This July 4th weekend, as every July 4th weekend, like many evangelical churches, my church will hold a “patriotic Sunday.” We acknowledge folks in the congregation who’ve served in the military, pray for our national leaders, and so forth. My dad marches down the aisle with the other vets who can still fit in their old service uniforms. We sing “patriotic” hymns like “God Bless America,” and the sermon tends to focus on some theme having to do with America’s national decline and the need to bring God “back” into the schools and such. In the past few years, a 40-foot American flag has been draped on the wall behind the choir loft. People love it. I hate it.
Before you blast me, dear reader, please know that I love my country. I believe America on the whole has been a force for good in the world, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, and I honor the men and women who’ve honorably served our country in the armed forces. But I’m not blind to my country’s faults, historic and present. And, more importantly, I think Patriotic Sunday is idolatrous.
I suppose the big flag behind the choir loft is what galls me most. It coincidentally covers the usual decoration on that wall, which is a Mercator projection of the world map intersected by a cross and the words “He is Lord of All.” I like that decoration, not because it’s particularly artistically compelling (its gotten kind of old and cheesy), but because it suggests that our local church, and we believers who attend it, are just one part of a global family of the faith. At least it suggest that to me. I suspect that, when it was originally installed, the feeling was a bit more that we are the center of a missions movement bringing our enlightened ways to the world. But the missions culture in our local church now is a pretty good one. Those involved in the missions program would heartily agree (at least I think for the most part) that we are first citizens of the Kingdom of God, and, as such, that our citizenship is transnational. When that American flag obscures the map-and-cross, it suggests a grossly misplaced first loyalty.
The flag thing could be dismissed as an unfortunate or insensitive mistake. The broader context of Patriotic Sunday, however, is just as disturbing to me. Why should we imply that “patriotism” is part of Christian discipleship? America is not, never was, and never will be a “Christian” nation. That’s not how it works in God’s economy (a word, incidentally, that comes from the Greek “ekoinomia,” from which the idea of different “economies” or “dispensations” of God’s administration of His Kingdom derives). A dispensational view of redemptive history in particular should lead to skepticism about mixing patriotism and faith. God raises and fells nations and rulers within the context of His purposes in history, but even we dispensationalists (really, particularly we dispensationalists) don’t recognize any chosen nation other than Israel. The Kingdom will be fully realized only by Christ’s return, and His eschatological reign over and judgment of the nations. We should expect to find something of a hollow core once the shell of civic religion is peeled away.
Of course, this isn’t to say anti-Americanism is appropriate, that all nations are morally equivalent, or that political involvement is futile. It’s simply a matter of first loyalties and the proper allocation of affections. Our first loyalty is to Christ and his Church. That loyalty shouldn’t be diluted by adding civic loyalties to the mix when we gather for worship