A decade or so ago I wrote the piece below for the magazine Reformed Worship, in response to a request that I reflect on patriotic themes and practices in worship. They reprinted it recently. I am pasting it here, in anticipation of July 4 celebrations. It can also be accessed at:
http://www.reformedworship.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1689

The Danger of Alien Loyalties

As any liturgist knows, we have to take more than one “church year” into account as we plan our worship services. The last time I counted, I came up with six distinguishable “years.”

First is the Lectionary year, used by congregations from many denominations to organize their worship planning. Next, and familiar especially to churches within the Reformed tradition, is the Catechism year, patterned after the “Lord’s Days” of the Heidelberg Catechism. Third is the Hallmark year—Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day—a list of special occasions that many churches recognize in one fashion or another. Fourth and fifth are the Denominational Programs year (Missions Sunday, World Hunger Sunday, and the like) and a Local Congregation Activities year (Stewardship Sunday, Boys’ or Girls’ Club Sunday, the service for
commissioning of church school teachers). And, last but not least, is the Civic Holiday year.

Most of these “years” are not very problematic on a theological level. They are, to be sure, often difficult to juggle—what do you do, for example, when Mother’s Day and Pentecost occur on the same Sunday? But a creative mind and a willingness to do some compromising are often adequate for dealing with such challenges.

The Civic Holiday year, though, presents some special theological problems. And it also raises some emotionally laden issues. In the World War I era, for example, a well-known Reformed pastor in the Midwest refused to allow the American flag to be displayed in his sanctuary. This caused such an uproar in his Dutch Calvinist community that he was physically attacked one night as he walked home from church.

Is it appropriate to integrate civic themes and symbols into our Christian worshiping life? As worship planners, how do we deal with the fact of a Dominion Day or an Independence Day?

The Relevance of Context

One possible solution is simply to ignore our civic life altogether. Some Christians have argued for this option. They believe that a Christian worship service should in no way reflect the national setting in which it takes place. If a Christian family from Ireland should happen to attend a service in Minneapolis, they insist, the Irish visitors should be able to identify with everything that is going on in the worship event.

But this requirement is defective for both practical and theological reasons. On the practical level it is simply unreasonable to expect that foreign visitors will feel completely at home in our services. Our language and accents and modes of cultural expression will inevitably reflect our specific surroundings.

Furthermore, from a theological point of view it is good that this is so. God has placed us in specific cultural and national contexts. We shouldn’t ask black worshipers in South Africa or a peasant congregation in El Salvador to make no mention of their particular political circumstances as they worship the divine Ruler. Nor should we ask it of ourselves. Applying the gospel to our actual circumstances is one of the exciting challenges of the Christian life.

Remembering Our Loyalties

It is one thing, though, to incorporate our national context into our worship. It is another to foster non-Christian loyalties as we worship. And there can be no question that the danger of alien loyalties is a real one in dealing with the relationship between Christian worship and civic symbols.

Take the flag question. Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with having a national flag in a place of worship. As a reminder of our national “place” and as a stimulus to reflect seriously on what it means to be Christian citizens, a flag can be a rather innocent symbol.

But it is difficult to assess this issue properly without also reckoning with the constant danger of nationalistic pride. We are often asked to offer to our nations the kind of allegiance that we should direct only to God. A national flag seldom serves as a mere reminder of the fact that we are citizens of a specific nation. It is a powerful symbol—even a seductive one—that can evoke feelings of loyalty and pride that are not proper for Christians. And when a national flag stands alongside the so-called Christian flag, we can easily be led to think that God and Caesar have equal importance in our lives.

When we come together for Christian worship, we are acknowledging our identity as members of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9). And we need to be reminded that other racial and priestly and national loyalties are constantly competing for our allegiance. Our worship services are gatherings in the divine throne-room, where we acknowledge that our true loyalties belong to God alone. Nothing in our liturgical content or setting should detract from this expression of fidelity.

Political Heresy

The relationship between Christian commitment and political citizenship is subject to considerable confusion. Much preaching on this subject is downright silly, full of shallow sentimentality and naive interpretations of such passages as the “render unto Caesar” saying and Romans 13. This is certainly inexcusable in the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, where John Calvin and John Knox and Abraham Kuyper and Allan Boesak and other Calvinists have provided us with such a rich store of Christian reflection on the basic issues of civic life.

Reformed theological wisdom is desperately needed on such matters today, given the heresies that are so prominent in popular political piety. How, for example, can Christians who believe that only Christ’s sacrifice can truly atone for sin refer to deaths of soldiers who have died in the service of their country—however courageous their actions—as “the supreme sacrifice”?

Patriotic songs also contain many dangerous teachings. Take, for example, the “eschatological” verse of “America the Beautiful.” Themes that in the book of Revelation are used to describe the Holy City are here applied to the United States: “alabaster cities,” “undimmed by human tears,” the “shining sea.” As if the United States will become the promised New Jerusalem! And yet Reformed Christians—even the kind who sometimes boast of their commitment to “sound theology”—often sing these words without a thought to the heresies they are mouthing.

This is not mere nit-picking. Given the sinfulness of the human condition, idolatry is a very real threat. Political life has certainly not been immune to the general dangers of forming idolatrous allegiances. And when nations and governments have exceeded their God-ordained boundaries by asking citizens for their ultimate loyalties, they have often borrowed the language of religion.

The Roman emperors demanded that they be addressed as “Lord.” And Hitler deceived the German people into thinking that they were a “holy nation,” and a “chosen race.” We must be very diligent in warning the people of God against applying the themes of Zion to the nations in whose midst we are called to serve our only true and righteous Sovereign.

A Multinational People

It is one thing, though, to acknowledge the dangers that we must guard against; it is another to put these concerns into practice. How can we sensitize God’s people to these important concerns, knowing full well that we are dealing with issues that carry much emotional freight?

We can promote a general awareness in our worship of the multinational character of the body of Jesus Christ. Our worship here below is a preparation for the worship of the Lamb, who has ransomed us “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation”: (Rev. 5:9), thereby giving us a new kind of communal identity. “No other blood will do”—not Canadian blood, or Scottish blood, or Dutch blood, or Brazilian blood.

We can regularly give expression to this new sense of identity in our worship by praying for Christians in other national settings, by reminding ourselves of the dangers of national pride, by remembering the ways in which Christians have had to oppose existing political regimes in order to be faithful to the gospel.

Healthy Paradigm

There is a legitimate place for patriotic sentiments in the Christian life. Some Christians deny this, but they are usually focusing on patriotic excesses when they issue their condemnations.

To be a “patriot” is to have affection for the “fatherland.” The explicit analogy to the parent-child relationship is a helpful one. It is a good and natural thing to love our parents. But our love has gotten out of bounds if we think our parents are literally the best parents in the whole world—so wonderful that everyone else also ought to value them as the world’s greatest parents.

That’s the kind of out-of-bounds thinking that takes hold when nationalistic feelings get to be excessive. People start to think that their country—which they quite naturally have very affirmative feelings toward—is the best country in the world.

Christians need to work hard at keeping patriotic feelings within proper bounds. There is nothing wrong with my loving my country simply because it my country—just as I love my parents simply because they are my parents. But this does not put my country beyond criticism.

To honor our nation in a godly manner is to want it to contribute to the cause of Christ’s kingdom. To love our country with a Christian love is to want our nation to do justice and love mercy and walk in humility before the face of the Lord.

Citizens in Church

We don’t leave our citizen roles and our patriotic affections at the door when we enter the church building for worship. It is not reasonable or good to expect that we will do so. God has given to each of us a national setting in which to live. Christian citizenship is a good and important calling.

Our worship services provide us with opportunities to become more aware of who we are as the elect people of God. Worship must speak to the actual dilemmas and trials and joys and challenges that we experience as we attempt to serve the Lord in the broad and complex patterns of our lives. Liturgy and citizenship, then, must intersect.

But seductive patriotic symbols and nationalistic boastings have no proper place in Christian worship. Nor is the church a place where superficial sentimentality and dangerous political heresies can be tolerated. Our worship services are opportunities to come, as the blood-bought people of the Lamb—a people who are presently scattered among the nations—into the presence of the one Ruler whose authority knows no rivals.
 

I have come to enjoy reading Plain Truth magazine these days. There was a time  when I read it with very different expectations. I used to read it at airports, where it was often possible to pick up a free copy. Those were the days when the magazine set forth the views of Herbert W. Armstrong, whose teachings—for example, a “British Israel” perspective on world events, a denial of the Trinity, and a condemnation of the Christian churches—were well beyond the boundaries of biblical orthodoxy.

But things have changed during the past few decades. After Armstrong’s death, those who assumed the leadership of the Worldwide Church of God re-thought their teachings and openly repented of the heretical teachings they had once espoused. They moved into the evangelical mainstream, joining the National Association of Evangelicals.

Plain Truth (now a member of the Evangelical Press Association) is a well-written and interesting magazine these days. The latest issue has a fine study of the fundamentalist mentality, as well as, among other articles, an interesting survey of some controversies within the ranks of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I was taken aback, however, by a short box commentary accompanying the Jehovah’s Witnesses piece. The writer observes that there has been a pattern in recent years of evangelicals engaging in friendly dialogues with groups that have long been viewed by evangelicals as non-Christian “cults.” The Mormons in particular, he notes, have begun using more “Christian” terminology in describing their beliefs–which leads the writer to wonder whether some of us in the Christian world are “falling for a clever public relations ploy.” He also observes that recently “[p]rominent evangelical leaders have apologized publicly to Mormons for misrepresenting their beliefs.” (I wonder who he has in mind!) And then this concluding remark: “Perhaps such evangelical leaders believe that creating a friendly dialog with cultists will afford a better chance for the true gospel to penetrate cultic defenses. Is this true, or will Christians in the next century find themselves a minority in the shadow of groups formerly regarded as cultic? Time will tell.”

He does leave the question open here, but with the implication that there is a real possibility that some of us are making a mistake in engaging in serious dialogue with folks who have long been considered cultic.

I see an irony in this sort of concern being raised in the pages of Plain Truth. There was a time in the late 1990s when the Worldwide Church of God, still considered a non-Christian cult at the time, approached Fuller Seminary with a request for us to allow a couple of their leaders to enroll in our theology classes. They were in the process of re-evaluating their teachings, they said, and they wanted the chance to do so under the guidance of evangelical scholars. We decided to grant them admission, even as we recognized the possibility that they would use their acceptability to Fuller as a way of giving credibility to what were still heretical doctrines.  But we took the risk with them, and from all the evidence it looks like we made the right decision.

But I wonder why this expressed worry now about those of us who choose to engage in dialogue with “cultic” groups? And what is behind the warning that we may someday find ourselves “a minority in the shadow of groups formerly regarded as cultic”? Isn’t that a bit odd coming from a magazine published by the Worldwide Church of God, a group that by its own testimony was once a cult?

Or maybe it isn’t ironic. Maybe the Plain Truth folks are trying to tell us something.

No, that can’t be–I have to put away that thought.

Anyway, as the writer himself concluded: “Time will tell.”

I did not contribute anything to “On Faith” (Newsweek/Washington Post) this week. Those of us who serve on that internet panel are given a question each week, and we are expected to provide commentary in response at least once or twice a month. So my not contributing this past week is no big deal.

The truth is, however, I don’t know how to answer the question posed in a paragraph or two. The question has to do with the value of engaging in critical questioning about matters of religious belief. In one sense it is a no-brainer for me. In all of my years of teaching philosophy courses, I have encouraged critical thinking. Philosophy, I would tell my students, is thinking critically about what we take for granted in the normal course of our lives. It is standing back and looking at what we ordinarily take to be “given.”

I would often quote John Stott to make my point. Christians must be “conservative radicals,” he once wrote. We must be conservative about only one thing: the truth of God’s Word. That truth we must conserve at all costs. But from that perspective of our accepting revealed truth, we must then subject everything else to radical critique.

I still like that. But I am more inclined these days to keep critical reflection in its proper place. I have come to worry about a pattern of lingering over critical questions as if that lingering were itself the primary goal of the life of the mind. I once heard the sociologist Peter Berger remark that he found most of his secular colleagues taking it for granted that “ecstasy”—in the sense of ex stasis, standing apart from, intellectual detachment—was the most prized moment in the intellectual quest. I must admit that I find that tendency within myself, mainly  because of the ways in which I have reacted strongly against evangelical anti-intellectualism.

But I also know that seeing ex stasis, intellectual detachment, as having intrinsic worth, is not a healthy thing.  My worries about that kind of posture are reinforced by the predictable sorts of answers given by many of the “On Faith” panelists in response to this past week’s question. Faith must embrace doubting. Uncritical acceptance of what we have been “given” in religion is a bad thing.

Steve Evans once wrote a little book on existentialism with the intriguing title Despair: a Moment or a Way of Life? That poses the options nicely. Is critical thinking about religion a moment or a way of life? I cherish it as a moment, as a necessary exercise that at least some of us ought to engage in periodically. But to make it a way of life—that is what postmodernism at its worst is all about.

This has important implications for theological education. Are we educating men and women to be critical thinkers? Well, yes, of course. But the critical thinking thing must be a moment—a necessary exercise—in the service of a larger process. And the larger goal is not simply to produce critical thinkers, but to equip persons who are faithful to the truth of the gospel. Some of us must engage in critical thinking in order to be effective in encouraging God’s people to be faithful, both to the biblical message and to all that is good and worthy in the Christian traditions that we have received.

A while back William Safire, in his “On Language” column in the New York Times magazine, commented on the shift from “You’re welcome” to “No problem”
as a response to “Thank you.” Actually, one of the places where I hear the “no problem” locution most often is from restaurant serving persons, where it is said not in response to a “thank you,” but rather in response to a request like, “And I’ll have the meat loaf special.”

There is something eerie about the shifts in the standard responses from waiters and waitresses. The phenomenon has almost led me to hypothesize that there is some organized national conference call for people who work in restaurants, where every two years they decide it is time to change their standard responses to what customers request. The language seems quite uniform, whether in Houston or Cedar Rapids or Newark. Nor is it confined to a culinary-class level; the waitress at Denny’s seems to abide by the same current rule as the waiter at Le Petit Bistro.

There was a time several years ago when, having heard your preference, the server would say “Excellent choice!”–whether you ordered oatmeal with sliced bananas or eggs benedict. Then–seemingly after some national consultation–there was a shift to “You’ve got it!” Then for a brief time the standard response was “Absolutely.” Now it is “No problem.”

I am especially interested theologically in the contrast between “You’ve got it” and “No problem.” The former has the feel of realized eschatology, which is how we designate the “already/not yet” tension in our hope for the Kingdom. The fullness of the Kingdom is not yet, but it is already here in terms of signs and first fruits. To be told that I already have my French toast, having just that moment expressed my preference, is apparently intended as a promise of hope. While I do not yet see the French toast, I can be confident that it will soon appear.

“You’ve got it” is of course a statement about the person being addressed. The serving person is offering a word of assurance and encouragement. In contrast, “No problem” is more about the server and the folks in the kitchen to whom he will be giving the order. In asking for French toast, you can be assured that you have not inconvenienced them or presented them with a challenge that is too difficult for them.

Okay, I have to say–because sometimes people fail to understand my tone in saying things here–that this is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But for all of that, there is something instructive about a service industry that moves from “You’ve got it” to “No problem.” And there is something indicative about a Christian community that makes a similar shift. “You’ve got it” can be an expression of a name-it-and-claim-it theology when it is preached to people who are longing for healing or financial stability or restored relationships in their families. But it can also be an already/not yet assurance, a word of encouragement for folks who need to know that they are already surrounded, in spite of serious trials and tribulations, with signs of God’s promise that a better Day is coming.

“No problem” is seldom a healthy Christian message. The world is full of problems and we ought to face them honestly. Serving others is no easy thing if we are really willing to enter into their lives. Solutions do not come easily.

Recently someone brought me a complaint about being badly treated by Fuller on some matter. They wanted me to offer a solution. I could not simply say, “You’ve got it.” Nor could I say, “No problem.” What I said was, “I’ll get back to you.” That probably is not a good response to my ordering French toast at Denny’s. But neither are the more standard responses.

If there really is a conference call for all of those restaurant folks every two years, I hope that this time around they will have an extended serious conversation about what is appropriate to say when someone chooses something from the menu. Maybe the rest of us could learn from what they decide!