#0156 Christianity, Patriotism vs Pacifism
Introduction: In a country where politics have become more and more heated, should the Christian join in the fray? Or should we sit back with a resignation that simply waits for the return of our Savior? Should we as Christians be involved with the political system? If so, how much or how little should our involvement involve our relationship to Christ?
Segment 1: Does God Condone Patriotism?
Does the Christian have a role in the modern politic? Should we be involved in the issues of our day? Let's take a look via the Chair of Theology to see what Christ did, as well as what God commanded in the Old Testament.
First off, to answer this question, we should understand some cultural context. Who were the Sanhedrin? From Wikipedia:
The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic סַנְהֶדְרִין, a loanword from Koinē Greek: Συνέδριον, romanized: synedrion,[1] 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was a legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 71 elders, existing at both a local and central level in the ancient Land of Israel.
There were two classes of Rabbinite courts called sanhedrins: Greater and Lesser. A lesser Sanhedrin of 23 judges was appointed to sit as a tribunal in each city. There was only one Great Sanhedrin of 71 judges, which, among other roles, acted as a supreme court, taking appeals from cases that lesser courts decided. In general usage, the Sanhedrin without qualifier usually refers to the Great Sanhedrin, which was presided over by the Nasi, who functioned as its head or representing president, and was a member of the court; the Av Beit Din or the chief of the court, who was second to the nasi; and 69 general members.
In the Second Temple period, the Great Sanhedrin met in the Temple in Jerusalem, in a building called the Hall of Hewn Stones. The Great Sanhedrin convened every day except festivals and the sabbath day (Shabbat).
After the destruction of the Second Temple and the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Great Sanhedrin moved to Galilee, which became part of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In this period, the Sanhedrin was sometimes called the Galilean Patriarchate or Patriarchate of Palaestina, the governing legal body of Galilean Jewry. In the late 200s CE, to avoid persecution, the name Sanhedrin was dropped and its decisions were issued under the name of Beit HaMidrash (house of learning). The last universally binding decision of the Great Sanhedrin appeared in 358 when the Hebrew calendar was established. The Great Sanhedrin was finally disbanded in 425.
Over the centuries, attempts have been made to revive the institution, such as the Grand Sanhedrin convened by Napoleon Bonaparte and modern attempts in Israel.
With this context we know that the Sanhedrin would have contained the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches of the Post-Exilic Judaean Government.
When Christ confronted this body and the members thereof, it was on policy that affected every part of Jewish life.
Luke 11:46-52
46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
That's not to say that Christ did not love the country that He was born into, he was rather passionate about her turning to Him and away from the coming destruction in 70 AD.
Luke 13:33-35:
33 Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!
35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Ezra and Nehemiah both exhibited such patriotism:
Nehemiah 2:3-6
3And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? 4Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it. 6And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
Segment 1 Conclusion:
After looking at these models, does it not seem that we do have a model for patriotism within the pages of God's Word? But there are pitfalls here.
Segment 2: What Does Christian Patriotism Look Like?
On the Philosophical note, there are some questions that should be asked of the believer. If we are to be patriotic, what rubric do we get from Scripture and what would application look like?
C.S. Lewis put it well in his Four Loves when he spoke of the wholesomeness of a love of the people, places, and things of one's home country. If one loves the good things of one's home, this is only natural to have a certain preference for these. Lewis Concludes that:
“Of course patriotism of this kind is not in the least aggressive. It asks only to be let alone. It becomes militant only to protect what it loves. In any mind which has a pennyworth of imagination it produces a good attitude towards foreigners. How can I love my home without coming to realize that other men, no less rightly, love theirs?...”
This is a pure sort of patriotism, one that has gone right and is indeed a beautiful thing.
G.K. Chesterton rightly pointed out that: "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." This is indicative of something far more important. When God has entrusted families with offspring, there is a responsibility of the parent to care for and nurture their children. In primitive days, we would have to hunt and forage for food. The men doing the dangerous work, and the women nurturing and training the children. In the modern world, we enjoy a peculiar peace and abundance. No longer do most men kill prey and fight other men for resources, in the civilized world that is, but rather we work for wages and vote for security (which is secured through policy focused on minimizing bloodshed.)
America is beautiful for this reason: Though we have effectively conquered the world, our primary modality in the conquered nations of Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc is that we allow them to rule themselves. Now, with the regional stability provided by America, the Church can send missionaries to previously unreached civilizations to spread the Gospel. Such a blessing has never been bestowed upon the World, for wherever the Gospel is heard, the mistreatment of women, slaves, children, and all other evils are now cast into the Light of the Gospel, from which these evils flee.
America is not perfect by any means and many sins have been committed in her name, but that is not a reason to throw her out as though she was some sort of heinous thing. But rather, we should strive to make America more like Christ. This is the work of the Church in the Culture, not so much the government, because the American Government is not a single leader or body, but rather a group of America's citizens.
On the issue of making America more like Christ, some will say that laws do not legislate morality. This is hogwash on the level of someone who says that people will not dance at a party if you play a catchy beat. People will obey laws for fear of consequences. But they will also regard the laws as codifications of Truth, if the premises of the laws are indeed true. Look at the abortion issue, people will end their own children's lives because “Abortion is legal, if it was immoral, it wouldn't be legal.” However perverse that statement may be, there is a ring of important truth: Instituting moral laws affects people's moral sensibilities. Post-fall of Roe v Wade, many people have stopped in person abortions as they are indeed, “illegal”.
But if God ordains Government, then why or how should I involve myself? Is it not predestined? If I don't particularly like a candidate, but they have a record of promoting moral policy, should I stand by the sidelines?
A.W. Tozer had an excellent analogy for this in his Knowledge of the Holy:
Perhaps a homely illustration might help us to understand. An ocean liner leaves New
York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities.
Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.
On board the liner are several scores of passengers. These are not in chains, neither are
their activities determined for them by decree. They are completely free to move about
as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as
they please; but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a
predetermined port.
Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not contradict each other. So
it is, I believe, with man's freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of
God's sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. God moves
undisturbed and unhindered toward the fulfillment of those eternal purposes which He
purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. We do not know all that is included in
those purposes, but enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of
things to come and to give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being.
We will be judged and made to give an account for our actions and inactions:
2 Corinthians 5:10:
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Segment 2 Conclusion:
Are we commanded to be involved with the world? We are commanded to share the Gospel. If there is a tool, such as a 1st Amendment which recognizes our right to share the Gospel, then it would be wasteful indeed to miss the opportunity to preserve such a right. In fact, one can make an argument that sins of omission that lead to the suffering of others are a sin in and of themselves.
Ezekiel 33:6 says:
“6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.”
I don't think it too far of a stretch to say that we were born for such a time as this. Like Ester, our silence or inaction could well be the undoing of God's People. So we should act while we still have an opportunity to affect change in our world for the Gospel's sake.
Segment 3: Cultural Nationalism and Christian Nationalism
What would the purpose of a Christian Nationalism be? To elect representatives? On what basis? History tells us that Republicanism was founded by Christians to abolish the “twin relics of barbarism, Polygamy and Slavery.” This is all well and good, but what of the corruption that we see in the so-called Republican Party today? There's a lack of desire for change, this includes the issue of abortion, of medical freedoms and rights, of exposing children to pornographic images in school. Very few Republicans truly live up to the Christian ideals that founded the party. So what happened to the purpose? The Church stopped believing in the inerrancy of Scripture and began to water down the Gospel.
We see the results in the departures from the Church:
Only 55% of Americans believe in the inerrancy of Scripture via this poll from the American Bible Society:
https://www.baptistmessenger.com/55-percent-of-americans-believe-in-biblical-inerrancy-study-finds/
Those who self identify as Christians is plummeting:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/187955/percentage-christians-drifting-down-high.aspx
Segment 3# Conclusion: Can we ever effectively promote Godly principles in politics if our country no longer believes in the God of those principles?
Segment 4#: Where Christian Nationalism Has Gone Wrong
Love for your country is never a bad thing, in and of itself. However, such a love can go wrong. C.S. Lewis put it well when he gave this anecdote in Four Loves:
This third thing is not a sentiment but a belief: a firm, even prosaic belief that our own nation, in sober fact, has long been, and still is markedly superior to all others. I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, “But, sir, aren't we told that every people thinks its own men the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world?” He replied with total gravity—he could not have been graver if he had been saying the Creed at the altar—“Yes, but in England it's true.” To be sure, this conviction had not made my friend (God rest his soul) a villain; only an extremely lovable old ass. It can however produce asses that kick and bite. On the lunatic fringe it may shade off into that popular Racialism which Christianity and science equally forbid…1
Remember, C.S. Lewis and his audience had lived through the Left's crazed obsession with Racial Superiority in Europe and America with the Eugenics movement fostered by Left leaning thinkers. The culmination of this was in Hitler, Sanger, and the atrocities committed in the name of a better race. Perhaps the old clergyman is harmless. Perhaps there was even an iota of truth at the time; Great Britain was the largest spanning empire to date. However, the note should be made that Conservatism and Christianity often overlap, but one is defined by man and the other by God.
Many people in the Conservative movement act in ways that a Christian ought not. This is not to say that we cannot both fight for what is true. However, one should also remember that we are held to the standard of Truth, God's Word, and not a political party platform.
Segment 4# Conclusion: Love of a party is only as good as the value it provides to Christians ultimate purpose on this earth, the Gospel.
Segment 5#: Does Love Of Country Provide Eternal Benefit or Value?
To answer the question, let's look at the sentiment concerning English Nationalism, as laid out by G.K. Chesterton, a Christian Apologist who lived around the turn of the 20th century:
We are, as a nation, in the truly extraordinary condition of not knowing our own merits. We have played a great and splendid part in the history of universal thought and sentiment; we have been among the foremost in that eternal and bloodless battle in which the blows do not slay, but create. In painting and music we are inferior to many other nations; but in literature, science, philosophy, and political eloquence, if history be taken as a whole, we can hold our own with any. But all this vast heritage of intellectual glory is kept from our schoolboys like a heresy; and they are left to live and die in the dull and infantile type of patriotism which they learnt from a box of tin soldiers. There is no harm in the box of tin soldiers; we do not expect children to be equally delighted with a beautiful box of tin philanthropists. But there is great harm in the fact that the subtler and more civilized honour of England is not presented so as to keep pace with the expanding mind. A French boy is taught the glory of Moliere as well as that of Turenne; a German boy is taught his own great national philosophy before he learns the philosophy of antiquity. The result is that, though French patriotism is often crazy and boastful, though German patriotism is often isolated and pedantic, they are neither of them merely dull, common, and brutal, as is so often the strange fate of the nation of Bacon and Locke.
Now, if you hear a familiar ring in this description of British sentiment towards its own history, rhyming with the 21st Century Anti-Americanism we see in the Left today, perhaps it would be best to look at what is happening in Britain today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJ4mfxvM-Y
Stealing phones and violating safety policies are the least of the worries. Folks like Tommy Robinson have been speaking out about these gangs attacking women and children.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/13/when-europe-ignored-sex-crimes-of-immigrants-all-women-suffered/
The UK had a society fit to raise children before they committed cultural suicide. They are now bringing into the country the worst of the nations who are sending refugees. What could these kids have done or who could they have led to the Lord, but are now stifled by injuries or death?
Something to ponder.
Final Thoughts:
One last thing: What, besides the United States, is your favorite country?
Four Loves - C.S. Lewis
https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-october-2019/
The Defendant - Chesterton
https://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/the-defendant/16/
Knowledge of the Holy - A.W. Tozer
https://www.restoringthecore.com/wp-content/restored/AW-Tozer-Knowledge-of-the-Holy.pdf
