"Christianizing" Patriotism: Why it Trivializes Both

Some of you who have followed this blog for a little while may have wondered why on Friday my post didn't have to do with Independence Day. After all, I have in the past, had a Thanksgiving post, a Christmas post, a New Year's Post, a Valentine's Day Post, an Easter post, and a Memorial Day post. Obviously, Independence Day is as important and worthwhile a holiday as most of those.

So why the sudden lack of post for Independence Day? Quite frankly, it was because this holiday came on par with a devotional post. I didn't want to replace a devotional post with a political one.

One is sure to then wonder again why I didn't just write a devotional post that branched into freedom of some sort. Now it is easy to find practical lessons in the Bible about love, thanksgiving, and specific Biblical events of the life of Jesus (that last one is particularly easy).

However, I believe that working in this manner to present both Christianity and patriotism within the same blog post would trivialize one or both of the two concepts.

Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing contrary in these two concepts. Christians in my mind have a duty to be patriotic and support their nation, just as they have a duty to worship the Lord. However, combining these two duties within the same ceremony may not be the best idea in the world.

In churches across America over the prior two Sundays, church congregations have been met with special patriotic services endowed with patriotic songs, pledges to the flag, and perhaps the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Now here's my crazy, perhaps radical feeling. Church is a place where we come to worship God. We come to church to fellowship with other believers, hear from God's word, and praise Him for what He has done. We do not go to church in order to exalt our nation.

I believe that it is outside the purpose of a church service to spend all of our time focusing on what God has done for us by blessing us with living in this fine country. A patriotic song or two, maybe even a short spiel before the sermon would be entirely appropriate, since our country is a blessing from God that we can take time to thank Him for.

But that should be the end of it within the context of a church service; we must remember that our goal is to praise God and focusing solely on the patriotic spirit will cause us to lose that objective in our church service. Instead I think a church-wide picnic would be more suitable for cultivating the patriotic spirit of the church.

So even on the Sundays around patriotic holidays focus on the Lord. Within the context of the church, we must ensure that patriotism is just another way of expressing our blessings.

But outside the church service, I feel we Christians have an opposite problem. In that particular avenue, when we come together to respect our nation, we try to be sure to add God and Christianity onto our patriotic traditions. A great example of this is the Pledge to the Christian Flag.

In a given patriotic ceremony, Christians will start off by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Immediately thereafter Pledge to Christian Flag and the Pledge to the Bible will be recited. The first priority always goes to the American flag, making the Christian Flag and the Bible lower in importance than the American flag and thus nothing more than add-ons.

But the Lord should never ever be an add-on. That is degrading to the Creator of the universe. We need not take a action and force some explicit Christian teaching onto the end to make it more worthwhile. Patriotism is a duty we have as Christians, an implicit service to the Lord.

Attempting to make that service explicit indicates to all that patriotism isn't a noble enough cause to stand on its own. Thus, we unintentionally trivialize both patriotism and God within the same fell swoop.

All these actions do come from the right heart, but methinks that these traditions are just a bit degrading to the principles of God and patriotism. That is why I didn't write a post for Independence Day.

I hope that you enjoyed celebrating our Founders' rebellion against tyrannical laws by setting off some fireworks in rebellion against authoritarian laws (or maybe you might be lucky enough to live in a state where such rebellion is not necessary). Let freedom ring! "Murca!

Get Off! The Purpose of the Federal Government

On a few occasions, I have discussed that redistribution of wealth is not a proper use of federal funds because it does not fit within the parameters of the federal government's purpose. This raises the question, what is the purpose of the federal government?

To answer this question, let's first remember the words of Ronald Reagan in his Inaugural Address in 1981,

"All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government."

Indeed, the states do not exist for the whims of the federal government; the federal government exists for the whims of the states.

This fact is seen in the Constitution first and foremost by the amount of powers enumerated to the states. The tenth amendment guarantees that all power not enumerated within the Constitution are reserved for the states or we the people.

Outside of taxes and interstate commerce, the Constitutional powers given to the federal government are entirely limited to areas of national defense. The federal government exists because a unified force of the thirteen states was stronger in foreign policy than thirteen individual states. The federal government is more like a league between thirteen (now 50) individual nations, rather than a country itself.

Yes, I really am implying that the federal government should step entirely out of domestic policy, except the laws against treason and the like necessary to protect national security. The fact is, state and county governments are better suited to address the issues within a small state than is the federal government.

The federal government is very disconnected from the US citizen and how we live. Living in D.C., they don't face the same struggles that each state economy individually struggles with, or each local economy for that matter. They are all different, and the more decentralized the government, the better suited it is to tackle the unique challenges each community brings.

This is not just true not the economy, but also of education, health care, and every other part of our lives. Of course, the people who truly understand these things are we citizens ourselves; thus, we must be just as cautious of a authoritarian state or local government as one on a federal level. But we have greater opportunity to take powers away from the state government than we do the federal government as grassroots campaigns are easier to run in one small community, rather than a conglomeration of several communities.

If we are to restore this separation of powers in the United States, we will need to put in a significant amount of effort. Some may question whether it's even worth it. After all, this seems radically conservative. Some may even call it anarchist (it's not).

Call it what you may, it is what the majority of the founders intended and for good reason. For instance, James Madison, one of those sneaky Federalists wanting a STRONGER federal government, wrote in Federalist 45,

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

Who Exactly are the Founders?

What do you think of when you hear the term, "Founding fathers?" If you're like most of America, you think of the people who crafted and formed the Constitution of the United States. Obviously this is a true statement. The founding fathers as we know them today were individuals who founded this nation conceived in liberty.

It is nonsensical for us to think they all had the same ideas about what that type of a nation would look like. Nonetheless, all throughout America, we discuss and debate about what the founders thought, as if they somehow had all the same belief about every political topic.

While the founders were sure to agree on some areas, we truly know that they still disagreed from time to time. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, for instance, are articles and papers both written by founding fathers from opposing points of view about what our government should be. Weak central government vs. slightly stronger one. Articles of Confederation vs. The Constitution.

We have records of debates between our founding fathers on areas such as these. The founders are not some nebulous entity that mysteriously agrees on every area of topic. They are a group of people crafting our nation with their different views, compromising when need be to create a workable government. We should do well to remember that when we discuss the founders beliefs on government, we are talking about many, not a uniform belief.