©copyright, September 21, 1999
All rights reserved
by Parrish W. Jones

Psalm 100
Colossians 1:15-23
Luke 1:26-35

A few years ago I was taken aback by a person who told me with some fluster that he indeed was a Christian. Knowing that he did not attend church, seemed never to have reverence for the Lord’s name, and generally behaved in a manner not becoming a Christian, I asked on what grounds he claimed to be a Christian. His answer was, "I am an American." I pursued his answer with, "What has that to do with being a Christian?" His response, "America is a Christian nation, therefore I am a Christian."

I tell this briefly because it is clearly a conception that many Americans seem to have. Many even who sit week in and week out in the pews of our churches. It is a conception that breaks the first and second commandments of the Ten Commandments. It is idolatrous. It pursues a graven image.

Being Christian and being American are not synonymous even though many have tried to link them just so closely. I am not sure why exactly they have been linked so closely except that doing so has been advantageous to many in political power in this nation as in other nations.

From the great psalms of the Old Testament to the prophetic utterances to the stories of origin to the gospels and letters of the New Testament, the scriptures are clear. There is but one God, one creator, one savior. There is nothing that can take God’s place in the universe nor anything of human making which can usurp God’s glory. There is also nothing of enduring permanence save the Lord God Almighty who created the heavens and the earth. All earthly authority and power are pale, fading, and impotent in comparison to the Lord.

To be a Christian is to be consumed with that reality in our lives. When I say consumed, I mean just that. Our faithfulness to God is such that our most articulate thought and word issues from our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our moment of greatest thrill is when we participate in the historic liturgies of the church; when we stand to sing the songs of faith; or when we speak the words of faith from scripture or the traditions of the church.

The reason such should be the case is that it is not by chance or by choice that one is a Christian. Our faith is a result of the divine will. God has chosen us. "By God’s grace you are saved through faith and it is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works lest anyone boast." (Eph. 2:9).

One could stretch the predestination of God to say that we are born American because of God’s determining grace. However, the doctrine of predestination is a doctrine about salvation. It does not have to do with every little thing in our lives.

One could say that the doctrine of divine providence applies. However, providence implies divine purpose, so one must be able to discover a purpose in being born in the U.S. instead of Algeria or Chile or China. Any of us would be hard pressed to find any reason God may have had for our being born here instead of there. There is no doubt that once born, wherever that be, that God works in cooperation with those who love God to bring about good (Rom. 8:28). Yet, God does that for the Chinese Christian just as God does for the U.S. Christian.

So I am a Christian because of God’s choosing. That gives us cause not for boasting but for humble service to the purposes of God in the world.

That truth also speaks of the universal nature of our salvation. I will be a Christian for eternity. This distinction is clearly contrary to my distinction as an American. Upon death, I will cease to be an American. National distinction is transitory. Christian distinction is eternal.

In fact, it is possible to become other than American during my life. Many of your parents made such a national transformation. They changed from being Italian or Polish or Hungarian or French or English or Scottish or whatever to being American. It is true that we still refer to ourselves and others as this or that based on ethnic or national origins, however, whether you call yourself Italian, Polish, French or English, you think of yourself and identify yourself as American. This is becoming just as true for the newer immigrants from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as it was for you.

So we must remember that important distinction which comes with our salvation. Our salvation is eternal our national identity transitory. The primacy of our salvation is obvious.

Another implication of the conversation I began with is that Christianity is the national religion of the United States. Such an implication is contrary to the Constitution of the United States and to the Scriptures. Nowhere does the Constitution mention the word God. Nowhere does the constitution mention Christianity. Only once does the constitution mention religion and that is in the disestablishment clause of the First Amendment. Our Constitution has been interpreted both by its authors and by every generation of the Supreme Court to be benign towards religion meaning that our government is to nothing to benefit or to harm religion.

The scriptures are clear that Christian faith is not to be a national religion. Judaism became identified as the national religion of Israel to the displeasure of God. Because the Jews became nationalists, they also became apostate. They forsook their mission to become a light to the nations. The little book of Jonah, which tells the story we all delighted in as children, is about that very apostasy. Jonah represented the Jewish mind. Jonah did not want to go into the world. Jonah did not want to see the salvation of the foreigner.

The Christian faith is universal. It is not to be identified with one nation. It is sinful and idolatrous to refer to the United States as a Christian nation. It is not. Its constitution is clearly not Christian. While many Christians have had profound influence on the values of this nation, much that is non-Christian has also influenced the values of this nation. That our currency has the words, "In God We Trust" printed on it and our pledge of allegiance to the flag includes "under God" is an anomaly.

That is not to say that the United States is an evil nation. That is to say that it is a nation like most nations. It has a purely transitory and worldly purpose. It is to say that our being citizens of this nation instead of another is necessary only because we must be in the world despite that we are not of the world because our citizenship is not of this world but of the kingdom of God.

Finally, many say that we are blessed to live in a country where we are free to worship as we choose. Indeed, we may be correct. However, it may be our greatest curse. In the nations where Christianity is the majority religion and there has been the greatest religious freedom, churches are dwindling. The number of persons who attend church or confess themselves to be Christian is declining.

In contrast, in nations where Christians have been persecuted or religious freedom suppressed, the church is growing too fast for the organized denominations to keep up. This is true in Mexico. It is true in Korea and in China and in Cuba.

I often wonder how strong my faith would be were I to face tremendous censure because of it. I wonder how strong my faith would be were I to attend church with the threat of losing my rights. Our freedom creates apathy. The greatest challenge to the Christian in the United States is that we are greeted with a yawn. Our faith is placid, uncompeling, lifeless, thus people find us boring. Believe me, that is not the response Christians in Mexico or Colombia or China or Iraq get.

The issue before us is simply this. Is your faith as alive as your patriotism? Are you a more articulate patriot than you are Christian? Can you verbally defend the flag with more vigor than you can the cross of Christ? Are you able to gather around the table of the Lord as a citizen of the kingdom of God with the people of God from all across this globe and embrace them whether they be black, or yellow, or red, whether they be from the U.S. or Asia or Africa or Latin America or Europe? Being Christian requires that we be a people not of a single nation but of the earth as we embrace all of humanity and the creation. We are first citizens of the kingdom of God and only derivatively of a particular nation.