Pledge of Allegiance

Perusing some friends Facebook profiles, I am happy to say that I have friends on both extremes of the political spectrum. The truth is, there is room for gray areas more than the most outspoken critics liberals and conservatives are willing to declare. Disregardless of one’s political opinions, there are significant problems with the viewpoint most Christians employ when describing their allegiances. Derek Webb’s “King and a Kingdom” assists with this issue:

The truth is, I am both an American and a member of God’s Kingdom. I am not an American Christian, I am an American and and a Christian. The difference in one conjunction is massive, as my first allegiance is not to patriotism, stars and stripes, a Constitution, or elected officials. This system of government, however dazzling its foundation may or not be, is secondary.

By opting to be a Christian first, my ethics, political opinions, and viewpoints of current events should be subjected to the ethics, opinions, and viewpoints presented by the Church and Scripture. I am not a Republican, a Democrat, a Whig, a Reformer, a Libertarian, or any other flavor of platform. These each have platforms that, while each including some measure of truth, are not the expressed opinion of Christendom. Liberalism and conservativism are not necessary (though are not sin) for the Christian. These are both worldviews just as much as Christianity is a worldview, and therefore, are not necessarily a requirement to be a Christian. It is acceptable to study Scripture thoroughly and have views that are the same as another worldview, but any resemblance to a particular party or worldview are a coincidence.

Many Christians find their worldviews by following various entities, but border on making these their Gospel. Radio personalities like Hannity, Limbaugh, and Maddow should not be our only source of truth. Television entertainers such as O’Reilly, Cooper, and Olbermann can be consulted for opinions, but are not to be viewed as truth. Bloggers such as Huffington, American Thinker, or Savage are entities that, if they are not primarily pushing God’s Kingdom instead of a particular worldview, are not our only source of truth. Politicians such as Obama, McCain, Pelosi, Palin, and Gingrich will never be the saviors, gatekeepers, or builders of God’s Kingdom regardless of their rhetoric. Most of them are running for re-election more than their beliefs, anyways.

The ethics of the Kingdom are often in direct opposition to what we initially want them to be. We are conditioned from birth to have a certain worldview about economics, war, and other areas by our environment. This conditioning makes it difficult to truly allow God’s ethics to penetrate what we believe to be truth. Issues like torture, privacy, pregancy, are all subject to the Kingdom of God (though with room for gray in a lot of situations).

America is not the Kingdom of God. In fact, 96% of God’s good Earth is comprised of non-Americans. God is building a global Kingdom of people whose allegiance is not to Britain, Israel, Palestine, Russia, Brazil or America. This nation, this Jesus nation, wants to restore God’s creation to its original goodness, from people to planet. And my first allegiance is to this Kingdom, now and forever.

Empire (Part Two)

If I were an Egyptian growing up circa 1200 BCE, it would be difficult for me to understand the culture in which I lived. People rarely venture to other nations or read history to gain a perspective of their own, but have their ideas shaped by an ellusive term.

“They.”

We speak often about this concept when imagining new concepts, inventions, frontiers, injustices, and opportunities. “They” are people who have the ability to influence cultures, borders, arts, minds, and more. But to those who are not part of a culture, thanks to stereotypes and nationalities, everyone is a “they.”

I’ve been reading more of the “wrong books.” Enter two more suspects, and their impact.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

In growing up in an empire called Egypt, with a very revered Pharaoh named Ramesses in whom people placed their hopes and trust, I would know little of the problems my empire was producing. Hebrew slaves being tortured in the name of yet another elaborate pyramid. Forced worship of a political deity. Firstborn children ordered to be executed upon birth. Wars fought to extend borders, with human casualties chalked up as little more than tally marks called “collateral damage.” Starvation of the poor in the midst of a lavish lifestyle for those in power. And the truth is, those at the top of the power structure had no intention to improve things, as they needed to prosper to maintain their power.

And yet, from Mount Horeb, an agricultural nobody who had survived as an infant in a basket raft emerges from obscurity to organize a revolution of slaves. These oppressed, numbers growing expoentially, had cried out to God to end the cycle of death. This empire, structured to make the greedy succeed, was strangling them of their ability to live their lives. Ramesses couldn’t afford this giant labor union to suddenly walk out on his job site. It was as if every construction worker in a region suddenly wanted to quit work and walk away.

Jesus for President

Empire thrives on cooperation. Empire demands having, under its god, just one nation, indivisible. It must have adherents who return to its throne, seeking the treasures of awe and allegiance. Empire cannot survive a people who question its lavish spending, its distrust for the leaders of the state, or taking the dominant script and feeding it into a paper shredder.

And yet, there’s this little problem. This man, who history calls “Moses,” led a slave rebellion for these Jewish families to start something new and fresh. A departure from a system of confusion. Empire hadn’t brought liberty and justice for all. What they needed was an exodus.

Moses’ people started their own nation, which a few generations later, mirrored what they left in Egypt, With the lavish temples, polytheism, and pursuit of military prowess to expand the empire through shock and awe, this small nation bit off more than it could chew. They faced judgement for not doing justice and pursuing their own grandiose vision. This nation-state called Israel was swallowed up by a bigger empire.

And another.
And another.

The Hebrew Testament and New Testament have a name for this endless system of empires, kings, caesars, rulers, presidents, and senators. Its a word that means “confusion,” and does little more than twist God’s agenda for the human race. In the guise of freedom, prosperity, and the will of God, Himself (in whom empire allegedly trusts and is blessed), its called Babylon.

Moses’ nation spent years crying out for a release from the occupation. They were forced again to work to build a kingdom that was designed to keep them building a kingdom. They cried for an end to it all. A release. Freedom.

And in the midst of a land they spent generations living, they had fashioned a cradle. Their cry gave birth to the answer to their passionate pleas for help.

In the form of a baby’s cry.

To be continued…

Empire (Part One)

I never much liked reading the book of Exodus. Can I say that? Yes – I just did. I knew it was important, what with all the miracles and leaving Pharaoh. But what does that really have to do with a modern boy in Nowheresville, USA?

In the last several years, some key Christian thinkers have been releasing books and speeches that re-position Exodus in a way that screams something else. Something fresh. Something – modern.

One of the more prominent books is Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination, written in 2001. Walter speaking with authority and power, defines the term “empire” in ways that would make politicians cringe, history professors dance, and everyday people’s eyebrows stand at attention. It isn’t that he explicitly spells out what the empire “is,” but the applications are violently intense.

Imagine that I went to Epypt or Rome at the height of their rule as a journalist and returned home to compose an article about the things I saw. I would think it could look something like this:

I went to the empire everyone’s been talking about for a visit and saw sights of great majesty the likes of which mere mortals could not have constructed on their own. The buildings were massive, constructed by men with great wisdom, though the people I saw building them were not very wealthy. They had other nations craving to meet their political leader, who had great charisma and was revered almost like a deity, himself. At his crowning, they held a lavish festival with music, dancing, dining, and speeches that heaped praise upon him. This empire had a story of their history, where they were once an oppressed people, but fought off their enemies, gained independence, and built a better way of life. They were proud of their way of government, even willing to conquer distant countries in the name of spreading their government and renown. On their currency, images of their historic leaders, revered forever for their infinite wisdom in laying the foundation for such a great empire. Their people turned the country, itself, into what amounted to a religious system, where they believed their system was one that brought peace to the world, and from every mountside to shining sea, it let freedom ring.

But there is a darker side to this empire. People are born into poverty with little ability to climb out of it because those in power have the wealth to educate their children, while those on the underside of society have little hope to bring their kids to wealth. War is an expensive side-effect of this system where battles are fought in the name of security of empire, but are really designed to expand its borders. Immorality is rampant. Leaders are trusted with their power, but distrusted to wield it with integrity. The empire consumes resources at will, even to the detriment of other nations who have not yet joined. Children are trained to think like the empire, and scolded for questioning it. Battles are fought in public places to progress people to an ideal empire, either one with unlimited empire rule, or one that mirrors the ideals of its founders, who themselves were more godless than we thought.

This sort of article would be blasted by those in power for being incoherent and irrelevant. The results of the empire’s prosperity would be heralded, while the darker side of empire would be hidden. The writer, perhaps better labeled a prophet, would be cast into a prison for speaking out against empire, or, at the very least, lose credibility.

What if this empire isn’t just history that we can’t see and touch?

To be continued…

The Religious Right (A Critique)

This past week, while I’ve been reading Jesus for President, the Religious Right received the shock they feared most: a landslide victory for Barack Obama. The Republican party was punched in the chin like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, watching their stranglehold on American politics smashed like a shattered glass jaw. Instantly, cries echoed from Christians that abortion would live to see another day, America would pull out of Iraq, and socialism would engulf America’s economic system.

The funny thing is, I really didn’t see the Republican Party (spearheaded by a McCain-Palin ticket) bringing about what they sought, either. We’ve seen the Republican’s pack the government (see George W. Bush term one). A Republican House, Senate, Court, and Presidency have all happened. Its not like McCain was a staunch supporter of killing all abortion (he actually supported it in some cases). Its not like war is bringing the literal Kingdom of God to the Islamic world (when did Jesus say they’d know we’re Christians by our bunker busters?).

Perhaps its time for Christians to re-examine what it is we’ve spent the last several decades attempting to do. God and country as one. Perhaps the pledge of allegiance could be paraphrased with what Christians have sought:

I pledge allegiance
To the flag
Of God’s United States of America.
And to His republic,
That stands entirely under God,
One nation, as His Kingdom,
Not dividing itself from Him,
With freedom to only worship Jesus,
And justice brought against those who don’t.

Along the way, it hasn’t been a very good PR move. Consider the methods:

• Picket signs at courthouses
• Abortion clinics blown to rubble
• Gossipping about leadership to belittle them as people
• Proclaiming “enemies” as “anti-christs”
• Standing by while 100,000 people are blown up a world away in their hospitals, schools, and homes of Iraq
• Praying for the assassination of people who “oppose God’s way”

Its no wonder that the rest of society know more about what Chrisitans are against than what we are for. We spend more time protesting than helping. We are pro-life in hospitals, but pro-death in Afghanistan. We burn every ounce of prophetic capitol we have with phone calls to Senators proclaiming troubling times for America if immigrants cross the border without completing a tiresome paperwork process.

Andrew Peterson seemed to have the same problem when penning his song “Come, Lord Jesus”

Tonight in the line of the merchandise store 
While they were packing up my bags 
I saw the pictures of the prophets of the picket signs 
Screaming, “God hates fags” 

But what of this Scripturally?

Jesus never sided with any political system. He had ample opportunity and plenty of movements to join:
– The Essenes – A hippie/monastic group that created an alternative community outside culture
– The Pharisees – An popular order of individuals who sought to bring cultural change through a movement of piety and strict religious observance to bring about a coming of the Messiah to rescue them from the world
– The Herodians – Those directly involved in government, who supported the system
– Sadducees – Strict adherants to Torah, anti-Pharisees

There were many other movements, all who would have loved to have gotten this popular Nazerene prophet named Jesus to endorse their policies. They even asked him questions to corner Him into siding with their point-of-view. Anything to sway His voters (followers) their way.

He didn’t.

Jesus preached a different Kingdom than the world system. A radical way of viewing earth. The Roman Empire had what they called “The Gospel,” which traveled throughout the world bringing peace by forcing other governments to surrender militarily to their system of government and rule (not unlike present times).  Jesus brought a different message of good news – this Gospel (the Beatitudes) would be proclaimed across the Earth.

• The poor are now powerful
• Those who have been crying can find comfort
• The weakest and least of society are now at the top of the heap
• Those who have wanted God’s real justice will be satisfied
• Those who forgive and give others what they don’t deserve are given the same
• Those who have the right motives  will see God
• Those who come with real peace are the offspring of God
• Those who bring this alternative Gospel will be beaten for it, but gain even more

This message was offensive. It was against the grain. Empire can’t sustain people who proclaim its ills. Who see its ability to crush the poor in decades of debt with no way out. Who gasp at the sight of other Christians desiring the death of other humans.

Babylon is alive. The harlot thrives with a lavish lifestyle of gold, pearls, corporate buyouts, $700 billion bailouts, trillion dollar campaigns, and anti-christ sayings.

Country first?
No. Kingdom first.

Yes we can?
No. That tower was built in Genesis 11 in a city called Babel.

Christians can be Americans. They can also be children of Taliban fighters. People crossing borders. (I’m not sure that the Canaanites thought of Israel as “legal immigrants”). Christians can be Australians. Christians can be Iraqi mothers, with their only child on his deathbed thanks to “collateral damage.” Christians can be homosexuals, not yet reformed in their lifestyles.

But these are all secondary allegiances. I pledge allegiance to the Kingdom of God. The longest running nation on Earth. Sure its morphed over time. We are real. We read Scripture and disect its meaning. We are controversial. We are liberal. We are conservative. We are His.

This election will not bring the end of the world. If Christians handle it correctly, this can still be an era long desired. Christianity hasn’t changed, but we must.