We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.
As We Approach the 4th
This is the time of year when we start hearing loud bangs at night and you have to ask yourself the following multiple choice question:
Was that bang:
- a car backfiring?
- firecrackers?
- a gunshot? (OK, maybe most of you never think of that, but some of us do.)
It’s also the time of year when we bump up against the idolatry of nationalism. Churches all over the country will be holding services to honor our country and say the pledge of allegiance in a place that should only have one true allegiance. How should Christ-followers deal with this?
David D. Flowers wrote this reflection on his own experience with nationalism as it collided with his faith. It’s challenging and thought-provoking and well worth your time to read in full.
There’s nothing wrong with having a picnic and watching fireworks. We’re not complete fuddy-duddies around here. But don’t ever confuse your allegiance. It belongs to Jesus alone.
From David’s blog:
What had I been teaching that their students would want to put aside their former pursuits to go into missions, love all people regardless of nationality, and not waste their life on worldly gain?
They were discovering a radical discipleship. And I was becoming an Anabaptist and just didn’t know it.
The truth is that these students and adults were drawing conclusions based on a simple reading of the Gospels. And we had all come to realize that this was unacceptable for this Baptist church in rural America.
Saying no to flag worship dethrones the American Jesus and it exposes our cultural Christianity.
Category: General
Tags: America, David D. Flowers, Idolatry, July 4th, Nationalism, Pledge of Allegiance
Related Reading
Remembering the Myth During Election Season
Given the current political furor in America right now, we thought we would post an extended quote from Greg’s book The Myth of a Christian Nation. This book was originally a reflection on Christian political engagement during the 2004 election, and how conflating “America” with Christianity is devastating to the mission we’ve been given in the…
Imaging God Wrongly: God’s Self-Portrait, Part 2
Our relationship with God depends on the way we imagine God. When we get the image of God right, the doors open for us to trust and relate to God in the ways we were created to do. But there are so many images of God that are entirely messed up. Just think about the…
The Trap of Religious Idolatry
We live in a world that seems to be full of religious idols. These are beliefs, rituals, and behaviors from which religious people draw life. Religious idolaters of course don’t recognize their idols as such. However, we can try to get “life” from believing the “right” things and acting the “right” way in the same…
Trinity and Love
Steve via Compfight There is a lot of mystery around the concept of the Trinity, and because the word is not used in Scripture some people think it’s not “Biblical”. David D. Flowers posted a very clear and concise article on the history and reality of the Trinity. This is a really helpful and quick…
War in the Heavens!
What does spiritual warfare look like from the perspective of the physical world? Our friend David D. Flowers speculated on that question in a post he entitled Dark Matter vs Dark Energy: War in the Heavens. Referencing Greg’s Satan and the Problem of Evil, David considers the possibility that the interaction between dark matter and dark energy that…
God’s Non-Violent Ideal in the OT
While God condescended to working within the violent-prone, fallen framework of his people in the Old Testament—as I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God—the OT is also full of references to how God worked to preserve his non-violent ideal as much as possible. He did this by continually reminding his people not to place…