“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
“You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”
-Jesus Christ
Patriotism is a good thing. Right? So we’ve been taught. So we’ve learned through countless days of class, pledging our collective allegiance to “one nation under God,” praising the glories of the Stars and Stripes in countless school plays, worshipping America and her amber waves of God-ordained grain before each and every baseball game… wait a second. Worshipping? Absolutely. Because the devotion displayed by many a flag-waving American citizen who calls themselves a disciple of Jesus Christ is little less than just that: worship.
Devotion to one’s country is by no means a new, or bad, idea. It’s natural to carry a certain sense of pride in the unique qualities of one’s home town, state, or nation; to know and love what sets your homeland apart from the rest of the world is completely natural, and, most of the time, neutral. And America is no exception; it’s a truly amazing nation worthy of this distinctive sense of pride. I’d venture to say that any American who’s traveled the world well enough can appreciate that. But appreciation for idiosyncrasies differs greatly from blind devotion to national symbols, ideas, and value sets, and it’s this phenomenon that I now address.
I use the word phenomenon because, compared to the rest of the world, many Americans, Christians among them, could be considered blindly patriotic and glaringly uninformed, displaying a painful lack of critical thought regarding our nation’s politics and policies. The reasons for this patriotic enchantment are both complex and numerous, and they are outside the scope of this article–they’d take a few more articles to elucidate in depth–and so I’ll leave them for just such a time. My concern here is the fact that American Christians are not just among the blindly patriotic of this nation, but they are often the most zealous of the lot, raising their pleas to “bring America back to God”, to “take back the (school, judicial, health, welfare) system for the Lord,” and generally presupposing the exclusive sort of relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that that God initiated with Israel thousands of years ago. It was called a theocracy, and it only existed once. Once. Which means it does not exist now. Not in America, not anywhere. Despite much popular opinion, the government of America is no more buddy-buddy with the Most High than Canada, Venezuela, Russia, India, or even France (gasp!). Yes, even France.
And yet, an objective observer would have a hard time distinguishing God from country in the life of many a proclaimed Christ-follower. Next to the Presbyterian/Episcopalian/Methodist/Lutheran/Baptist flag up at the front of the church stands the American flag. Next to trust in God for personal guidance and blessing stands trust in God for national guidance and blessing (stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above). There’s an unspoken (or in Jerry Falwell’s case, a spoken) expectation that if the American military kills a few more Iraqis per week and loses a few more terrorists behind the bars at Guantanamo Bay than usual, it must be because God is blessing us. And if civil unions are legalized in Vermont, abortions keep occurring, and another copy of the Ten Commandments is removed from the walls of a school, it must be because God is judging us for “straying from His ways”. We have a hard time separating the two, and to suggest that maybe God isn’t particularly concerned with the kingdom of America sounds like a blasphemous combination of heresy and treason to many a patriotic ear.
So, at what cost America? At what cost have we as American Christians bought the lies that because “one nation under God” is printed on our currency: a) that God is the God of Scripture; b) that God has a special affinity for our nation; and c) this somehow merits a dangerous amalgamation of spiritual and national identity? At what cost do we literally pledge our allegiance to the flag of a kingdom of this world, perhaps forgetting our call to “seek first the kingdom of God?”[1] At what expense have we loved our earthly home more than our heavenly one, again forgetting that we are to “live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear”?[2] At what price do we focus on the way we vote instead of the way we love, forgetting Christ’s last prayer for His followers (us): “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”?[3] At what cost America?
What would American Christianity look like with less America and more Christ? What if we, as Christ’s body and living representation to the rest of this world, focused on the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of man, opting to, instead of regulating morality through fearfully imposed alignment with legislated moral principles, renew the lives of our fellow human beings through transformational encounters with Jesus Christ in us? What if we focused on defending the name of Christ instead of the names Bush, America, Republican, or Democrat? What if Joel Osteen cared more about the health and welfare of the developing world instead of cooking up formulas to bless the inordinately healthy and wealthy Americans who spend $25 a pop at a Christian bookstore for his work? What if?
It doesn’t take a genius to project the impact a change of this magnitude would make. We’ve all heard things like: if American Christians each gave just $1 per week, all of Africa could be fed and clothed. But we’re not doing that. We’re not even caring for the widows, orphans, homeless, and prisoners in our own land. Certainly, many amazing people do an admirable job ministering in America as Christ has called us to, but that’s far from the nation-wide awakening that could literally change this world. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be writing this. But it is the case, and I am writing this, so while you’re still reading, let me end with a question. The next time you feel your emotion rise at the familiar strains of America’s national anthem or place your hand over your heart, preparing to repeat the words that have been drilled into your memory since grade school, pause and simply think: at what cost America?
[1] Matthew 6:33, NKJV[2] 1 Peter 1:17, NIV[3] John 17:23, NIV
