Ask pastor john3/22/2023 Whenever Christians pay tribute to earthly blessings like American freedoms, which are wonderful, and the sacrifices made to have them and the people who made those sacrifices, the emphasis should be on humble thankfulness to God who is great and in his great mercy has given us what we don’t deserve. And the recitation of a pledge to a human authority in the setting of the worship of divine authority does not provide for the kind of Christian qualifications and nuances that are so necessary precisely in our day. Nevertheless, what is being highlighted and foregrounded is an earthly allegiance. My own opinion is that any pledge of allegiance - like the one to the American flag - does not belong in a worship service that is called to the highlighting of the absolute allegiance that we have to Jesus, even though the pledge says that the nation is “under God.” Therefore, the question of what to do when the people of God are gathered to worship Jesus Christ on the Lord’s Day is not merely a question of whether a particular act is permissible in general with all of those qualifications that I just mentioned, but whether it belongs in a worship service, where the focus is on the absolute lordship of Jesus and worshiping and praising and honoring him. We should not say anything or do anything that looks as if that were not true. It is all relative to the will of Christ. Therefore, there is no unqualified allegiance to any political party, any nationality, any ethnicity, any tribal identity, or any branch of the armed service. Written over every commitment for the Christian is: unless Jesus commands otherwise. All of those authorities are subordinate and secondary to the authority of Christ and, therefore, all submission is qualified. Church members should submit to the elders of the church.īut none of these commitments of submission is absolute. Employees should submit to the rules of the employer. To be sure, citizens should submit to the laws of their government. We swear absolute allegiance to him and to no one and nothing else. Jesus Christ, therefore, is our absolute Lord. We should never be ashamed of identifying, first and foremost, as citizens of the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven. It should be felt and it should be precious. Our first identity is with the King of the universe, not any country or nationality or political party or governmental regime.Īmerica is emphatically not our primary home or primary identity. Therefore, wherever we live on earth, whatever country, whatever tribe, whatever family or clan, we are pilgrims, sojourners, refugees, exiles in all of those. When we are born again, we are united to Christ, our King, and we are delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God so that now it can be said with glorious and profound reality, “Our citizenship is in heaven” ( Philippians 3:20). There are real biblical principles at stake, and so it will be helpful, I think, to face those principles, and then we will see if there is time to deal with practical transition issues in a church. Indeed, it is more than discomfort, I think. Scott, I have been in several churches recently - not just growing up especially in the South I am thinking, because that is just my experience - where on the Fourth of July the focus on the branches of the armed forces seemed to me uninformed, unshaped by the radical nature of the gospel, and out of proportion to the relationship between America and the kingdom of Christ. Is this okay? I pastor a church that has a history of this, but it makes me uncomfortable.” Elements like pledging the flag and singing patriotic songs were heavily used. But this year we will take a closer look at patriotism in the local church, and the time seems right to pick up an important email from a pastor named Scott who writes: “Pastor John, are there any acceptable displays of patriotism in a church service? I was brought up in a very conservative and patriotic background in which every patriotic holiday was celebrated in a Sunday church service, including Fourth of July, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, the anniversary of 9/11, etc. “Pilgrims and Patriots,” that was our topic back in a past year, in episode 378. And the day itself raises questions about national loyalty for those of us who are strangers, exiles, aliens, and pilgrims on this earth. We will soon celebrate July 4th, Independence Day as it’s known for us in the States. Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?
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