From what Iv'e always been taught in traditonal Christianity, idolatry would be the worship of something other than the Hebrew God.
And "something other" could be a stick, an image, an idea, or a distorted and inaccurate or essentially intellectual concept of what the scriptures mean as a "Hebrew God" and that is where Christianity is today and what G.C. said, above.
However, we have to define what worship consists of. For one thing, it would be something that would draw devotion away from Jehovah, as he is a jealous God as stated in Exodus.
So (your words and construct): "worship consists of . . . something that would draw devotion away from Jehovah"? Want to try again?
For instance, your employment can be a distraction from God, so can hobbies, and even your wife or children. For instance, one time God demanded a child sacrifice, which he later stopped to allow one person to prove his loyality (sic).
...according to the story. But I think you entirely missed G.C.'s point, which is (if I may paraphrase) that when we read the bible, study the bible, attend bible study classes, listen to recordings of our favorite preacher/pastor/ideologue ranting about "God", cross-reference the original Greek with the English translation, etc etc etc, we are only, and I stress "only" acquiring an intellectual picture of the subject and "God" in particular. Not a spiritual one. Not one based in a direct, immediate experience of God. And when the intellect tries to grasp this particular subject, the intellect invariable and inescapably fits it into one's experience in the world of ego. And that necessarily means a distortion. And that distortion is the idol to which G.C. refers.
But when a devotee actually and correctly follows the bible and
practices what the bible (N.T. in particular) teaches one should do as a correct practice, it produces eventually the direct, immediate experience of God. And the result is not an idol, and it is
only then that no idol is created. And this experience opens up a whole new, spiritual meaning to passages of scripture and the meaning in the bible of discussions of idols takes on a whole new light as well. It is then seen spiritually and correctly.
Modern Christianity lost this practice long, long ago and what is practices today is an idol. In fact, today's Christians are unwittingly obeying a Catholic Church edict handed down and begun in the 16th and 17th centuries, and that is the original cause and time of the change to pursuit of an intellectual understanding of the bible.