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#0156 What Does God Think About Patriotism? Nationalism? – Further. Every. Day.

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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 a loanword from Koin Greek Sigma upsilon nu delta rho iota omicron nu 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 ldquo 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 rdquo 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 ldquo Abortion is legal if it was immoral it wouldn t be legal rdquo 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 ldquo illegal rdquo 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 ldquo 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 rdquo 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 ldquo twin relics of barbarism Polygamy and Slavery rdquo 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 ldquo But sir aren t we told that every people thinks its own men the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world rdquo He replied with total gravity mdash he could not have been graver if he had been saying the Creed at the altar mdash ldquo Yes but in England it s true rdquo 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 hellip 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 Click here to visit this podcast episode

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