This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. Claiming that Jesus Christ is King is pretty radical. And it is a claim that raises questions about where our true loyalties lie.
I once saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that I found disturbing and very telling. It was a white t-shirt that had JESUSAVES written across the front. I believe he does. But that was not the only message on the shirt. All the letters were blue except for those in the middle - USA - which were red. [A similar shirt is here] It was a telling icon of the confused syncretism of many Christians in America. Who saves? Jesus? The USA? Or, are the two so emotionally entwined in our imaginations that we can't tell the difference? It is an illustration of Stanley Hauerwas' assertion that for many Americans, the nation is their true church. For many Americans, America is the social body to which their ultimate allegiance is pledged regardless of what religious affiliation they formally claim.
Patriotism might not always be idolatry. A distinction must be made, however, between holding dear or celebrating the particular culture and history of a place/people and the sort of nationalistic exceptionalism that too often gets expressed. Even if patriotism is not always idolatrous, Christians should be wary of its appeal and suspicious of those who appeal to it to shepherd them in one direction or another. If Jesus Christ is the King, Christians need to beware of the temptation to confuse that King with other entities, including Uncle Sam, who would claim the kind of loyalty and emotional attachment that belongs to him alone. If Christ is King, do we have any business pledging allegiance to anything or anyone else?
Related posts:
Idolatry of a Certain Sort
The Impossibility of Religious Pluralism
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4 comments:
..this post touchs upon something of a sort spot for me personally..there was a time in my life when i blindly followed the decieving 'spirit' of american patriotism..until such a time that i became well enough read about the 'real' history of this country and its ruthless government that i realized the deception being perpetrated on the gullible american public at large..its so disturbing to see..and even more disturbing knowing that there is nothing i can do about it...God help us all..
Thanks for the comment. My point is not that America is ruthless - at least no more tham most other governments. Staney Kubrick once said, "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes." One can find examples of America falling in there somewhere. On the other hand, Anti-Americanism can also become an idol. There are plenty of reasons for someone living in America to be grateful. And America has also done quite a bit of good in the world.
My point is that Christians have another King and should beware of giving their heart and loyalty to any other principality, power, or nation.
What Christians can do about that is rememebr that Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords and be free of undue concern with the principalities and powers knowing that Christ has triumphed over them. (Colossians 2:15)
It is good to remember with some regularity that when God contemplates America it is unlikeley that the divine heart is warmed any more than when contemplating, say, Thailand or Tunisia. And probably no less.
Well said about the need to distinguish the primacy of Christ as King from the civic religion that has permeated our particular culture. While the power of nations seems to magnify the reality of our fallen nature and finding a nation that might fit, say the beatitudes, is simply impossible, there is something that I can't quite articulate that feels particularly problematic about American civic religion, especially in the evangelical world....
reading this, reflecting on the distinctive call the Hauerwas reminds us is entrusted to us as the church I can't help but remember with certain horror certain scenes from "Jesus Camp" along with much of the political rhetoric I learned in a full gospel church full of amazing yet fallen believers .... and to see also my own falleness, desire to belong or hold onto something perhaps more immediate than the mystery of faith, the concrete hope of a nation, a flag, a club, an identity, a rally - and how much harder, perhaps, to live truly focused on the primacy of God instead... and how much more my/our responsibility, being fully equal, no more or less worthy, special, or chosen, than my Christian sister dying of HIV, watching her baby die of simple dehydration...
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