When the Prophets Railed

This is an ongoing series of meditations on faith, in response to readings from the articles that preface The Oxford Study Bible.

I will trust the reader to dig up the context if the meaning is unclear.

I always took the prophets at their word when they denounced the worship of other gods as blasphemy, deserving of divine judgement. I believed them when they implied that monotheism was the uncontested religious identity of their people, that together, they and the people were moving from the same starting point. "This is who we are. And you're breaking the agreement."

Suddenly I wonder if they were actually talking about things that weren't, after all, commonly accepted.

Like some of our own people calling this a Christian nation (no matter what all those atheists say) and holding the general populous accountable to a national religious identity they never signed up for.

Maybe, when the prophets railed, the people weren't interested. Maybe it's not a given that they should have been.