Cynics find many reasons to separate the 2 concepts based
primarily on the shortcomings of man.
The simple reasoning that man’s bad deeds must extricate him from the
will of God ignores the basic premise of the Gospel as a whole. It is not our faults that keep us out of
heaven, it is our determination. To
blame a country, for the acts of a few of its leaders, or citizens, is to judge
the many based on the acts of a few.
This does not seem to follow the gospel either. And of course even the highly cynical must
admit that Israel of old was a nation joined to the will of Divine
providence. They were blessed while
following God’s direction, and sometimes cursed for straying from it. He did call it ‘His’ nation. So it seems the concept is viable at least.
So what is modern patriotism them? What does it mean to ‘love’ your
country? And should we ‘love’ it? Our historical ideas of patriotism seem
better defined than our current ones.
Ask someone what patriotism means and they tend to look backwards. During WW2 for instance, the citizens of this
country volunteered for military service, they sacrificed their style of living
and many their very lives for the ‘greater good’. During the great depression, people tried to
help each other as best they could, an impoverished nation trying to help
itself. During the westward expansion,
citizens braved climate, terrain, ‘hostiles’, and lack of civilization to grow
our nation. During the civil war and
before it, those who opposed slavery fought to free those who could not be
free. At our colonial inception, we
braved hardship against an established kingdom to promote a new idea in the
world, a government for and by the people; Freedom had a whole new meaning.
Modern patriotism it seems then, is perpetuating our
historic values while being pragmatic about their implementation. We value the rights of the individual but
will subject them to the greater good of the state. We espouse the separation of church and state
to avoid the establishment of a dominant religion, but we don’t mind using tax
payer monies from Muslims, Atheists, Jews, and Hindu’s to fund Christian based
schools and charitable projects and vice verse.
We denounce torture but obfuscate what it means to use torture and only
reserve it for ‘extreme cases’. In short
Americans still like their ideals but seem to have lost the will to risk their
lives to see them implemented fully here and now. Terrorism or perhaps just the fear of
terrorism has made us more pragmatic about freedom than our forefathers.
Still, is it not OK to ‘love’ your country? After all since God is in charge, one could
argue that our president sits where he does with the tacit acceptance of God,
therefore with His consent. Of course
this same logic gets a bit murky when applied to Saddam Hussein. He too sat at the head of his country, and
God stood by, apparently accepting his leadership. Why is Saddam’s reign any more or less
blessed than that of G.W. Bush? Saddam
was decidedly a criminal right, he allowed rape rooms, he abused his citizenry,
he hoarded power, killed his opposition, and tortured his enemies even if they
were citizens. We at least do not have
‘rape rooms’ (Abu Grihab not withstanding), our torture is less, we only abuse
our citizens economically not with nerve gas, and few US citizens are killed by
our leaders. Yup, we are better than
Saddam, but fundamentally guilty of all the same abuses. And don’t make this a case of bashing just
G.W., every national leader in every country, tends to do business the same way
for the same reasons. It’s also not a
generational thing; this has been going on since recorded time.
So have you ever taken a close look at what anyone could
‘love’ about any country? North Koreans
purport to ‘love’ their fearless leader though not all of them for sure. Cubans in Cuba are said to ‘love’ Fidel
Castro though not all of them for sure.
Is it that we love our leaders?
Probably not. So then we love our
ideals and what we are supposed to, or perhaps used to, stand for? Freedom and equality are worth loving. War, not so much. Crime, not so much. Greed, not so much. Cynics, even less. So I guess if were to define anything about
our country that is worth loving it is our intentions, our goals, our ideals,
and perhaps our potential. Reality, we
leave up for discussion.
But the broader question is why does love of country seem so
tightly linked to love of God? Might it
be that if we can successfully blend these ideas it makes it hard for one to do
less for his country? It is akin to the
missionaries linking culture and the gospel, the traditions and styles of men
with the pure truth of the Bible. Our
government has fostered the idea of linking patriotism and Christianity to keep
us sacrificing for country. Linking them
in the minds of the masses keeps the poor willing to serve, willing to keep on
going, avoids them rising up and demanding anything. It is a form of subtle subjugation. Even the middle class and believing rich
become more pliant when under the spell of God informed patriotism.
But does even the most insidious of reasons for it make it
wrong? Actually, no. It is not wrong to love ideals that are
taught in scripture. Freedom and
equality are taught in scripture. As are
humility, which we deny quite often, leading to all the other problems
described above. It is not wrong to love
the ‘hope’ that America can represent to the world. The ‘hope’ that one person’s moral beliefs
will never become the law of the land.
The ‘hope’ that the poor will be taken care of by those who have means,
not simply feeding them, but teaching them and lifting them out of their
poverty. To love these ideals, is to
love the ideals of heaven.
But to worship at the altar of our flag, ignore the
consequence of personal choice by claiming the needs of the greater good,
espouse blind devotion to weak men and gloss over their failings for the sake
of the nation; this kind of loving one’s country is more idolatry than real
patriotism. Those who believe the end
justifies the means, do a great disservice to true patriots. Patriots who love any country but divorce
this devotion from the values that make it worth loving are nothing more than
blind tools of evil. We can fall prey to
this evil in this land, when we forget why we love our country, and focus only
on the fact that we do love it.
To ask God to bless America is a simple prayer. There is nothing inherently wrong with
it. Most of the time the negativity
associated with this simple phrase comes because we think of it in terms of God
ONLY blessing America. This of course is
not the case. We are not alone in our
world. We are not really superior. When in conflict with another nation it is
fair to ask God to bless the ideals and the motives that He would espouse – not
the homeland of the country the requestor happens to live in. Of course you want America to win its wars,
but you also must ask if each war is absolutely un-avoidable? Is each war truly for the benefit of ALL
mankind, or simply serving OUR own interests?
Are we really alleviating suffering, or are we causing it? Some of our wars fit these criterion. Recent ones seem to be a bit lacking.
Patriotism is not a sin.
Love of country is not wrong.
Blind devotion to anything is.
Even God asks that we come and reason together with Him. Even God does not demand our blind
devotion. He allows us to explore
motive, action and reaction, and consequences.
And we love Him the more for it.
When we look at our country, let us love its ideals so firmly that we
would risk ourselves to see them implemented to the fullest. Let us not seek safety and security as
reasons to forego our rights, but rather let us live up to the values we
espouse, and bear witness to the world of their worth. Let us neither be Christians or American
Citizens in name only, but in beliefs, in truth, in patience, in tolerance, in
freedom, in equality, and respecting the rights of others…
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