Civic idolatry.

Today is Independence Day in the United States: It marks the day, in 1776, when the Congress, representing 13 British colonies in North America, declared their colonies independent of the mother country. Parliament had violated their colonial charters, and the king had sided with Parliament and declared them out of his protection. They interpreted this to mean they were independent nation-states, and decided to band together as united states.

So today, Americans are going to express a whole lot of patriotism. Patriot comes from the Latin patris, “fatherland,” and refers to love of one’s homeland. Though the idea of homeland, especially government, as parent bothers many American conservatives, historically people have often compared their nations to parents (“motherland” or “fatherland”) or other older relatives (“Uncle Sam”) because we recognize we should honor our country, just as we do our parents.

However, many Americans cross a line between love and devotion, between patriotism and nationalism, and descend into outright worship of the United States. It’s a form of idolatry, properly called civic idolatry. It’s when we stop being reasonable about our love for country, when we treat it and its symbols as holy—and when we treat criticism or contempt of it as blasphemy.

For some people, just my bringing up this topic will make them question my patriotism: How dare I say love of country is a bad thing? Well, I’m not saying that. But love of country could be, when it exceeds the love of God. When it attributes things to the nation that are only legitimately true of God, it’s civic idolatry.

The god-king.

In ancient times, kings discovered it was way easier to keep their subjects in line if the subjects thought of them as gods, or sons of gods.

Long ago Egypt’s pharaohs crossed the line from the ceremonial title “son of Ra,” to gods themselves. Augustus Caesar only claimed to be descended from Aeneas, son of the god Aphrodite, but after his death the Roman Senate declared him to be a god himself, and two generations later the Caesars were worshiped as gods in many parts of the Roman Empire.

In Israel, this was obviously an inappropriate practice. There is no god but the LORD. Yet to some degree God’s endorsement was appropriated by the king. Psalm 2, fr’instance:

Let me instruct you on this ruling:

The LORD told me, “You’re my son.

I gave birth to you today. Ask anything of me.

Let me make the nations your property.

Your inheritance is the ends of the earth.

Break them with an iron scepter.

They’re a pottery jar. Shatter them.”

Now, kings, think it over.

Be warned, judges of the earth.

Serve the LORD in fear.

Rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the son, lest he anger, and you’re destroyed enroute.

For it takes little to make his nostrils flare.

Bless everyone who seeks refuge in him.

—

As God’s “son,” the king was granted the nations as his inheritance. So the other kings needed to submit to him, let the king (or God) be angry and destroy them. The Hebrew kings would never call themselves gods—they knew better—but being the adopted son of God had its perqs too.

Once the Roman Empire became Christian, and the kings of Europe did too, they couldn’t overtly pull the god-king stunt any longer. So they did the next best thing, and invented the doctrine of divine right of kings: The kings could do whatever they pleased, for they answered to no one but God, were clothed with vast power by God himself, and the people weren’t allowed to oppose them.

This runs contrary to scripture’s idea of cooperation between God and humans in selecting rulers.

Place over yourselves a king,

whom your LORD God will choose from you.

Place over yourselves someone from your brothers as king.

You can’t place a foreign person over you,

someone who’s not your brother.

—Moses,

Of course, divine right of kings meant no people placed a king over themselves; they had to put up with the kids of the previous king, or some foreign invader like William the Conqueror who used hired soldiers to conquer the land, and family connections to legitimize his claim. Divine right of kings was perpetuated by the king and his toadies, and God’s intentions went by the wayside.

It wasn’t until John Locke took apart the logic behind divine right in his Two Treatises of Government, and Thomas Paine pointed out the scriptures in his tract Common Sense, that Americans recognized its illegitimacy, and could accept the idea of independence from their wayward king.

Well, in a country where every citizen is a king, it’s hard to claim every citizen has a divine right of rule. (Although certain libertarians certainly will try.) Instead, what civic idolaters do is treat the nation as God. Not so much the government, the politicians, and the officials, though we sure do lionize certain favorite party members, and past presidents. But we’ll deify the ideas behind our country and government—the ideas in the Constitution, in the Declaration of Independence, in the wishes of our founders in the Federalist papers, in liberty and freedom and civil rights and the defense of those freedoms. We make gods of the abstract ideas. They’re largely invisible, like God, so it’s really easy to get away with it.

Civic idolaters mix up God with country. The Hebrew and Christian kings rejected personal worship (well, to a point) but insisted the near-divine honor and blind obedience of their subjects, due them because they were adopted sons of God. In the same way, certain patriots love the country because, to them, it’s God’s country. God particularly blessed this country. It’s his chosen country. They take all the blessings to Israel found in the bible, and claim because the United States is full of Christians (and, they claim, founded by Christians), those same blessings apply to our land. We just need to follow God better than the Hebrews did.

But by blending the nation and God together so finely, they regularly slide in and out of civic idolatry.

How can you tell?

If you’re an American, consider the ways in which you respect your country, defend its symbols, and honor its ideals. Got it? Good.

Now imagine the United States is a human being. Like Uncle Sam. Would your behaviors be appropriate if you were acting that way towards any ordinary human? Even your favorite, beloved uncle?

Is your uncle the greatest uncle in the world? Maybe so. Would fight anyone, verbally and even physically, who dared to suggest otherwise? Would you really fight anyone your uncle told you to fight? Do you try to outdo others in the praises of your uncle? Does it bother you when other family members don’t join in? Do you then question their loyalty, or even their fitness to live?

Say you found out your uncle was doing something evil. Maybe deliberately, maybe accidentally. How would you deal with it? Would you pretend he wasn’t doing anything wrong, because you love him and won’t think of him that way? Would you defend the evil he committed, and claim it wasn’t really evil, because your uncle couldn’t be evil? Would you fight and destroy anyone who dared criticize him—even sisters and brothers and cousins, figuring they don’t love him as much as you? Would you figure it’s not your place—even though you’re family—to show him the error of his ways, and get him to repent?

If you think nothing of being willfully blind to evil out of devotion to your uncle, or country—if God’s standard of right and wrong is disposable—you’ve definitely made an idol of him. And all these acts are precisely what many nationalists do with their homeland.

Consider the way Americans treat our flag. Compare it with the way Christians treat the symbols which represent Christianity, like crosses and fish and IHS monograms. Do we pledge allegiance to the cross, and the Christ for which it stands? Yeah, we put both fish and flag decals on our cars, but do you feel comfortable putting shark fins on the flag, or show it eating other countries’ flags? When we place American flags and Christian flags in our churches, which one is displayed on the right? Which one goes above the other on a flagpole? Which one do we nod in respect to, and which do we stand to attention to, and salute?

You might notice we’ve been raised to treat the American flag as more sacred than our Christian symbols. No, I’m not saying it’s civic idolatry to honor the flag: I’m saying God merits far more honor than the flag does, and if we fight to honor the flag, yet don’t bother to honor God at least as well, it’s not a good sign.

The other extreme.

Some Christians have historically gone to the other extreme, and figure our allegiance is to no one but Jesus, to no country but the Kingdom of God.

They reject every form of national pride and civic honor as a form of idolatry. They won’t salute the flag. They won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. They won’t swear oaths of office and allegiance. Even though these oaths are meant to be sworn to God (i.e. “so help me God,” which presidents have added to their mandatory oath of office ever since George Washington started the custom), they don’t wish to entangle themselves in any kingdom of this world.

On the one hand it’s understandable. There should be no question in a Christian’s mind which comes first: Christ or our homeland. The Kingdom is our homeland. The United States is not the Kingdom, no matter how much we’d like it to be. At best, all we can ever do is get it to conform to the Kingdom. And when Jesus returns, he’ll abolish it. That’s right, abolish it. If that sounds like treason, you’d better seriously think about how loyal you are to the Kingdom. Jesus will one day expect you to take sides.

So the extremist wants to take sides now. Jesus first, last, and always. They’re willing to risk alienating their fellow citizens by rejecting anything that could remotely be seen as civic idolatry. That’s how devoted they are to Christ.

But how far need they go? Don’t they have any civic duty towards the nation they live in, whose benefits they enjoy, whether they embrace those benefits or not? What about the scriptures’ statements about how we’re to treat our rulers?

Don’t dismiss God.

Don’t curse your people’s leader.

—The LORD,

(Which arguably is Hebrew poetry, and “your people’s leader” is simply describing God again. Then again, Paul quoted this verse in regards to the head priest, so maybe, maybe not.)

Every soul must submit to greater powers, for there’s no power unless it’s from God. Those beings are placed there by God. Hence opposition to God-ordained powers is rebellion, and these opponents will receive judgment.

—Paul,

 

Because of this, pay your taxes too. They’re servants of God, serving him continually this way.

—Paul,

Paul lived under the Romans, whose government was as corrupt and pagan as one could find in ancient times. Despite their ungodly government, Paul still taught the Romans to submit to the greater powers. Not worship them, of course; and Christians were heavily persecuted because they refused to worship the emperor or his “genius,” his helper-demon. But one can respect and honor the government, and pay one’s taxes, without worshiping the homeland. After all, one can honor their mother and father—as God commanded—without worshiping them. One can obey God and honor their parents, even if they’re pagans and sinners. Why not one’s country?

Fighting civic idolatry.

Because it’s so widespread in the United States, and so unthinkingly followed, Christians will suffer public condemnation when we resist civic idolatry. Not “might suffer”: Will suffer. There are lots of Americans, including Christians, who don’t care that they’re civic idolaters. They think that’s what loyal Americans ought to do, and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor. What they really mean is blasphemer: You’ve insulted their god.

Thankfully, we don’t live in a nation where questioning civic idolatry is treason, and you can legally be imprisoned or killed for it. But some Americans wouldn’t mind bringing it back here, and we must stay vigilant lest that happen. Fr’instance, civic idolaters want to pass a constitutional amendment against burning the American flag in protest. Now, I’m as offended at flag-burning as any patriot. You may not like the country or its government, but its ideals are still great ones. But neither do I want the flag made into a holy object, where it’s illegal to not show it proper worship. Yeah, you may argue that’s not the intent of the amendment. I disagree. If it’s legal to burn bibles, but not flags, it’s precisely the sentiment behind it.

I realize I’ve inserted many points of controversy in this essay. We may certainly disagree about how far civic idolatry goes. My point is to bring your attention to the problem, and ask you to root it out in your own life. There must be no divided allegiances among us Christians. America must not be first in our hearts. That position is only meant for Jesus. America will pass away, but Jesus and his Kingdom will never end.