We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Should Christians Recite the Pledge of Allegiance?
A number of years ago I attended a basketball game at a Christian school. Just before the game everyone was asked to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. So I stood, placed my hand over my heart, and began to recite our national creed. Halfway through, however, I began to wonder what I was doing. I’m called to live as a foreigner in a strange land. I’m called to be a citizen of the Kingdom that is not of this world. I’m called to live as a soldier stationed in enemy occupied territory who has the job of carrying out the will of my enlisting officer. Yet here I was pledging allegiance not to Christ, but to the flag of a foreign land in which I happened to be stationed.
Early Christians were willing to be martyred rather than express allegiance to the Roman Empire, but here I was expressing allegiance to the American empire. This didn’t seem right. I stopped and haven’t said the Pledge since. I love America, but I cannot serve two masters. My allegiance must be pledged to Christ alone.
I acknowledge that people have different opinions about this matter. Some have told me they recite the Pledge to express support for the good things America stands for, not to express their ultimate allegiance to it. Others have told me they do it out of respect for those who have sacrificed their lives to defend our rights and freedoms, but again, not to pledge their ultimate allegiance. Others have told me they do it simply because they feel like a communist if they don’t. Fine. My concern isn’t with this particular American ritual.
What concerns me is that it doesn’t even occur to many American Christians that there might be a conflict between their allegiance to Christ and their Pledge of Allegiance to America. Their faith has become so nationalized that they assume these dual allegiances are compatible. This is an idolatrous assumption, and it helps explain why the lives of most American Christians are indistinguishable from the lives of their pagan American neighbors. We’re failing to revolt against the pagan values of our nation because the nation with its pagan values, has our allegiance—to the point that many followers of Jesus don’t even recognize the pagan values as pagan. They rather think the nation, with its values, is basically “Christian”!
It’s time for Kingdom people in America to be done with this. Our ultimate allegiance cannot be to America or any other country. It cannot be to a flag, democracy, the right to defend ourselves, the right to do what we want, the right to vote, or the right to pursue happiness however we see fit. We are Kingdom people only to the extent that God alone is King of our lives, and thus only to the extent that we revolt against the temptation to make any cultural values or ideas supreme.
—Adapted from Myth of a Christian Religion, pages 87-88.
Image by TheeErin via Flickr
Category: Q&A
Tags: America, Myth of a Christian Nation, Myth of a Christian Religion, Nationalism, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Related Reading
The Problem with Trusting in Governments
In this clip from a recent sermon, Greg discusses the fear that drives us to reject God as King and instead trust in human kings. This is particularly relevant as we approach the presidential election here in the United States. Let’s all reflect today on who we trust to rule us. You can find the entire sermon…
As We Approach the 4th
zen Sutherland via Compfight 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…
Q&A: When Confronting Unambiguous Evil
Q: I read your post on Abortion. I found it compelling and am considering moving toward that kind of a position on the matter. I am also reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” for the first time and wonder if Boyd’s response to slavery (were it currently an issue as abortion is today) would be a similar approach…
In a democracy, don’t Christians have a responsibility to participate in politics?
Question: You’ve argued that Christians shouldn’t try to gain power in government on the grounds that Jesus didn’t try to gain power in the political system of his day. But his government didn’t allow for such power. Caesar and Pilate weren’t elected by anyone. Our government allows for this. So don’t we have a responsibility…
What Power Do You Trust?
Governments and nations have always relied on fighting to survive. They punish criminals who threaten their welfare. They go to war against enemies who attack their borders or stand in the way of their agenda. This is how the kingdoms of the world maintain law and order and advance their causes. By contrast, the Kingdom…
How Judgment Makes Us Hypocrites
The previous post addressed how the church is to be people of love not judgment, which means that the church is not called to be the moral guardian of the culture. What we often fail to see is the fact that when Christians assume the position of moral guardians, they earn the charge of hypocrisy.…