When Is Nationalism Just Plain Stupid?

[LadyFlynt]

I don't know, I honestly think the women who did it did so without thinking things through when they did it. Dancing in front of the American flag and bowing down to it in a Church: I would have flipped out.

 

[Kevin]

How many of your churches have american flags flying somewhere in the same room as the pulpit?

Not mine

I should add we have no flags. Although many churches here have both the Canadian & the Union Jack.



Do have a battle flag on my desk though.

 

[MrMerlin777]

A TRUE STORY FROM MY DEPUTATION:

I was invited to speak for 5-7 minutes at a Southern Baptist Church in the Deep South on the subject of mission work in SE Asia. This speaking engagement corresponded with the 4th of July. I forgot all about it until I got there.

I gave a short appeal for interest in the Global Cause of our Global God for every tongue, tribe and nation.

Then I sat down, they removed the pulpit and put a flag pole up on center stage. The lights dimmed, and then 3 girls who were 16 year olds (in various stages of "Blossoming" into adulthood) took the stage in skin tight leotards to perform an interpretive dance around the flag to the song "American the Beautiful." At the end, the lights dimmed and they fell down with their hands outstretched towards the flag (and their butts to the audience).


The lights came back on and I looked around, aghast. I barely got a facial movement and now, for this, the whole palce erupted in applause and it seemed like everyone was crying.

After several minutes of continued applause and more crying and hugging of these girls, the pastor stood up to speak briefly about how Baptists were the best denomination because they were truly democratic and even consulted many committees. God has blessed the Baptists and has blessed America due to our idealistic stand on the principles of democracy.

Then, I left the church building with barely a handshake or a "Thanks for coming."

Whew! Trevor, what an experience! That is definitely nationalism bordering on just plain Idolatry. I don't know how I'd have reacted to that. I'd quite probably been moved to, quite frankly, WRETCH.

 

[Pilgrim]

I hadn't really checked in on this thread before. You know what is interesting about that "dance" is that you could videotape that and show that to people relatively unfamiliar with American Evangelicals and say "...this pretty much sums it up...."

I was deployed to Korea in August and my wife helped out with the Vacation Bible School at our Church. I'm not a big fan of those things but we try not to be too obnoxious in our objection to a lot of the craziness that surrounds the SBC. Anyhow, they used the Southern Baptist Church curriculum for the VBS predictably.

As you all know, we live in Okinawa, Japan and part of the goal of the VBS is an outreach to the local community. Many Japanese children attend the VBS who otherwise do not attend the Church (nor do their families). I think their parents like the fact that they get to interact with American kids and learn a little English (we never have any families join as a result of the VBS but that's another story in itself).

Did I mention that we live in Japan?

Well at the beginning of each day's activiities. The children, according to the curriculum, line up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag. The person who put the curriculum together apparently didn't put two and two together before the VBS began nor throughout that she had a ton of Japanese children doing the same thing.

Did I mention that we live in Japan?

Worse, when their parents showed up on the last day of VBS on Friday they got to see their little children go through the motions of what it means to be a little "Christian" child. You guessed it, they lined the kids up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag.

Did I mention that we live in Japan?!

I was pretty ticked off about it when I found it but this is so typical. This is only emblematic of the way Americans export their theology in general. Neo-Pentecostal hand-waving to banal, repetitive rock praise choruses is what people think is normative here because white, middle-class Americans have exported their musical forms here too. It's just so frustrating.

And thus the myth is perpetuated that Christianity is somehow a western, American or even white religion.

 

[Pilgrim]

Think of the message you just sent. It blasphemes the God of Heaven. God did not send his Son so men could dwell in peace and happiness, He sent Him to pay the price for sin and save mens souls from the flames of Hell. To compare what Jesus Christ did on the cross of Calvery with what a GI does on a battle field of blasphemy of the highest sort. Jesus didn't come to kill for the state. The state was used by the religious leaders of the day to kill Him.
----- Original Message -----
Think of The Message








--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A mother asked President Bush,

"Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"

Another mother asked President Kennedy,

"Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"

Another mother asked President Truman,

"Why did my son have to die in Korea?

Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt,

"Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"

Another mother asked President W. Wilson,

"Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?"

Yet another mother asked President Lincoln,

"Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"

And yet another mother asked President G. Washington,

"Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?"

Then long, long ago, a mother asked...
"Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die
on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"

The answers to all these are similar --

"So that others may have life and dwell in peace,
happiness and freedom."

This was emailed to me with no author
and I thought the magnitude
and the simplicity were awesome .

Love to All

IF YOU DON'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS,
PLEASE, FEEL FREE...
TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM !!!!!

Several times recently I've gotten a message that is about as bad as this one. It's the one that states something like "only two people have volunteered to die for you, Jesus and a soldier". "One died for your soul and the other for your freedom" etc.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Being millitary and from a millitary family I get this kind of statist dung in my email all the time (yes I called it dung sorry for the bluntness but this stuff gets my dander up). Frankly being millitary I'll say this,I'm for supporting the troops in so far as we have a hard job to perform. But when does "support for the troops" become merely blind devotion to the state? I don't believe that, as Christians, we should have a "blind" devotion to anything. We don't have a blind devotion to Christ even, as He has opened our eyes to our helplessness and our need of Him.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Thanks for letting me rant. I'll get off of my soap box now.

 

[Bladestunner316]

Does anyone know if other christians in other nations are as nationalistic for their country/state as americans are?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Well I can tell you for a fact that the Japanese are NOT. It costs them a lot to become a Christian as you have to turn your back on a culture that worships its ancestors.

 

[Timothy William]

Does anyone know if other christians in other nations are as nationalistic for their country/state as americans are?

In Australia, perhaps occasionally but not often. A considerably smaller proportion of the Oz population are regular church attenders, and we are, in general, far less openly patriotic than the US. Most Australian patriotism takes the form of "Oz is a wonderful place to live, I'm glad I was born here" rather than the "we are a great country, perhaps better than all the others" attitude which sometimes seems to come from America. We have far more the Brittish "stern and silent pride" than the American gung ho patriotism. Some Christians think that Australia is really a Christian country (unfortunately I can't agree) and many would think that our Christian heritage helped make us a fair, prosperous country, but few would mix religion and nationalism overtly. Also, in urban areas at least, immigrants from Asia and Africa are probably more likely to be Christians than the native population and the church has a more multi-ethnic, international outlook than society as a whole.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Well I can tell you for a fact that the Japanese are NOT. It costs them a lot to become a Christian as you have to turn your back on a culture that worships its ancestors.

I too have spent 6 years of my life in Japan and I know what you're saying. Shintoism is the state religion which "worships" a miriad of "gods" so called. One of which is their emperor.

As you said the Japanese sacrifice alot to acknowledge Christ. Many are disowned by their families. It really is sad.

I still have friends on the mainland there some of which are still in bondage to their "state-religion". Some of which have had major bust ups with their families because of their faith in Christ. Again, it really is sad.