Israel never actually abandoned the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their problem was not replacing Yahweh with other Canaanite gods. Their problem was setting other gods beside him. Yahweh remained their national deity, the one on whom they called when it came to war and threats from enemies.
Since January I've been working through a Church history course as part of my M. Div. program at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Up until now in the course, it has been fascinating and exciting to watch Christianity spread from Jerusalem to places as far away as Spain in the far west and China in the far east. It's kind of like watching the home team advance in big ways. This past week, however, the home team took a major hit. Or did it?