From John Mark Reynolds

from here:
http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2007/06/27/patriotism-and-the-christian/

Patriotism and the Christian

John Mark Reynolds

06.27.2007

The love of country is an excellent school for the soul.

Patriotism is a good measure of the maturity of a man. Young men of our era are often too self-centered to love country, old men too cynical, and all of us have been taught that self-interest and self-esteem trump the needs of the community. Find a true patriot and you will find a man with virtue.

Amongst Christian academics, especially in Christian colleges, it has become almost fashionable to mock patriotism. Sadly, despite noble intentions much of the “religious right” leadership has failed, giving some semblance of justification to this scorn.

In the last few years, many Christians have become justly dissatisfied with aspects of the “religious right.” Too many of the self-appointed leaders of the movement have lacked a sophisticated understanding of Christian culture. This has led a few Christians to search for a “religious left,” but the general unwillingness of the left in the United States to defend traditional morality and the unborn make this move morally difficult.

The religious right had many successes, but too often it has been content to be on the defensive. It reacts to attacks on traditional American culture, sometimes confusing America with the broader culture of Christendom. The United States may choose to be part of a Christian civilization, but to her shame in areas such as slavery and abortion has not always done so. Prophetic voices from Christ’s kingdom helped end slavery and continue to attack the culture of death, but sometimes these voices have been too muted.

Christians on the left are too proud to be patriots and Christians on the right are often too uncritical of the nation. America runs the risk of having the liabilities of an association with Christendom without the benefits . . . since in this decade America has been ruthlessly attacked by enemies who make no distinction between the two.

Make no mistake. The 9/11 terrorists hate America for her virtues as well as her vices.

If the United States were more consistently part of Christendom, if the nation was perfectly in harmony with Christian civilization, then Islamic fascists would hate America all the more. It is true that part of what these radicals hate is Western decadence.

But what if, by some miracle, a golden age dawned and all American sins vanished? Flourishing Christian universities full of women who wished to serve the world in the name of Christ Jesus would be equally offensive to these terrorists. To the extent that all the Western nations remain part of Christendom, they will remain in danger.

Some attempt to “get out” of the conflict by abandoning their nation and living as if Heaven had already come to earth.

This is a false and treasonous option.

The City of God is not yet in our midst fully and so Christians have a duty to the nation that maintains virtue in this life. Until Christ comes to bring His perfect Kingdom to the Earth, we have a dual citizenship. We cannot love the City to come if we have not learned to love the city we see now. Augustine could see the sins of Rome and still weep to see it fall to the barbarians.

The barbarians have sacked the city we call home. They have killed the innocent. Justice demands action. Forgiveness is the task of individuals, not institutions. I can forgive those who offend me. Nations cannot.

Christians cannot retreat from the world in order to save it. Biola has always understood this lesson. There has not been a just cause in the city of man in the ninety-year history of this institution that has not seen sons and daughters of Alma Mater act. So it must be this time.

Of course, we are more than citizens of the earthly city. Our first allegiance is elsewhere. Patriotism, the love of country is a lesser love. There are greater loves, including the love of our Sovereign God, which is the love to which all loves point. Patriotism, properly understand, is the love of the city and of her just laws that points us to the greater City and the great Law Giver.

We might think of patriotism then as a kindergarten of love. If we cannot love our nation, from which we have received so many tangible benefits, how will we love a God that we have not seen?

But aren’t we called to be global Christians? What of the great missionary heroes who loved the world more than their own nation? What of them?

Some special souls are called to love a people not their own. This is safest (I have noticed) when they first have learned to love their own folk.

I dare not claim to be so developed in my love of God. Some may be able to love their neighbor so well that they can move on and love somebody else’s neighbor, but not I still find it hard to love the guy next door!

There is a great danger in the walk of faith in pretending to virtue we do not have.

For most of us, doing our duty to country is a first step in the harder obedience of the love of God. Those who have mastered the graduate levels of love are beyond our reckoning. They are the men who move beyond this little love of place and time, to embrace the world.

Most of us pretend to this greatness so we can avoid the hard disciplines of the lesser love.

So, we must love the city to which we are called. Most men must love God and their own home country. For most me (and for many of my readers), this country is the United States of America.

Never trust a man who is not saintly, but who cannot love his people.

It is good to be reminded what is at stake in the War we now fight.

The United States is a nation governed by an ideology that is part of the West. To its very core this Western civilization is one of Christendom’s proudest achievements. This very idea, the West, is under attack and it is the duty of all Christians (including those not in the West) to rally around it and save what can be and should be saved.

So again: we are faced with a question, “How can we live in this dangerous time? How can the barbarians at the gate be turned aside? How can the West be saved?”

Oddly, I believe the answer must lie in rejecting falsehoods so many of us have been taught. We have been taught that cynicism is wisdom. We have learned to despise our fathers and mock those in authority over us. We have been taught that the clever student is also the one who “sees through” his elders. Too often, we deny our home and heritage with the pride that says, “We know better than they did.”

Such an attitude cannot help us through the days ahead. In dark days, it is fatal to individuals and to the community that holds it. Scripture warns us that those who despise God’s leaders and forget their heritage do so at their own peril.

Cynicism seems to work well in times of peace. It is cool . . . and our medium of choice, television, is a cool medium. The cynic risks nothing. The cynic never faces betrayal, for he has no cause. He never faces pain, because there is nothing he loves. Of course, the cynic is actually impotent. It is the believer that dares to dream and build. But in times of peace, the cynic can live like a parasite, mocking the believers from a safe distance. Our bitter little hearts can mock with impunity; our humorless, selfish souls can find a bastard joy in ridicule.

Not for us the true pain and true joy of the builder, the believer. We are “wiser” than that.

But of course, this is no more a time of trial than any other time! We only more clearly recognize the battle, not ultimately against flesh and blood, that we always face. Our cynicism in peacetime has left us in danger of being unable to believe in the victory of justice in a dark time.

The way forward for us as a people, as Christian educators, is to remind ourselves first of who we are and how we got to this place. We need once more to honor the fathers and the sacred places of God’s providential actions in our lives and in our nation. Only then, having restored the memory of these great things to our minds, can we know the way forward.

How do we know this? The lesson is all around us. Who does not know the insanity of the college student who tries to outgrow his parents by pretending he has none? You cannot escape your heritage. We can build on the faith of our fathers, change as a result of it, reject what is evil in it, but we cannot live as if it were not real.

comment: Happy 4th everybody..