How Much Patriotism Is Too Much Patriotism?
00:00:00.000 | [Intro music]
00:00:04.000 | Tomorrow is July 4th, Independence Day here in the United States.
00:00:08.000 | A big day of celebration for us here. Every year it raises
00:00:12.000 | questions for Christians about nationalism and what's a healthy level of patriotism.
00:00:17.000 | Matt, a podcast listener, writes in to ask this.
00:00:21.000 | "Pastor John, hello. Obviously as Christians we are to live as strangers,
00:00:25.000 | exiles, aliens, and pilgrims on this earth. Is there an
00:00:29.000 | appropriate place in the Christian life to be patriotic? If so,
00:00:33.000 | what is it, and at what point does our patriotism go
00:00:37.000 | too far?" Pastor John, what would you say to Matt?
00:00:40.000 | Yes, I think there is, and I think it's
00:00:44.000 | right, or at least it can be right and good. It is
00:00:48.000 | true, and we need to stress it at the beginning, maybe stress it
00:00:52.000 | at the end. We are pilgrims here. We are exiles,
00:00:56.000 | refugees, sojourners. Peter says, "Beloved,
00:01:00.000 | I urge you as sojourners and exiles, abstain
00:01:04.000 | from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul."
00:01:08.000 | Paul says in Philippians 3.20, "Our citizenship is
00:01:12.000 | in heaven." That's number one. That's foundational.
00:01:16.000 | That's relativizing to all human allegiances. So the
00:01:20.000 | question is framed rightly. We are citizens of heaven. We are
00:01:24.000 | sojourners and pilgrims on the earth, but that's owing
00:01:28.000 | to the fact that the world is fallen, not the fact that
00:01:32.000 | the world is created. We are going to spend eternity
00:01:36.000 | in a created world.
00:01:40.000 | In fact, this created world, renewed and cleansed.
00:01:44.000 | But Satan won't be the god
00:01:48.000 | of that world anymore, like the New Testament says he is now.
00:01:52.000 | That's what makes us feel so alien here, is that the
00:01:56.000 | god of this world is Satan. He holds
00:02:00.000 | such extensive sway. The world is
00:02:04.000 | permeated with sin. It makes us feel like we're not
00:02:08.000 | at home, and we're not in a very real sense while
00:02:12.000 | that kind of sinfulness permeates the world. We are
00:02:16.000 | just aching to be done with sin,
00:02:20.000 | mainly our sin, not just the grossness and godlessness
00:02:24.000 | that we see in the world. We long to be
00:02:28.000 | holy and to be in the presence of holiness
00:02:32.000 | himself. So when I say we are aliens
00:02:36.000 | and exiles and sojourners and pilgrims, I don't mean that
00:02:40.000 | the earth itself or everything in it is
00:02:44.000 | despised. I mean that the structures we
00:02:48.000 | find ourselves in, this rebellious body of
00:02:52.000 | John Piper, family, work, education,
00:02:56.000 | entertainment, politics, media, even church, all of it,
00:03:00.000 | are so permeated with sin that
00:03:04.000 | we long for something new and clean and pure
00:03:08.000 | and holy and Christ-exalting.
00:03:12.000 | However, God means for us to be
00:03:16.000 | enmeshed in this world. We're not of the
00:03:20.000 | world, Jesus says in John 17, 16,
00:03:24.000 | but we are in the world, and we are supposed
00:03:28.000 | to be in it. I just read in my devotions yesterday,
00:03:32.000 | 2 Corinthians 10, 3, "Though we walk
00:03:36.000 | in the flesh, we are not waging war
00:03:40.000 | according to the flesh." That's just another way of saying
00:03:44.000 | "in the world" but not "of the world." We may be in a city,
00:03:48.000 | a state, a country, and if I ask
00:03:52.000 | what is patriotism in this enmeshment,
00:03:56.000 | my answer is that patriotism is a kind of
00:04:00.000 | love for Fatherland, and I mean Fatherland in a very general
00:04:04.000 | sense. It could be a city, Minneapolis, or it could be a state,
00:04:08.000 | Minnesota, could be a country, U.S., Brazil,
00:04:12.000 | China, Nigeria, a tribe,
00:04:16.000 | Ojibwe, Navajo, Fulani, Kachin,
00:04:20.000 | and that love for these enmeshments,
00:04:24.000 | these belongings, is different from
00:04:28.000 | the general love that Christians have for everybody
00:04:32.000 | or for the whole earth. And the reason I think it's good
00:04:36.000 | to have special affections for these particular
00:04:40.000 | attachments is that the Bible seems to point
00:04:44.000 | in that direction in several ways. For example, Paul says in Galatians 6:10,
00:04:48.000 | "As we have opportunity, let us do good to
00:04:52.000 | everyone and especially, especially to those who
00:04:56.000 | are of the household of faith." So it's as though there is
00:05:00.000 | this specialness about those who are close
00:05:04.000 | to you and like you. There is a kind of affection
00:05:08.000 | for them that's different. Or consider 1 Timothy 5, 8,
00:05:12.000 | "If anyone does not provide for his
00:05:16.000 | relatives and especially the members of his
00:05:20.000 | household, he has denied the faith." So it seems like
00:05:24.000 | it's right not just to have a
00:05:28.000 | general love spread over the whole world for people,
00:05:32.000 | as if everybody will receive from us exactly the
00:05:36.000 | same affections, but rather there is an especially,
00:05:40.000 | a peculiarity about the affections
00:05:44.000 | for certain affinity groups. Not at the expense
00:05:48.000 | of others, but even for the sake of others.
00:05:52.000 | Paul seems to point in this direction in Romans 9, 3 when he says,
00:05:56.000 | "I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut
00:06:00.000 | off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen
00:06:04.000 | according to the flesh." What's that? There's something
00:06:08.000 | about this kinship according to the flesh. He means Jewishness.
00:06:12.000 | It's being bound together in a family
00:06:16.000 | way or a cultural way with a group that makes him have a
00:06:20.000 | special affection and longing for them that's different
00:06:24.000 | from the love he has for everybody. And as I was thinking
00:06:28.000 | about this, C.S. Lewis gave me some help
00:06:32.000 | because in his book, The Four Loves, which by the way, Tony,
00:06:36.000 | 45 minutes ago, I realized I've got
00:06:40.000 | this book on file in my computer in the voice
00:06:44.000 | of C.S. Lewis himself. So I went there and listened to this section about
00:06:48.000 | 45 minutes ago. So I've got Lewis talking in my mind
00:06:52.000 | about Storge. Okay, I wasn't going to say that, but I did that this morning.
00:06:56.000 | I'm so excited that I've been listening to C.S. Lewis. Well, now you've got to tell us, is that an audiobook?
00:07:00.000 | Yes. It's The Four Loves. You can get it
00:07:04.000 | somewhere. I got it. I got it years ago, but you can hear
00:07:08.000 | Lewis's own voice. Well, anyway, he wrote this book, The Four Loves,
00:07:12.000 | and he distinguishes philos, friendship, eros,
00:07:16.000 | sex, agape, the love of God, and the one that I
00:07:20.000 | think is relevant right here, namely Storge. Now, Storge
00:07:24.000 | is a kind of affection. It's what you feel for a
00:07:28.000 | pair of slippers that your wife thinks you should
00:07:32.000 | have thrown away a long time ago, but they fit
00:07:36.000 | just right. They feel just right. Storge
00:07:40.000 | is the affection that a child feels for an old raggedy doll that
00:07:44.000 | everybody looks at and says, "That's just good for nothing." Well, no, it's
00:07:48.000 | really good for that child. That child has a very special affection
00:07:52.000 | for that doll. Or I can think of a sweater. I just
00:07:56.000 | tossed a 10-year-old sweater away the other day, and I took a picture of it, sent it to my
00:08:00.000 | kids, and I put a text on it, "Rest in peace." I should have said
00:08:04.000 | "Rest in pieces," because it was so torn up.
00:08:08.000 | And Noelle was saying, "You don't need to wear that anymore." I said, "Well, I just
00:08:12.000 | like it." So it's the sweater. It's the tree where you carved
00:08:16.000 | your initials as a couple at Wheaton
00:08:20.000 | College, and they took that tree down, the rascals, just a few
00:08:24.000 | years ago. You love to be near that
00:08:28.000 | tree. That tree means more than other trees.
00:08:32.000 | Or it's the lagoon where Noelle and I were engaged. That's a real
00:08:36.000 | special place that we can go back to. So there is a kind
00:08:40.000 | of affection for a tree, a sweater, a city,
00:08:44.000 | a language, a culture, a fatherland.
00:08:48.000 | Why? Because it fits you. When you leave
00:08:52.000 | it, get on a plane to go to another country, there may be excitement
00:08:56.000 | and challenge and stimulation, and you get real
00:09:00.000 | worked up with new cultures. Here they come. And they might even
00:09:04.000 | be superior in some ways to your own
00:09:08.000 | culture. In other words, we're not talking here, when we talk
00:09:12.000 | about special love for your own family or
00:09:16.000 | ethnicity or city or state or fatherland, we're not talking
00:09:20.000 | about superiority and inferiority here any more than your
00:09:24.000 | love for your husband or your wife is because they're the smartest or
00:09:28.000 | the handsomest person in the world. That's not what's going on here. That's not the
00:09:32.000 | point in this special kind of affection that we're talking
00:09:36.000 | about. The point is, when you come home from those travels,
00:09:40.000 | even from so-called superior cultures,
00:09:44.000 | the fatherland fits, like the slippers
00:09:48.000 | fit or the sweater or the smells or the sound. It's just
00:09:52.000 | full of good associations, like the tree where
00:09:56.000 | you carved your initial. So it seems to me that
00:10:00.000 | this is good and that the goodness is implied in the Bible
00:10:04.000 | and God created us to be in skin,
00:10:08.000 | in languages, in families, in cultures. He doesn't mean
00:10:12.000 | for us to despise our skin or our language or our culture,
00:10:16.000 | but rather to be at home in them
00:10:20.000 | and to feel good about them. Of course, we have to add
00:10:24.000 | up to a point. They're all sinful, and so we
00:10:28.000 | never give them absolute allegiance. We never cease
00:10:32.000 | to be exiles and sojourners, even in our families and tribes
00:10:36.000 | and ethnicities, indeed in our own bodies.
00:10:40.000 | Now, Romans 13 seems to me to
00:10:44.000 | take this point of the special affection
00:10:48.000 | to the level of countries. When it says that
00:10:52.000 | a state has the right to use the sword to maintain
00:10:56.000 | order and to defend itself against aggression,
00:11:00.000 | when it says that, it seems to me to be saying, in effect, that this
00:11:04.000 | fatherland has the right to exist. And if it has
00:11:08.000 | the right to exist, it would seem that the people who
00:11:12.000 | live there can be glad that it exists.
00:11:16.000 | They can say, "We're glad that this fatherland exists.
00:11:20.000 | We like it here." They can say that without putting down
00:11:24.000 | other nations or cultures. You don't have to be
00:11:28.000 | negative about another country because you love
00:11:32.000 | your own. That's a lesson, by the way, we need to learn today at
00:11:36.000 | every level. In fact, I would argue that
00:11:40.000 | in globally connected nations like we have
00:11:44.000 | today, this interdependent world of ours,
00:11:48.000 | you probably will fail to love your country
00:11:52.000 | if you fail to work for the good of other countries
00:11:56.000 | as well. We're just too interdependent for that
00:12:00.000 | not to be true. Now, let me end on this note, for Christians especially.
00:12:04.000 | Never feel, never feel
00:12:08.000 | more attached to your fatherland or your
00:12:12.000 | tribe or your family or your ethnicity
00:12:16.000 | than you do to the people of Christ.
00:12:20.000 | Everyone who is in Christ is more closely
00:12:24.000 | and permanently united to others in Christ
00:12:28.000 | no matter the other associations than
00:12:32.000 | we are to our nearest fellow citizen or party
00:12:36.000 | member or brother or sister or spouse. Oh, how many
00:12:40.000 | horrible indignities, injustices,
00:12:44.000 | contradictions of Christianity have been perpetrated because believers
00:12:48.000 | have failed to realize this. We are more
00:12:52.000 | bound together with other believers no matter
00:12:56.000 | their ethnicity or their political alignments or their nationality
00:13:00.000 | than we are to anybody in our own fatherland.
00:13:04.000 | In the end, Christ has relativized
00:13:08.000 | all human allegiances, all human
00:13:12.000 | loves. Keeping Christ supreme in our affections
00:13:16.000 | makes all our lesser loves better
00:13:20.000 | not worse. Under his flag,
00:13:24.000 | it is right to be thankful to God that we have a fatherland,
00:13:28.000 | a tribe, a family, an old pair of slippers that just
00:13:32.000 | fit right. That's a great word. Yeah, my wife
00:13:36.000 | doesn't ask permission. She just takes the old clothes. Oh, no, no.
00:13:40.000 | And they disappear. Oh, that would be a major crisis. Well, see, I wouldn't
00:13:44.000 | get rid of them. That's the problem. They just have to disappear.
00:13:48.000 | Shout out to my wife who listens. She's a minimalist who keeps our closet beautifully organized
00:13:52.000 | and simplified. Thank you, honey, for listening. And if you, like my wife, want
00:13:56.000 | new episodes of this podcast, deliver to your phone as soon as they are released.
00:14:00.000 | Subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app, in Spotify, or by
00:14:04.000 | subscribing to DG's YouTube channel. And to find other episodes in our archives
00:14:08.000 | or to submit a question to us, do that online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn
00:14:14.000 | We return on Monday with a really interesting Bible question. The
00:14:18.000 | ESV's Old Testament has about 103 mentions of atone
00:14:22.000 | or atonement, but the ESV's New Testament doesn't contain
00:14:26.000 | any mention of atone or atonement, not one.
00:14:30.000 | So where'd the atonement go in the ESV's New Testament?
00:14:34.000 | It's a great question, and we will find out on Monday. I'm Tony Rehnke.
00:14:38.000 | Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful Independence Day celebration if you're in the States.
00:14:42.000 | And we will see you back here then. Thanks for listening.
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