Sunday..... Christianity.....And If It Be Evil In Your Eyes...

The New International Version of the Bible translates Joshua 24:14-15 as Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Most Christians are familiar with the last part of Joshua's proclamation. It's a statement that we should want to make. The English Standard Version, a newer translation and one much more preferred by me, throws a different light on the words preceding the well-known Choose you this day often memorized ending. The ESV says And if it be evil in your eyes to serve the Lord. There is a big difference between serving the Lord as being undesirable and being seen as evil. Certainly the Gospel, as the Bible presents it, is at least undesirable as heard by modern ears, for it is not good news to them that we await a just condemnation even if God has provided a way. Today, the modern conception of the Gospel, can be very desirable; one simply retains their own views on most issues on salvation and adds Sunday church service. There is no need to be born again. It's one thing to simply not desire something and another to consider it evil. I've written a few times about Christopher Hitchens' book God Is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything. Mr. Hitchens is at least honest in giving his opinion. It's my contention, and I think the ESV is correct, that most people consider Christianity, even God Himself, to be more evil than just undesirable, although they would never admit it. Faith is fine as long as it is not explicit enough to involve guilt or punishment in any way. The watered down evangel of today, the good advice as today's broadcast of the White Horse Inn described it, can indeed  be seen as only undesirable, or it can be embraced, where one chooses to go to church, profess Christianity if asked or if it comes up in a conversation and even become fanatical on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, for these issues do not cut to the bone of our own rebellion against God, our own lost condition and just condemnation when we take our last breath. Is this important? In polls, over 80% of Americans claim to be Christians but only a fraction of them admit to even the most basic of essential Christian doctrines. God's act of saving us involves a ripping out, a tearing asunder, a heart transplant, every bit and more as devastating to our person as that medical surgery.  This is not indicative of much of American Christianity and any description of America as a Christian nation is deceptive, any hope that God will uphold us for that Christianity is futility. Our hope is more that God will protect our nation so that the Good News can continue to be proclaimed within and without. Disagree with me on Christian issues and certainly on political issues but if you cannot admit, joyfully, astonishingly admit, to having been regenerated, to having been rescued from a sure eternity in hell, then you must address why you do not. One last thought, if the concept  alone of hell is considered evil, then the ESV translation of Joshua 24:14 is likely more accurate than the NIV.