Posted by Dave on 07/28/05 at 02:46:06 pm
Categories: Political Ravings, Religious Ravings, Theological Ravings, Patriotism and the Nation State

As has been mentioned around these parts before, the idea of nationalism and Christianity are often confused. Too often Christians identify themselves as Americans more than Christians, and believe that the church's role is to be "American" and "patriotic". And by American and patriotic these people typically mean that we should wrap the cross with a flag, and support our nation in anything that they do. Regardless of American history, they refuse to see the concept of protest and dissent as American and patriotic values. Too often being an American and a Christian means to support the Republican Party and their direction of the country. And this is just patently false.

The Associated Baptist Press has an interesting article on this exact concept, where nationalism is causing a divide within churches:

Culture wars threaten to divide churches in ways that make worship wars pale in comparison. But at the same time, they unite some Christians across denominational lines, a Baylor University professor observed.

Rather than dividing over worship style preferences, Terry York sees Christians in the United States splitting into two camps -- "those who want to try to re-establish Christendom and those who refuse to wrap the cross in the flag."
...
The urge to rally around the flag as part of corporate worship cuts across denominational differences and draws all kinds of worshippers, he noted.

Stanley Hauerwas, in a recent Christianity Today article, had this to say:

Christians' first political responsibility is to be the church, and by being the church they should understand that their first political loyalty is to God, and the God we worship as Christians, in a manner that understands that we are not first and foremost about making democracy work, but about the truthful worship of the true God.

Interestingly, this is issue is hitting a little closer to home than I thought it would. The church that we have been attending for the last several months has a group of older church members who meet weekly. This group is much more conservative and much more traditional than the majority of the church (not that the church is "liberal" by any means, it just tends to somewhat moderate). They have decided to start a petition to have the church hang an American flag in the Church (I believe it would be in the lobby). They do not believe that we as a church are not "patriotic" enough, especially in terms of our support for veterans. This started from what they considered a lack of support on Veteran's Day. And they are now pushing to have the American flag hung. This group is not a bad group of people by any means. They are conservative, and they are traditional, but they are not bad people. But this is not the direction that a church should take.

Where does this idea come from? The idea that flag waving patriotism and Christianity may have anything to do with each other baffles me. Is there any Biblical support for this? Where are we called to this form of nationalism? Is not the church much greater than the nation? Is not the church a worldwide group of believers unified not by race, language, ethnicity, or nation, but by Jesus? The church is not an American entity. The Church is a religious entity focused on following Jesus Christ, not on following the United States of America.

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