds that they thought of it as a "living god." Daniel could see the dragon for what it was, merely a creature; but he also could see that the Babylonians could not see it for what it was, that they had imbued it with much more power and authority than it deserved. So rather than just kill it, Daniel asked permission first. This is extremely important.

The attachment we feel to our idols (and we all have idols - Father Mike Schmitz says we have "idol making hearts!") can be so all-encompassing, so much a part of our identity, that if the idol is simply destroyed or removed from us we will suffer greatly, and we will want to punish the person who destroyed or removed it. (In fact, Daniel is ultimately thrown in the lions' den because he killed the dragon!) I have seen this myself when trying to reason with people who have adopted a certain belief as a universal truth. When the belief has become part of their identity, they are unable to look at it in a logical, reasonable way. Instead, they lash out or shut down. They cannot relinquish the belief, because it has gained the status of an idol to them, they will sooner attack the truth-speaker then question it. This was, frankly, a very disconcerting learning experience for me, one that I really just encountered over the last few years. But I have learned that when I see this reaction, that is when I know I am dealing with an idol, and I must back off for the person's, and my own, good.

There is a scene in The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis that exemplifies these attachments, or false gods, we can have. Outside of Heaven, and heading back to hell, is a man with a lizard on his shoulder, constantly and maliciously whispering in his ear. An angel stops the man before he returns to hell and asks if he can kill the lizard. It takes a lot of convincing, but finally the man grants permission to the angel, and he is freed from his attachment, his idol, and free to enter Heaven! The the lizard becomes a beautiful horse that the man rides into Heaven, showing us that we can deform reality, at least in our own minds, when we do not see things for what they really are and give them more power over us than we should. 

So Daniel was very wise to ask permission to slay the dragon. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, the king gave permission easily. Maybe the king was starting to see the truth after Daniel showed him the falsity behind Bel (Daniel 14:6-22). Maybe the king saw how his misplaced trust in these "gods" was making him foolish. Daniel did the king a great service by exposing Bel and killing the dragon. He freed the king from his "worship" of these false gods, just like the angel freed the man from the lizard's influence in The Great Divorce.

The king is now free to look for the truth, and he seems close to finding it; so close that the people accuse him of becoming a Jew (Daniel 14:28). Since the Jews alone knew the one true God, that would have been a very good thing for the king, indeed!