Patriotism
Patriotism, in the context of Christianity, has always been an intriguing idea to me. I grew up in the south. The rural south, perhaps more specifically. It’s not uncommon for the church to be composed of 10%, 20%, or even 30% veterans. Beyond that, for a number of reasons, it’s not unusual for many members of the congregation to have children that are active members of the military. These things, perhaps, created a situation where I grew up in a spiritual environment where congregation members seemed to exude an especially strong sense of patriotism.
In some ways, it kind of makes sense.
Many things in the Bible improve citizenship. Me being a Christian should make me a better employee in my organization (at least in some ways). To the extent to which I want to be an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), and honor God in my work (Colossians 3:23), I should be proficient at what I do and hardworking, for sure.
Me being a Christian should make me a better member of my family. The Bible certainly talks about honoring your parents (Ephesians 6:2). It also discusses how husbands should treat wives and vice versa (Ephesians 5).
In a similar way, me being a Christian should improve my citizenship. I pay my taxes to the government (Mark 12). I won’t litter. And hopefully, I’ll take a greater level of interest in my neighbor and my fellow man (Matthew 22).
So, yeah, I kind of see how Christianity and citizenship does have some overlap.
In other ways, though, it’s a bit perplexing. I’ll be honest, I don’t necessarily think churches (members, leadership, or some combination of the two) are patriotic because of how Christianity improves citizenship.
I think we do it to honor tradition.
It’s kind of like when I see churches that have a ‘Santa Clause’ come in around the holidays. On the one hand, I’m like, “WHY ON EARTH IS THERE A SANTA CLAUSE HERE?” On the other hand, I think to myself, “Okay, it looks like they’re appealing to a tradition. The folklore of Santa Clause isn’t inherently sinful, so I guess it’s not a huge deal. Let me try and be open minded, even though the logic may be a bit hard to follow for me.”
I kind of feel that way about the institution of patriotism. Even growing up, before I was a Christian, I used to think to myself, “Why are we doing the pledge of allegiance, national anthem, or ‘insert act of patriotism here’ during the church service? This seems kind of awkward and out of place.”
Before making my points, which I’m definitely about to do (trust me), let me be clear: I’m not here to make anyone feel good or bad about the extent to which they love our country or exude patriotism.
I am here to share some [probably] not so popular thoughts though. Can I be honest? Time will tell.
Observation 1: Nothing in the Bible calls for me to be patriotic.
I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I think I need to, unfortunately. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, when I was growing up, it probably would have been considered taboo in most church settings to not show support for the country, by refusing to say the pledge, national anthem, or whatever. I mean, after all, why wouldn’t you want be an upstanding citizen, the way the Bible would call for us to???
I think this notion has been particularly exacerbated recently, with Colin Kaepernick and his national anthem protest. So many at church, black people included, are appalled by even the idea that he would refuse to show support and honor for our country in that way. Many churches have been pretty vocal on their position, too. I’m reminded of a sign I drove by in front of a church about a year ago, in rural Georgia.
“We Stand for the Pledge and Kneel at the Cross.”
That sign troubled me for several weeks. Still does, actually.
It made me wonder if Jesus would reject someone at the foot of the cross, because they elected not to stand for the pledge (on principle).
Here’s the bridge though: Nothing in the Bible calls for me to be patriotic.
Let that sink in.
As much as it may be stigmatized, may infuriate people, or make people feel uncomfortable, there’s absolutely nothing in Bible that calls for people to be patriotic. True story. The Bible does say I need to honor my leaders, in addition to submitting to them and praying for them (I Timothy 2:1-2; I Peter 2:17; Romans 13:1). But is that love for country and an act of patriotism, or is that reverence for authority that God, in his sovereignty, has placed in my life (note, these aren’t mutually exclusive)? I see it as more of the latter than the former, but let me know if you see something I don’t. I’m open to other perspectives.
Seriously.
The reality is this: Love of country is not a matter of salvation.
As far as I can tell from the Bible, nobody will be turned away at the gates of heaven because they didn’t love their country.
Love of country is not a matter of salvation. You know what is though?
Loving PEOPLE.
Loving your neighbor. Loving your fellow man. Jesus says, along with love for God, there is NO commandment greater than this (Matthew 22:36-40; Luke 10:25-37). Yes, loving people IS a matter of salvation. Loving your country is not. People will be in hell because they didn’t love their fellow man. I don’t know if I can say the same for someone who says they don’t ‘love’ their country.
I just find it striking that some people seem to love their country, or the idea of it, more than they actually love the people in it. Somehow, I think Jesus would be really disappointed. Not because there’s anything wrong with patriotism… but I think the idea that our love of country is greater than our love for people highlights how we’ve fallen short and missed the mark.
I think the other thing about this worth pointing out is the weird, sometimes perverted relationship between patriotism (in our case, the US) and Christianity. I’ll highlight with a song, God Bless America, written originally in 1918 by Irving Berlin.
It’s actually a beautiful song. It just makes me uncomfortable, to be honest. It has for most of my life, actually. Now that I’m older, I understand why.
Hopefully you don’t take this the wrong way, but my principle prayer, when someone is overtly committed to their sin, usually isn’t for God to bless them. I have not, and will not, ever feel comfortable praying that.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not praying for bad things to happen to people who are walking in darkness, although God sometimes elects to deal with people living in sin in a way we might say is unflattering (Jeremiah 19; 2 Kings 17:6-8; Galatians 6:7). It’s not like I’m praying God hits them with lightning. But for people in sin, my biggest prayer is for a repentant heart…
…because I want them to make it to heaven.
You can have, literally, every blessing under the sun and still be separated from God.
Maybe an example will help.
Let’s say I have a friend, John. John has been cheating on his wife with a woman at work for the past 4 months. She’s confronted him a few times about it, when she finds things in his car or around the house, and he beats the trash out of her. We’ve spoken about it a few times, but he doesn’t have much remorse about it, because he says his wife has let herself go the past few years.
What do you think my prayer is for him?
“Oh God, please bless John. Bless his finances, give him great opportunities at work, allow for him to get that house in that awesome neighborhood that he’s been looking at. Just overflow and blessings for John. Oh yeah, I hope things work out with his wife, too. But I pray for nothing but blessings in his life.”
I’ll be honest; I’d feel really uncomfortable praying that prayer. My actual prayer (in addition to getting law enforcement / a women’s shelter involved) is probably more along the lines of this…
“God, I know John’s going through a tough time right now. He’s made some unwise decisions, and the next few weeks for him and his wife will probably define their marriage. Please create a repentant heart in him, lead him to do what’s right, and help me support him in all of this. I pray his wife is gracious with him and that they can rebuild their marriage. Please, God.”
I want to be clear… I absolutely pray for my non- Christian friends… but I also understand that judgement is one of the ways God gets our attention when we’re rebelling in sin. That’s, like, one of the biggest themes of the Old Testament (that and God showing his grace and patience when we’re hard of heart).
Sometimes, when things are going really well, we can’t hear God’s voice because we’re really distracted.
I digress… back to my friend whose been unfaithful and abusive to his wife. The one who’s stepped out on his marriage, because his wife let herself go.
My entire point with that was, in the case of America, Christianity and patriotism intersect in a way where I don’t think there’s anything that America could do that would deter most of us from being patriotic in any way, shape, or form.
To revisit our earlier example, with God Bless America, the early 1900’s (when the song was written) were tough times for America. We recently released our slaves, but we were oppressing free blacks in the form of Black Codes. We would continue to do so for another 50+ years, until the Civil Rights Act, singing God Bless America the entire way there.
Beating the trash out of black people at Civil Rights protests, sicking the dogs on children, and sending people off to war to defend a country where they’re treated like second class citizens, all the while singing to God to bless our great nation.
I don’t mean to make this a post about race relations, because I promise it isn’t. I just think, the way Christianity and patriotism work, there’s nothing the US could do that would hinder Christians from their deep loyalty to and pride in the US, and I’m not quite sure that’s how it’s supposed to work. And honestly, it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. That’s not quite what I see concerning ‘patriotism’ in looking at the Old Testament.
That actually leads me to my second observation.
Observation 2: In reading the Old Testament, it doesn’t appear prophets were particularly patriotic people.
Well… yes and no. I think all of the Old Testament prophets would say that they loved Israel, but make no mistake about it… many of them were very, very critical of Israel. I don’t know where they would stand on the whole national anthem thing (no pun intended), but suffice to say, they would have much, much worse things to say about their own nation.
I get it.
The political context was different. Israel was more of a ‘Theocracy’ of sorts. A ‘Bible-based’ monarchy. So, their criticisms spoke to a different political landscape.
The social context was different, too. After all, it’s not often you have a nation almost exclusively devoted to one religion (and when Israel wasn’t exclusively devoted to one religion, there was a concerted effort by religious leaders to return to a monotheistic worship of Yahweh). So, the social landscape was different, too.
Still. Prophets were not particularly patriotic people, at least by our present-day standards.
2 Kings (17:13) and 2 Chronicles (24:19) make that point a few different times, as these were books that highlight Israel’s tumultuous leadership… some of those leaders didn’t take Israel down a particularly flattering road.
Ezekiel (see chapter 6) doesn’t sound like a particularly “patriotic” guy.
The book of Isaiah actually opens with judgement on Judah, but we see that as a theme throughout (see 57:1-13). Isaiah the prophet doesn’t sound particularly patriotic, either.
Neither does Hosea. You can see chapter 2:1-13. But you can read any chapter from 4 to 13; really, just about any chapter in Hosea. Almost every passage is about judgement and indictment, and Hosea has to deliver that message. I don’t know if Hosea is the guy with the, “God bless Israel.” bumper sticker.
Somehow, if he chose to put anything on his bumper sticker, I can’t help but feel he’d go in a different direction… it probably wouldn’t be “God bless Israel.”
Prophets were people who spoke on behalf of God. Honoring God with your life is hard enough as it is. Honoring God, as a nation, is extremely difficult, I would think. Not surprisingly, we see that was quite frequently the message that these prophets had: “Hey guys. It turns out God thinks our recent decisions haven’t been all that great.”
I bet!
As I mentioned before, the Bible does say we need to pray for our nation’s leaders, but again, I think the focus there is people. Pray for people in authority, so they can make the right decisions in leading our country. I think the Bible puts an emphasis on PEOPLE. Christianity places a premium on PEOPLE. It’s all about PEOPLE. Somehow, I get the impression the prophets were very prayerful. I’m not convinced they would be particularly enthused, though, if there was an elaborate ceremony during worship Sunday morning to commemorate how awesome Israel is.
It would probably make them a bit uncomfortable, too. But I’m sure the prophets prayed for Israel, and its leaders, every day.
Prophets were people who were, above anything else, devoted to God.
Let me be clear on what that means.
That doesn’t mean dropping out of school or quitting your job, per se. I do think it means they were more interested in pleasing God than they were in traditions they needed to satisfy so their patriotism wasn’t called into question.
I can imagine a prophet saying something along the lines of, “We’re pledging allegiance to this flag, but we haven’t pledged our allegiance to God. This is an elaborate ceremony that we’re so wrapped up in, all the while being distracted from drawing closer to God.”
^^^ Seriously, prophets said some unpopular things.
It’s not a surprise, then, that Jesus said many prophets were killed by those they shared their message with (Matthew 21:33-40; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 23:37).
A scripture comes to mind. Mark 12: give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. I think we could say much about that verse, but I think one of the things I gather is Caesar’s business was politics, systems, and money. God is in the business of PEOPLE and winning over their heart. Jesus, in essence, was saying, “Give Caesar as much money as he wants… you just make sure I get to keep your heart. That’s mine.”
What’s my point in all this? I think patriotism is certainly fine, but I think it’s pretty clear from the scriptures that many OT prophets were not particularly patriotic (at least based on how we presently think of it: an appeal to honoring traditions and ceremony to show your love for country), and probably with very good reason.
Observation 3: Love of country has motivated people to do and say some less than reputable things.
I’ll make my point first, and then we can talk about context. Interestingly, one of Jesus’s disciples was known as Simon the Zealot. While this could be talking about his zeal for Jesus, it’s also well known that The Zealots were a political group during the era of Jesus. It consisted of Jewish nationalists. People who wanted to preserve Jewish heritage, Jewish culture, and the Jewish way of life. Suffice to say, the Zealots didn’t look particularly fondly on the Roman empire, or other groups of non-Jewish people for that matter. It’s quite likely that our brother in Christ, Simon, was part of this religious group before becoming a disciple (perhaps he still had some dealings in it as a disciple, too).
If that’s the case, it’s no surprise then that Jesus spent much time trying to help Simon go from a Jewish nationalist to an international missionary.
But make no mistake about it. Prior to that, Simon was a JEWISH nationalist. He was very pro-Israel.
I imagine this would have been the guy at the Jewish rally with a big sign that said, “Romans are spawns of Satan.”
I imagine this would have been the guy in your college dorm arguing that the Egyptians deserve all of the bad things that happen to them, because they enslaved the Jews for 400 years.
I imagine this would have been the guy you’re reaching out to at the bar who says the Romans are teaching the Jews Greek to brainwash them and make them forget where they come from.
This was a guy STRONGLY in support of Israel. I don’t think any of the above would have been a stretch… I just modernize the context a little bit.
That would, undoubtedly, lead him to bump heads with a lot of people. I actually think it’s really cool that Jesus took this guy who was a political revolutionary and helped him redirect some of that energy so he could advance the kingdom of God.
There are other examples, too.
Adolf Hitler, anybody? Say what you will, but Hitler was a German nationalist, and he played a very important role in the history of German nationalism. He would, perhaps, say one of the things that separated him from other men and women of his time is his deep love for his country and his willingness to do what [he felt] was in Germany’s best interest.
ANYTHING.
You can’t fault a man for loving his country. The only issue is, in Hitler’s case, that compelled him to architect systematic genocide.
Ummm, that’s bad.
Principally, I’ll return to my earlier point here: Hitler loved Germany, or his vision for Germany, more than he loved people (particularly Jewish people). True, too much of anything is a “bad” thing, but again, examples like these are very pronounced in reminding me how love for country can motivate people to do and say some, otherwise, questionable things. In Hitler’s case, prejudice, hate, and murder were not only tolerable but noble.
I could duplicate some of my comments on Hitler about Benito Mussolini, a prominent figure in the history of Italian nationalism. I won’t do that though. I’ll use another example, just for variety.
It’s interesting because we stigmatize the KKK, presently. We label them a group of racist troublemakers. Principally though, the KKK, and many of its members, have a strong history of white nationalism. Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the KKK was seen as maintaining a social order of sorts. They kept black people in their rightful place, and many saw that as an act of patriotism not terrorism.
Oppressing black people was good for the rest of America; The KKK did the dirty business that everyone saw as necessary but maybe didn’t have the heart to do.
If you went to a KKK rally, I’m sure upwards of 90% of people would say they love our country. I think where you would probably differ from them is
(1) The path forward for our country and
(2) What you feel motivated to do, based on that love for country.
Sound familiar? That’s not that different from Nazi Germany (Adolf Hitler) or Fascist Italy (Benito Mussolini).
Look, I know it’s somewhat of a stretch to use these types of examples to illustrate my point, but I think principally, there’s something to the argument.
Don’t try and paint this picture of patriotism, like it’s this benevolent, noble thing that every man or woman of faith should aspire to have, without question. There’s a really ugly side of patriotism, too. And there’s a well-documented history of that, even in our country, America.
Don’t ask me what all of this means. These are things I’m thinking; I’m still deciding on the practical implications. But for sure, I’m not about shaming people for their lack of patriotism.
Being a patriot won’t get you to heaven, and not being a patriot won’t send you to hell. Honestly, I think there are more pressing matters.
For now, just know that I think patriotism is complicated. We need to understand there are people in the church who have no interest in being patriotic. And honestly, that’s their business. In fact, that’s probably the precedent we read about most in the scriptures (see some of my OT references).
I’m not saying patriotism is “bad”. I’m just saying it’s complicated, perhaps especially in an intersectional context like Christianity, in America or otherwise.
Some random thoughts.
Nnamdi