Patriotism

It's nearing the Fourth of July.  Are we losing our sense of patriotism?  I hear the concern often from regular folks. Meanwhile, I hear the concern of quite a few pastors that we are too patriotic.  Pondering that, I find myself thinking there’s a really good, healthy patriotism and then there’s an unhelpful, even dangerous patriotism.  We need more of the former, but not more of the latter. 

A good healthy patriotism understands that it’s not all about me; it’s about us.  God calls us to care about our neighbors. We have a special responsibility because in our nation, our government is, at bedrock, “We the people.”  When we are loyal to those neighbors and seek to defend them and build them up, when we participate in our communities and seek the common good, that’s the best kind of patriotism. Can we have too much of that?  

Lutheran pastors in particular tend to be nervous about patriotism because of what happened under the Nazis.  Yes, people compromised all kinds of Christian principles under the guise of being patriotic.  The government favored certain ethnic groups and despised and killed others, and relatively few Christians objected.  Country came before God.  It was one of the most unspeakably cruel periods of human history.  That period is an important warning, but it we shouldn’t overreact to it in such a way that we lose what is good about patriotism. 

I love my country.  I fly my flag.  I would rather live here than anywhere else on earth, and for reasons that are too numerous to count. 

I do not believe God loves America more than other nations, or that we deserve what other nations don’t.  “God shed his grace on thee,” we sing. It’s grace, not deserving. When I’m at a gathering and O Canada is sung, I join in.  I do the same with Yes, We Love This Land, the national anthem of the land most of my ancestors came from, or You Old, You Free, You Mountain-high North, the anthem where the rest of them came from.  They’re not my countries, but they’re part of this God-beloved world too. 

Fly your flag, bless God for the grace shed on our country, and pray that God will guide us as we continue to seek to be a place “with liberty and justice for all.”