Been thinking about this a lot lately, for several reasons. One of them being the movie I recently watched, To End All Wars. Based on others who are better bloggers than me, I’ll try to break this up into a few different parts. Feel free to comment, but realize I haven’t revealed everything quite yet.
First, before we begin a more in depth discussion, we need to look at some facts based on biblical principles relating to our nationality. Initially we should understand that if we are Christians, then we are citizens of another country. We are aliens in this world. We have no home here. We are dead and our true lives are hidden in Christ at the right hand of God. This eternal home is our true country, our true nation.
This is not hyperbole or analogy. This is the basis for how we live our whole lives here on this earth. Although we can never fully understand our heavenly inheritance while in this skin, some revelation through faith, a taste, is necessary to set our minds there in hope. It can’t just be words on a page if it is to give us hope. Hope in the eternal will never disappoint.
You are not more or less Christian because you are an American. Or the citizen of any other nation, for that matter, but for the sake of discussion we will use the United States as our example. Too often, because of the media and even Christian teaching, we see ourselves as Americans who happen to be Christians. That is a worldly way of thinking. We are Christians first who just happen to be Christians.
America is not a Christian nation. There is only one Christian nation on this earth and it consists of the Church, the Bride, the Body of Christ, the collective whole of those who have repented and can boast only in the cross and resurrection for the reality of the indwelling Spirit as a downpayment of their heavenly home.
While America may have been founded on some Christian principles, primarily the morality behind the law, the basic structure is actually pagan. Republican ideas, representative democracy, comes from the Greco-Roman culture, Athens and Rome especially, which were polytheistic, pagan cultures. While the historian in me sees the earthly benefits, the system is not biblical or inherently Christian at all.
My point in this first part is to ensure that we have a distinction between the nation of America and the nation of Christ. One is temporal and will pass away at some point. You cannot put your hope in it because it will disappoint you. The other is eternal and will never let us down. Those of us confessing Christ with our very lives belong to the eternal nation of Christ, even though we may be from different tribes and tongues and earthly nations and cultures. Our common bond is more important because of its eternal nature.
Hopefully you can see and appreciate the distinction. This is a major theme of the New Testament. Our Kingdom is not of this world.
So, then, how are Christians meant to live with this reality in mind?
Stay tuned for part 2.
Peace.