Should Christians Be Patriotic?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Hello, July, and welcome back

00:00:07.480 | to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:00:09.760 | And before we jump into today's episode,

00:00:11.920 | I have a programming note for you to pass on.

00:00:14.800 | Pastor John and I will be taking next week off

00:00:17.280 | from the podcast, so there's gonna be no episodes

00:00:19.440 | all of next week.

00:00:21.040 | We've been at this for a little over 180 consecutive weeks

00:00:25.260 | nonstop, and we're nearing episode number 900.

00:00:28.760 | So many of you listen every day to the podcast,

00:00:31.760 | and if that's you, thank you.

00:00:33.800 | It's been a great run, and we have no intention of stopping,

00:00:36.960 | but we are taking one week off.

00:00:38.840 | We'll return on July 11th with all new episodes.

00:00:43.160 | Well, we are just days away from July 4th in the States,

00:00:45.920 | Pastor John, Independence Day is what we call it,

00:00:49.000 | and the ABJ inbox is loaded with political questions

00:00:52.360 | for you.

00:00:53.200 | Christians in America, of course, find themselves

00:00:55.180 | in the midst of a bizarre political season, as you know,

00:00:59.060 | and there's an overall heightened partisan angst,

00:01:02.060 | I guess you could call it, that's dividing

00:01:04.220 | both major parties, and even with it,

00:01:07.100 | there's new levels of nationalism that we have not seen

00:01:09.680 | in this country for a while.

00:01:11.500 | But as Christians, as we approach July 4th,

00:01:13.860 | we're called to live in this world as strangers

00:01:16.140 | and exiles and aliens and sojourners

00:01:19.180 | and pilgrims on this earth.

00:01:20.580 | So, Pastor John, we've talked about this before

00:01:22.300 | on the podcast, but tell us again about the place

00:01:25.180 | and the role of patriotism in the Christian life.

00:01:28.360 | - Well, we talked about this a couple of years ago,

00:01:31.460 | and most of what I was thinking then, as I reviewed it,

00:01:36.460 | still needs to be said, I think,

00:01:39.100 | but there are a few additional thoughts

00:01:42.280 | that I'll weave in and put at the end

00:01:45.260 | in view of the heightened awareness today

00:01:48.500 | of possible conflicts, at least this is the way

00:01:51.140 | I feel it, possible conflicts between patriotism

00:01:55.580 | and Christian commitment.

00:01:57.220 | So let me just jump in.

00:02:00.100 | We are pilgrims.

00:02:03.440 | We are exiles, sojourners, refugees ourselves,

00:02:08.440 | in a very refugee-heightened culture.

00:02:12.540 | 1 Peter 2, "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles,"

00:02:17.740 | and Philippians 3, "Our citizenship is in heaven."

00:02:21.900 | So the question, I think, is being framed rightly.

00:02:26.380 | We are citizens of heaven.

00:02:28.780 | We are sojourners and pilgrims on the earth,

00:02:31.260 | and that is owing to the fact that this world is fallen,

00:02:35.300 | not the fact that it's created.

00:02:37.440 | We're going to spend eternity in a created world.

00:02:42.440 | So we're not aliens because earth is a bad thing,

00:02:46.700 | but Satan won't be the god of that world anymore

00:02:51.540 | like he's the god of this world.

00:02:53.780 | And that's what makes us feel so alien here

00:02:56.700 | is that the god of this world is Satan,

00:02:58.700 | and he holds such extensive sway in the systems

00:03:02.400 | of this world that the world is permeated with sin,

00:03:06.140 | and it makes us feel like we're not at home.

00:03:08.260 | We're aching that we would be done with sin

00:03:12.100 | and at home with Jesus in the presence of his holiness,

00:03:16.560 | his holiness is the native air a Christian wants to breathe.

00:03:21.560 | So when I say we are aliens and exiles

00:03:25.740 | and sojourners and pilgrims,

00:03:27.060 | I don't mean that the earth is a place we despise.

00:03:30.180 | I mean that the structures we find ourselves in

00:03:33.660 | are so permeated with sin that we want something new.

00:03:38.300 | However, I think God means for us to be enmeshed

00:03:43.300 | in the world in various ways.

00:03:46.500 | We're not to go out of the world.

00:03:48.580 | We're in the world.

00:03:49.620 | We're not supposed to be of the world.

00:03:52.020 | We are in a city.

00:03:53.180 | We're in a state.

00:03:54.260 | We're in a country and a continent.

00:03:56.940 | There are all kinds of these geographical

00:03:59.020 | and cultural allegiances or identifications that we have.

00:04:03.900 | And if I ask now, what is patriotism

00:04:07.420 | in this kind of paradoxical enmeshment?

00:04:11.520 | My answer is that patriotism is a special love

00:04:16.520 | or affection, endearment for fatherland.

00:04:22.760 | It could be a city.

00:04:24.560 | It could be a state, a neighborhood.

00:04:28.040 | It could be a tribe.

00:04:29.040 | It could be an ethnicity.

00:04:31.160 | And that love is different from the general love

00:04:35.040 | that Christians have for everybody or for the whole world.

00:04:39.260 | And the reason I think that's true,

00:04:41.920 | and there are several reasons,

00:04:44.760 | one is that there are these special affections indicated

00:04:49.680 | in the Bible in various ways.

00:04:51.920 | For example, in Galatians 6, it says,

00:04:56.040 | "As you have opportunity to do good to everyone,

00:04:58.960 | "especially to those who are of the household of faith,"

00:05:02.660 | especially to those who are of the household of faith.

00:05:05.860 | It's as though there is this specialness

00:05:10.280 | about those who are close to you,

00:05:12.840 | have a similar deep bond to you,

00:05:15.800 | a kind of affection for them

00:05:17.380 | that's different from the world.

00:05:20.280 | Or 1 Timothy 5, 8,

00:05:23.020 | "If anyone does not provide for his relatives

00:05:25.900 | "and especially for the members of his household,

00:05:29.840 | "then he's denied the faith."

00:05:31.160 | So it seems like it's right

00:05:33.680 | not only to have this general love for everybody

00:05:37.320 | that covers the world, covers our neighbors,

00:05:39.620 | covers our enemies, but also, and especially,

00:05:43.840 | and especially for our families or those near to us.

00:05:47.380 | And Paul himself said in Romans 9

00:05:50.880 | that he had a special burden for my brothers,

00:05:54.260 | my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

00:05:57.180 | It doesn't seem to me that he would have written like that

00:05:59.820 | if it weren't appropriate for him

00:06:01.320 | to feel some kind of special affection for his fellow Jews,

00:06:06.320 | a kind of patriotism for his ethnicity of Jewishness.

00:06:12.540 | So there's something about this flesh,

00:06:16.780 | this close identity that being bound together

00:06:21.780 | in a family way or a cultural way

00:06:24.180 | that makes us love them with an unusual kind

00:06:27.100 | or a special kind of affection.

00:06:29.420 | And as I was trying to think through,

00:06:30.980 | now, is this legitimate?

00:06:33.820 | I mean, I'm pointing out that it exists,

00:06:35.460 | that it's got pointers in the Bible,

00:06:36.840 | but it was C.S. Lewis who helped me

00:06:40.300 | with some categories in his book, "The Four Loves."

00:06:43.460 | He said that there's the love of philos,

00:06:46.620 | which is friendship, the love of eros, which is sex,

00:06:50.980 | and the love of agape, which is the love of God.

00:06:55.140 | And then he added, there's this love called storge,

00:06:58.940 | which I found to be the most interesting one.

00:07:01.580 | And storge is a kind of affection

00:07:05.380 | that you feel for a pair of slippers

00:07:09.780 | that you've worn way too many years,

00:07:12.020 | and your wife wants to throw them out,

00:07:13.980 | and you'd commit hairy carry if she,

00:07:16.940 | no way you're gonna throw these slippers out.

00:07:19.980 | They fit like a glove, or for me,

00:07:22.180 | and Noel, it's sweaters that I wear

00:07:23.700 | until the elbows are gone,

00:07:25.780 | 'cause I sit here at my desk

00:07:27.020 | and rubbing my elbows all the time,

00:07:28.580 | and she wants to toss them out,

00:07:29.700 | and I say, no, I love this sweater.

00:07:31.540 | It's just, it's got associations.

00:07:34.860 | And I mean, so this is what he means by storge,

00:07:39.660 | a little kid who has a rag doll

00:07:41.380 | that's just rags is what it is,

00:07:43.900 | and they wouldn't part with it for anything.

00:07:46.060 | That's a little kind of patriotism

00:07:48.900 | that is probably very, very good, very admissible.

00:07:53.220 | At least C.S. Lewis makes the case that it is.

00:07:57.780 | There's an old tree that Noel and I carved our initials in.

00:08:02.540 | In fact, it's gone now.

00:08:03.980 | It made me so mad.

00:08:05.620 | For decades, for about three and a half decades,

00:08:09.620 | we went back to Wheaton, and we walked to that tree,

00:08:13.180 | and we could actually find, 30 years later,

00:08:16.980 | those initials just barely discernible

00:08:20.340 | as the bark was gnarling over.

00:08:22.820 | Well, we liked that tree.

00:08:24.340 | We liked that tree more than other trees,

00:08:27.580 | and so on.

00:08:28.740 | You get the idea that there's this kind of affection

00:08:32.420 | for a tree or a city or a fatherland

00:08:34.380 | or a language or a culture,

00:08:36.380 | and it's because it fits you.

00:08:38.900 | When you leave it, you get on a plane,

00:08:41.140 | you go to another country,

00:08:42.660 | yeah, there's an excitement and a challenge

00:08:44.620 | and a stimulation of going another place,

00:08:46.260 | but there's something inside that when you come home,

00:08:48.900 | it just feels wonderful to eat the food

00:08:53.020 | and lie in your own bed and be in your own living room

00:08:56.020 | and walk your own streets,

00:08:57.300 | and hear your own language.

00:08:58.740 | All that seems to be something

00:09:00.540 | that God puts his approval on.

00:09:03.500 | So I think, yes, yes, there is such a thing,

00:09:08.500 | a good thing is patriotism,

00:09:11.100 | and with regard to nations,

00:09:14.460 | it seems like Romans 13,

00:09:16.740 | in calling us to be subject to the powers

00:09:19.380 | that wield the sword,

00:09:21.500 | implies that in some sense,

00:09:24.180 | a country identity or a nation state identity

00:09:28.460 | has the right to use that sword

00:09:30.220 | to defend itself against aggression,

00:09:32.940 | and thus in some sense,

00:09:34.780 | preserve its right to exist and exist as it exists.

00:09:39.780 | And so I think that implies

00:09:43.700 | that there is a proper place for patriotism

00:09:47.140 | at the national level.

00:09:50.220 | So maybe we should wrap it up by saying

00:09:52.220 | whatever form your patriotism takes,

00:09:56.300 | let it be a deep sense that we are more closely bound

00:10:01.300 | to brothers and sisters in Christ,

00:10:05.100 | in other countries, other cultures,

00:10:07.940 | than we are to our closest unbelieving compatriot

00:10:12.940 | or family member in the fatherland or in the neighborhood.

00:10:16.380 | That's really crucial to feel that, I think.

00:10:19.300 | Otherwise, I think then our patriotism

00:10:21.420 | is drifting over into idolatry.

00:10:24.900 | God is our King, not man.

00:10:27.420 | His kingdom is our final allegiance.

00:10:30.180 | But under that banner,

00:10:32.060 | it's right to be thankful

00:10:34.180 | that God gave us our land freely.

00:10:36.340 | I'm thinking now particularly of America.

00:10:38.180 | He gave this to us freely.

00:10:39.700 | I didn't deserve to be born here.

00:10:42.140 | It wasn't my choice.

00:10:43.940 | We don't deserve this place

00:10:47.060 | any more than I deserve any other common grace

00:10:50.460 | or special grace.

00:10:52.140 | It's right to be thankful

00:10:54.300 | that people paid a high price

00:10:56.340 | to preserve our land with its freedoms

00:10:58.580 | and its cultural distinctives.

00:11:01.020 | And it's right to be thankful

00:11:02.940 | that we have all these cultural slippers to put on

00:11:07.420 | that we don't want to throw away.

00:11:10.940 | But I have to come back in closing

00:11:14.220 | to our alien exile sojourner status

00:11:19.020 | as the main thing.

00:11:20.620 | We are citizens of heaven

00:11:22.060 | before we are earthly patriots,

00:11:25.260 | which means that there are bound to be conflicts

00:11:28.220 | between the way Christ our King calls us to live

00:11:32.300 | and the ways our beloved homeland expects us

00:11:35.980 | to live from time to time.

00:11:37.900 | And the other reminder

00:11:40.060 | that the culture and ethos

00:11:43.060 | of the earthly homeland we love,

00:11:46.180 | the other reminder that I have to give

00:11:47.980 | is it's not static.

00:11:50.460 | That is the thing I love about America.

00:11:52.900 | It's not static.

00:11:54.340 | It's changing.

00:11:55.620 | It's always changing.

00:11:56.660 | It always has been changing.

00:11:59.140 | America today is not the America of the '50s,

00:12:02.580 | which means that there is a sense of conflict

00:12:06.540 | not only between our earthly homeland and other cultures,

00:12:11.020 | but also between what our earthly homeland was

00:12:14.180 | and what it is becoming.

00:12:16.260 | And so how do you do patriotism

00:12:19.340 | when what you regard as your own culture

00:12:22.340 | is in a process of transformation?

00:12:25.620 | And in both of those kinds of conflicts,

00:12:28.500 | the one from outside, the one from inside,

00:12:31.420 | our stance, I think, should be

00:12:34.180 | not primarily as earthly culture preservers.

00:12:39.180 | That's my main job.

00:12:40.620 | I mean, my main mentality

00:12:42.940 | is to produce a preservation of my pure culture,

00:12:47.940 | 'cause I think that produced the horrors of Nazi Germany,

00:12:53.260 | where the Aryan race was the Germanic race

00:12:57.420 | and prized so highly and preserved so intensely,

00:13:00.900 | it resulted in the slaughter of other people.

00:13:04.020 | So we gotta be very careful

00:13:07.100 | about exalting our racial or ethnic

00:13:11.300 | or cultural patriotism or at-homeness, our slippers,

00:13:16.180 | to the point where we begin to demonize

00:13:19.660 | and actually hurt others.

00:13:22.780 | Our stance should be we are Christians first,

00:13:25.260 | and as challenges come to our culture from within

00:13:29.540 | and from without, we bring kingdom values

00:13:32.820 | to bear on these challenges,

00:13:34.820 | not just earthly preferences.

00:13:37.300 | I think C.S. Lewis might say,

00:13:39.540 | "Agape," the love of God, "orders storge."

00:13:44.540 | It orders phylos. It orders eros.

00:13:47.540 | In other words, these earthly loves of friend and sex

00:13:52.020 | and affections for country and for our favorite slippers

00:13:56.220 | are ordered and kept in their proper place

00:13:59.460 | by a superior allegiance to God.

00:14:02.580 | Our love for God is primary.

00:14:05.100 | Only the value of our King, God, Jesus,

00:14:08.860 | can bring a right ordering of the value of our earthly loves.

00:14:13.740 | Only our Heavenly Father, our heavenly patriotism,

00:14:18.020 | can order our earthly patriotism.

00:14:20.900 | - Amen to that. Thank you, Pastor John.

00:14:23.900 | And that book mentioned earlier

00:14:25.540 | was "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis.

00:14:28.420 | And with that, we are gonna break for the weekend

00:14:30.580 | and we're gonna break for the week.

00:14:31.820 | As I mentioned, we have released about 900 episodes so far

00:14:35.420 | in the APJ Archive.

00:14:36.660 | I know a few of you have listened to every single episode

00:14:40.300 | and that's amazing to me.

00:14:42.140 | If you need to catch up on some of them,

00:14:44.060 | I would encourage you to take some time over the next week

00:14:46.380 | to scan or search through all the episodes

00:14:48.580 | we've released over the years.

00:14:50.540 | And of course, you can scan those episodes really easily

00:14:52.940 | in the APJ app that we made for Apple and Android devices,

00:14:56.780 | or you can go to our web home

00:14:58.180 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:15:02.820 | I'm your host Tony Renke,

00:15:03.780 | and I will see you back here on July 11th in about a week.

00:15:07.060 | We'll see you then.

00:15:08.020 | (upbeat music)

00:15:10.620 | (upbeat music)

00:15:13.220 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Should Christians Be Patriotic?

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