Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is It Okay for Christians to be Nationalists? | Questions You're Asking | Revelations 21.26

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

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Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Real quick, before we hop in, I want to invite you to two online classes Keith and I will be teaching this fall. If you sign up, you can join us live or you can receive the videos after the fact. Let me tell you what we're offering. First, who would Jesus vote for? Over three weeks, we're going to answer some hot topic-type questions and reflect on what faithfulness to Jesus looks.

like in a polarized political season. Second, we're going to be doing a women's Bible study called Skilled at Life. Although I think we should have called it life skills and I think about it. It's a four-week journey through Proverbs tackling topics like friendship, finances, communication, and parenting. I hope that you will sign up for one or both of these classes because I really think you're going to get a lot out of it. I know right now doing Bible studies in person is hard, it's hard to find. So rather than saying I have to do it online, why not say I get to do this? This is a great opportunity to grow in your faith. We are right around the corner from another political season. I wish I had a time machine so I could

just avoid it all. But we're going to try taking on some political topics, as dangerous as that is in the podcast. And we wanted to start by asking the question, what is nationalism? And is it okay for a Christian to buy into nationalism? Should Christians be nationalist? And to get a start, I've got a kind of fun idea. Okay? So I used to do college ministers. Street back in the day. And there were these two guys. They were funnier than I was, and they loved to play this little game at our fall retreat. It was a getaway for all these college students. And the game was, is it the Bible or Celine Dion? And so they would put a lyric on the screen. And they'd bring someone up and they'd have to guess whether the verse came from a Sleene Dion song or the Bible. It's actually

really, really hard. Really hard, because I've never listened to Sleen Bion. On you? You know, I actually don't listen to Sleen Bion, but the game was hilarious. And it makes sense because apparently she kind of makes love into an idol, romance into an idol. So it's really hard to tell if it's Celine Dion talking about her lover or the psalmist talking about their love of God. Yeah, like take me to church. It's another good one. Is that about going to church? I don't think so. So Keith, sincerely, he has no idea that I was about to do this. Okay, so here's the game. We're going to do a mad gap. I'm going to have a blank, and you have to guess what fills in the blank. It's either America or Jesus. Oh, wow.

Oh, yeah. You do make this up? Oh, yeah. You ready for this? Let's go. All right. I'm going to throw you a softball first, okay? If you know anything about history, this is a softball. Uh-oh.

That makes me feel like you're setting me up for failure. Well, we used to ask in college, we used to ask elementary education majors, what happened on December 7th, 1941. And it was shocking how few knew. I know, I know. So I feel like you're going to do it to me like karma is coming back around. Here we go. Okay.

Blank is the world's best hope. I'll give you one better. Blank is the world's best last hope. I mean, come on now. There's obviously a lot of politicians who have said that America is the world's best last hope. I think Woodrow Wilson said something similar to that. So fill in the blank, Keith.

I'm going to say America. America, that's right. Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, and Beto O'Rourke, you know, Democratic candidate. They've all said that. Beto. I can never get his name right. It's the best. It sounds like Bento.

You know those Japanese means to be. So I just try to make fun of people's names, but such as it. Okay, let's do another one, okay? This one's a little bit tougher, okay? Blank is the savior of the world. Well, it's supposed to be Jesus, and the fact that you're asking me this makes me think, did somebody say that is America too? Is it Jesus or America?

Well, I'm going to say it's Jesus. No, it's America. Woodrow Wilson, America is the savior of the world. There's a fun one. Okay, you're ready for your next one? Well, the Bible says that Jesus is the Savior, right? Yeah, okay. Yeah, but you're playing my game.

Okay, okay. Here goes another one. This one's another softball, okay? The only way for us to live up to the promise of blank is to give blank our all and to give it for all of us. America or Jesus? America. Yeah, it's got to be America.

Gotta be. The Bible doesn't say that. Yeah, it doesn't have works righteousness in there, right? But America does demand your works. Who said that? That's another Beto O'Rourke quote. Oh, okay. This is going to sound like people think I read quotes.

I just found two from them and, well, you'll find out why in a little bit. Okay, let's keep going. We must keep blank first in our heart. Well, so far we're on a streak, so I'm just going to keep going America. That's right. It is America. That's Donald Trump. In fact, I'll give you another Donald Trump crowd. We'll make you guess. Blank is the light and the glory among the nations.

That sounds like a Bible verse, doesn't it? It does. You would have said Jesus, maybe. I would have said Jesus, but who said that? Is that Trump? That was another Donald Trump quote. Yeah. America is the light and the glory among the nations. Okay.

Here's our last one. Blank is playing a star rule as World Redeemer. Well, I'm going to keep going. I'm just going to keep doubling down. Wink Martindale over there is America. It is America. That was Senator Calvin Beaveridge or Beverage. I'm not sure how to say his name.

Anyways, yeah, America is playing the starring role as World Redeemer. Now, here's the thing. I think that if I just came onto this podcast and read all of these quotes about America, I don't think, myself included, for a lot of us, they would have offended us. I think whenever I play the game and I start asking you, should it be Jesus or America, it starts highlighting a problem that we don't even see. On the surface of it, if someone comes out and says, we must keep America first in our hearts, I don't think most American Christians say, well, hold on here for a second. Is that right? But when I ask the question, should it be America or Jesus,

we're in a different ballgame? So all these people that you've quoted here are politicians. And I think what you're saying is that they have all used these phrases. They've conflated America and Christianity together to make their case for their own political beliefs. What they've done is, is they've distorted Christianity for their purpose of promoting their own political agenda. Yeah, I think it's exactly right. And one question I want to ask is, why is it that these quotes rarely seem to bother us Christians? Why do they rarely strike us Christians as being idolatrous? Well, if you walk into a lot of churches, what you see is an American flag. What you see is, that Christianity and love for country have become maybe too close. They've become to be the same

thing so that people who are faithful Christians have this undying love for their country so that they've confused whose Savior, who's God, who are they worshiping, who are they following, and they're unable to distinguish between the two. Yeah, and obviously there's nothing new here for hundreds of years in America. You could expect on Memorial Day, once it was a holiday in July 4th, after that for a lot of churches to do sermons and services that were celebrating America and the great freedoms that God has given us in America or from the Civil War, the Battle Him of the Republic. It's a song really about the end of slavery and the need for military force to end slavery, but we sing it like a hymn, like a song to God. Well, how about this? We usually get

emails leading up to Memorial Day or Veterans Day asking us how the church is going to celebrate those holidays in the worship service on Sunday morning. And people expect us to have something planned. Are we going to say the Pledge of Allegiance? Are we going to have a flag? Are we going to have people stand who served the country? And they are usually really disappointed with our response when we tell them that while we as Americans appreciate the sacrifice of all those people who have died for our country, we don't think it's the proper role of the church to celebrate American nationalism or military victories inside the worship service. And just to be honest, it's really confusing for people. They don't get it. On one level, again, I can understand why it's

confusing. It's for all the reasons we just said. We have a long history in America of conflating church and state of putting those two things together and expecting that they come together as a single package. And so I think it's part of why it's confusing is because that's just maybe a lot of people's history and experience. But it's confusing to me why it's confusing to other Would, just for example, you feel disturbed if you heard that there was a Chinese church that had the Chinese flag and was celebrating Chinese national holidays? My guess is there's a lot of American Christians who would say, well, I don't know about that one. That seems like a step too far. Yeah, just to keep pushing it, imagine you're visiting one of those churches in China, and they had everyone stand up and sing the Chinese national anthem or pledge allegiance to the Chinese flag, and they expected you to do that.

Would you feel comfortable putting your hand over your heart and saying the pledge of allegiance to the Chinese flag? Whatever that is? My answer is probably I wouldn't want to do that. And yet that's exactly what we expect people to do when we have them come into our congregation, say the pledge of allegiance within a worship service, or honor those military veterans who gave their life, is we're asking people from other countries who are part of the kingdom of God, but who are not part of the United States of America, to celebrate a nation. other than God. So let's really quick define patriotism and nationalism, because wherever you go online, you're going to find different definitions to these things. We want to be really careful so that people who are listening to this know what we are and are not talking about. So I think, Keith, you'd agree with me that we don't see a problem with patriotism.

I would define patriotism as a sense, a feeling of proper love and loyalty and devotion towards your homeland and towards your nation. It'll often include even a sense of camaraderie with your fellow citizens. And I'd say that that's an appropriate feeling and an appropriate emotion. Would you agree? Absolutely. Patriotism is completely appropriate. But just the more I think about it, the more I reflect on it, it's hard to sometimes

distinguish when patriotism becomes something inappropriate, when a love for country becomes something that is sinful, idolatrous even, when we exalt our nation above other nations. So where would you say the line is between patriotism, which we think is good and right and fine, and nationalism, which we would say might have crossed the line, it might be inappropriate? Where's that line? I think you just put it really well, that it's the exaltation of my nation over every other nation and even the pursuit of its interest to the exclusion or the detriment of other people or other nation's interests. Part of why I think we're saying that patriotism is okay, is because in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 21, 26, it says that the glory and the honor

of the nations will be brought into the new Jerusalem, into God's new creation. There's a sense in which, as weird as this sounds, when we're a part of the new creation, we will continue somehow to be Americans. There's going to be aspects of our nationality, which will continue on into eternity. And we're going to bring the best parts of America there. But here's the deal. It's not just going to be Americans. It's going to be people from Zimbabwe and people from China and people from Germany. And if that's the case, that in the future, we're all going to bring the glories of our nationalities to heaven, and we're going to share those equally and celebrate them among each other, isn't it a little bit problematic if now in this life I would be so boldest

to say, but right now I do live not just in the best country, but my country's interests should be more important than your country's interests. One reason this is difficult is because we are Christians who belong to the kingdom of God, citizens of heaven, identified with people all over the globe who call Jesus king and follow him. But we are also Americans who have our own political interests and who are part of this geopolitical state that has to operate within the world, who have our own borders and who say yes to some people entering those borders and no to others. And so it's difficult to navigate this and to think I'm a Christian who's part of one kingdom, but I'm also an American and part of another kingdom.

So I think it's tough for people. That's why we conflate them because we don't hold these things in tension very well. So it's almost like a dual citizenship. And someone would think it was very bizarre if someone would say a dual citizen of America and the U.K., and they started equating those two things, as though the United Kingdom is America. What you would inevitably probably find out about someone with a dual citizenship is that their primary loyalties, their primary sense of identity, their primary sense of allegiance, will at the end of the day fall primarily with one of their citizenship over the other,

where if they have to pick between A and B, they know what the A is. Yeah, so in this situation, I think a lot of us as Christians, who are, dual citizens, citizens of heaven and citizens of a nation state, we tend to let the nation state govern our attitude toward other people, our attitude toward other nations, our attitude toward economics or politics, and we become Americans first instead of Christians first. But I think that's just the opposite of what it should be. We are Christians who happen to be Americans, and we have far more in common with Christians who are of a different country than we do of people in our own country who aren't Christians. So one of the problems with

nationalism is when it becomes idolatrous. Now, nobody bows down and worships our country, but when we give our country a priority, our nation, our allegiance to America is greater than our allegiance to Jesus, that's what idolatry, national idolatry looks like. We begin to look down on other countries. We begin to maybe even wage war against the. them. And one place you can see this play out is in the book of Daniel, where King Nebuchadnezzar builds this great statue of gold. And then what's he have everybody do? He has people from all over the world who are part of his nation bowed down to it. And it's a way to try to control them. It's a way to try to get them all to say that Babylon is of higher priority to them than their

own personal or religious allegiances. And the funny thing about that story with Nebuchadnezzar is that why does he build the statue of gold? Well, it's because before that story, he has this weird vision where there's a different statue and the statue's made up of different materials, the top of its gold, and then as it goes down, it's less valuable material. So you have gold, and then there's silver and then bronze and then iron mixed with clay. And Daniel comes along and explains the dream to him.

And he says, Babylon is the golden kingdom. and he goes on to explain that the other metals are lesser kingdoms. So what's Nebuchadnezzar's takeaway? Well, in the vision, the statue is destroyed, and it's replaced by God's kingdom. That's God's politics. He says, at the end of the day, my kingdom is what lasts not your kingdom. But what does Nebuchadnezzar take away? I'm the gold one.

I'm the best nation. I'm going to make sure that people from all nations, though, that we're the best, that we're on top. And like you said, I don't know many Americans who are actually bowing down to statues or worshiping idols. So idolatry for us looks different. We do, though, as a nation, have things that, at times, I think, approximate a form of idolatry. A great example of that, and you and I have kind of jokingly disagreed over this, Keith, and I'll probably offend listeners whenever I say it, but I've really wrestled with the Pledge of Allegiance.

There's a good thinker's name's William Cavanaugh, and this is his description of the Pledge of Allegiance. He says that it's ritually putting one's hand over one's heart in reciting a Pledge of Allegiance to a piece of cloth endowed with totemic powers. Now, I don't think it's what most people consciously think they're doing, but it does strike me as a somewhat perhaps idolatrous act to put my hand over my heart and swear my allegiance to a flag which represents a state when Jesus calls me only to swear allegiance to him. If you think that offended people, brace yourself, wait for this one. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo refused to bow down to the golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar made, you can imagine that everyone was outraged. In fact, you remember Nebuchadnezzar had them thrown into the fire. And why is that? Well, they refused to pay homage to the state.

So now fast forward into our day, and you have people kneeling at the flag. Now, this isn't about whether that's right or wrong. I wouldn't be so brave as to enter into that debate. But I do think it's interesting that we have the same reaction. People are very angry that there are those who won't pay homage to the nation state. So the same thing that played out in Babylon is playing out in our day. Now, it's not the same issues, and I'm not saying you can equate the two, so I'm not saying that people who are taking a knee or the new Daniel Shadrach and Meshach and Abidigo. I'm not saying that at all, but I am saying

that the state in every generation and every culture is powerful, and it wants everyone to get on board with its agenda. Yeah, the state wants our allegiance. It wants even our worship, even if it's not going to be framed that way. Another good example of this, it almost makes me laugh that this exists. I had no idea this was there. In our capital, in the U.S., in the rotunda, there is a painting. The painting is called the Apotheosis of Washington. Now, most of us don't know what the word apotheosis means. Apotheosis is when a human in the ancient Roman world would become a god. So Caesar would have an apotheosis and he would become a god, or Hercules. He was a human and he has an apotheosis and he becomes a god. Well, this is called the Apotheosis of Washington. George,

Washington. And in this mural, George Washington is seated on the throne of heaven, where I would say only Jesus belongs, among the clouds. And on his right hand is the goddess Columbia, the goddess of war. And on his left hand are symbols of liberty and freedom. And around him worshipping are these figures representing the states. And of course, the rest of us who are a part of those states. I mean, it's almost so obviously idolatrous that, again, it's funny to me. It's shocking that we'd have it in our nation. But my guess is that, again, most Christians would look at that picture and not be bothered by it in the least when I think the reality is it's a terribly idolatrous image. So we turn our nation into an idol when we make it the savior of the world, when we say that

America is going to bring about God's redemption into the world. I became politically aware in the late 1970s, right before Ronald Reagan ran for president. I remember the time really well. there were hostages in Iran, nightline, the television show launched because every night it would bring an update on how those hostages were doing and it would count the days that they had been held hostage. The economy was a mess. And here comes Reagan with this optimism that he is now known for. And he had a message that America was coming back. Well, in 1980, he gave a speech. And Reagan's speeches, whatever you think about him as a president, and they were really powerful. He was a great. communicator. Beautiful oratory. Just amazing. But listen to some of these lines from a speech. He says, these visitors to that city on the Potomac, of course talking about Washington, D.C. do not come as white or black, red or yellow. They are not Jews or Christians, conservatives or liberals, or Democrats, or Republicans. They are Americans. Now, what does that sound like to you, Patrick? Is this my game? How about this? This is Reagan.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans. If we skipped down a couple lines. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone. Yeah, I mean, again, I want to say this is beautiful oratory. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I heard this speech read. And I found it personally moving. I thought it was a beautiful speech. And then I started thinking about it, and I realized when he talks about a city on a hill, that's taking language from Jesus. Jesus said to his followers, you are the light of the world, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. That's Matthew 514. But now it's not the followers of Jesus who are the city on the hill. It's America. In the exact same way, the quote Keith read earlier about people not being white or black, Jew or Christian, conservative, or liberal, they're all just one in America. That is taking Paul's language from Colossians and Galatians, where he says, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor female, you are all one in Christ. But what unites us in America isn't Jesus anymore. It's not union in Jesus. It's union in

our American identity. And of course, that's a union which excludes other people, people who are not a part of America. Yeah, so what Reagan has very artfully and skillfully done, and a lot of politicians before and after him is to conflate Christianity with kind of a love for country. And all the powerful images of redemption and how Christ unifies people and changes the world, all that then is invested into our country so that we begin to think that America is the great hope for the world. But of course, America is not the hope for the world that the Bible lays out. Another one of the things that Reagan quotes from is he talks about a city, which if it has walls, has opened doors, and it's a quote almost of Revelation 2125, which describes the new

world that God is going to bring about, that God, not America, that God is going to bring about, and it says its gates will never be shut by day. He's now given the prerogatives of God, the promise of the return of Jesus, God's kingdom coming on earth, all of those things that Christians set our hope, and he's saying whether or not he's trying to do so consciously, it's not Jesus that does that. It's the state. Now, one of the great dangers in all this is that when we conflate Christianity and our love for America, what happens is that the church then becomes the chaplain for the country. The church is there to make the message of God fit the agenda of the country. And one of the places you see this happen in the Old Testament is in the court prophets.

So you have an idolatrous king who is rebelling against God, but he was always able to find prophets who will say what he wants them to say, who will tell him that he is doing the right thing. They are prophets who are more about Israel than they are about God. They're about national identity. That was the problem with Jonah, the prophet, is he was all excited about Israel's victory and Israel's triumph. And he didn't care at all about the Assyrians who were Israel's enemies. The problem Jonah ran into is that God had a heart even. for Israel's enemies, that we find out that Jonah didn't have a heart like God did, and that we often don't, that we love our country, not Israel, but America, more than we love the world that Jesus died for.

And like you're saying, the temptation is to give up our prophetic voice. When the time comes, and it will come, it will come in every nation, it's come in our nation, it will come again, where God's kingdom might lead us in one direction and the kingdom of the world. Our nation heads in another direction, we have a choice to make. We don't get to make both choices. And the court prophets say, hey, actually, you know what? God's on board of what the nation is saying. You don't think he is, but the truth is he really is. And that's sometimes what we want our Christianity be. We want it to be a kind of chaplain who says, hey, I know this thing that the nation is doing. Maybe don't sound good, but at the end of the day, if you paint it this way, it's all fine. Don't worry about it.

This is one of the problems that Billy Graham ran into. And I, like, I think everybody else has great respect for Billy Graham, maybe one of the greatest Christians in American history. But he was friendly with presidents from Truman through Obama. Of course, in his later years, he was sick and therefore unable to have the same kind of relationship he did with so many presidents. But one of the problems he got into that he even admitted and apologized for and repented of is that he got too wrapped up into the being in the room, into the power that the presidents held. And all of a sudden, he started finding himself being corrupted. Instead of leading them toward Christ, he was allowing them to lead him toward their own political agenda. And Billy Graham had to come out and say,

look, I was wrong. I blew it. I said things that I should have never said. I was caught up in conversations that I shouldn't have been in. I was aiding these presidents and their political agenda instead of speaking the truth of Christ. Now, here's the point. If Billy Graham can get sucked into that, as great a guy and as sincere a believer as he was, then how much more you and me, especially when we are disciples by the news media, we start getting sucked up into our own vision for what our country is and our love for a political party and our love for our political agenda. And we become court prophets instead of being a part of a church that is calling all people to follow King Jesus. Yeah, I've often thought it would have been a lot easier to be

a Christian in the first 400 years of Christianity because they didn't have this temptation. There wasn't a temptation for a follower of Jesus to compromise the truth for the sake of power because there were no Christians in power. It's not until the time of Constantine that more and more Christians were able to hold and be in positions of power, and these kinds of compromises came up. And the point here isn't some sort of commentary on power and power is bad. Jesus is the most powerful person in the universe. That's not my point. The point is that we are always at risk of becoming, like Keith is saying, the court prophet. I love this quote from Leo Tolstoy. He's talking about the Emperor Constantine, who was the first Christian emperor. And this is what he says. No one said to him, the king's exercise authority among the nations, but among you it shall not be so.

Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not lay up riches. Judge not, condemn not, resist not him that is evil. And before you get offended at Tolstoy, just know, he's only quoting Jesus. Those are all Jesus quotes. But this is what they said to Constantine. You wish to be called a Christian and continue to be chieftain of the robbers to kill, burn, fight, lust, execute, and live in luxury, that can all be arranged. And they arranged a Christianity for him. And they arranged it very smoothly better than could have been expected. My point here is not to equate any American or other leaders to Constantine. My point is that this is an incredible temptation that all people, myself included, face in every generation to trade in the truth of Christ for the opportunity to have power and

influence. We're going to talk about this in our politics class that you heard about the beginning of the episode, and Patrick will give you some more details on before we wrap up today. But I do think it is one of the temptations that Christians carry into the voting booth today. We have this idea that we should be in a position of power, and we're willing to make compromises with candidates who we think will deliver us back into power. And when Christians have had power, they haven't done very well. We are usually better off being a prophetic minority, being out of power, speaking truth to power, calling people to follow Jesus inside of a countercultural movement instead of becoming the power. And so it's hard because we don't want our religious liberty

trampled on. We don't want our rights violated. And yet, I think that the gospel shines brightest when we follow a Jesus to a cross, and we somehow want to skip the cross and just get to the crown. But that's not the way it happens. I mean, when Jesus is out there in the desert with Satan, and Satan is tempting him and saying, all this kingdom can be yours, what he's saying is you can have the crown without the cross, and Jesus rejects it because he knows that that's not the path he's called to. He's called to die, to suffer, to give his life, to humble himself, to sacrifice on behalf, of others, and then he will be exalted. And I think we as Christians have to see that that's the

same pattern that we follow, the same path we follow, that we are called to suffer now, and that one day in the kingdom of God, not in the kingdom of America, we will be exalted. And right now, we might be on the outside. We might see our rights trampled on. We might be taken advantage of. But isn't that okay? Isn't that in some sense what Jesus marked out for us? Yeah, that's really convicting for me personally and something I need to keep in the foreground of my mind. In Reagan's speech, he talks about how this city he imagined is built on a rock that the oceans can't knock over. And it's the promise that his platform is a platform that can stand the test of time that will not go away. And of course, that's what almost everybody is going to be promising in these coming months.

We've got the platform that will take us to the kingdom of God, that will take us to the promise land, that will give you everything that you ever wanted and dreamed of. Just remember, though, Reagan was quoting, and they are quoting from the words of Jesus who said that he is the rock. And if you build your life on him, that's the only way that your life will stand. We all have a lot of learning and thinking to do whenever it comes to politics. Keith and I won't even remotely pretend to have all the answers on these topics. We often get into debates between the two of us. But we would love to welcome you into our conversation about politics and our thinking about it,

not as us being the experts, but as people who are trying to discern and think well about this. As people whose ideas about these things have changed over the years in significant ways, and they might continue to change. We're going to be doing an online class for three weeks. It's going to start on September 18th. You are welcome to sign up online. We've got a link to it in the show notes. It's totally free.

You can watch us live. It'll be on Fridays from 12 to 1245. But if you sign up, you will also get videos that you can download and watch later. in case you missed it. The benefit of being there is we'll always have a little bit of time for Q&A and you can engage with us. We'd love to get to know you a little bit better on there. But I hope you'll sign up because right now is the time to think clearly about politics and not let partisan news media shape your thinking. We need the Bible to do that. So I hope you'll be there right alongside us learning. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content,

please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.