Robert Frost spoke of roads diverging, but I was doing some reading the other day that gave me a flash of insight as to why Christianity and patriotism have so often converged into a single path. It's not a new phenomenon in today's America; love of God and country have often been spoken of in the same sentence. Way, way back in the day when my mother ordered milk delivered to the house by the milkman, there was a saying on the wax carton that I never forgot (as a child, I read dictionaries, encyclopedias, cereal boxes, and milk cartons). That line said, "Love of God, country, and your fellow man precedes happiness!" (I thought "fellow man" meant the milkman. Well, it did, but I thought it meant specifically the milkman. I was young.)
As an(other) aside, when people ask, "What's wrong with the world today?" or say that someone's good or honest deed "restored their faith in humanity," I believe it's largely because society has been on diverging roads for so long that we've reached, as Timothy Keller writes in Making Sense of God, "...the vanishing point of the self alone." Self-actualization of the individual has all but taken over western life, dwarfing our collective sense of connection or responsibility. It really shouldn't be surprising that lack of trust in our neighbors follows; we know all too well that everyone is looking out for #1.
So why do love of God and nationalism often converge? First, let me say there are problems with this if the two aren't kept in proper order; nationalism can be idolatry. It can also be xenophobia, or result in putting a leader, party, or ideology on a pedestal. None of this is good. But I think it's understandable for this reason: serving God and serving one's country have both been seen throughout history as something worth dying for. Another reason is that the Christian life and duty to country are united in the concept of the soldier. We only need to think of such hymns as "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to see this. Ephesians urges us to put on "the full armor of God." In earlier times, and other cultures, dying a heroic or noble death was seen as the highest good, even furthering or completing a worthy life goal rather than cutting it short. But in our American present, when Everyman is an Island more than ever before, death is just a meaningless stoppage of our pursuits. That, or it's the Circle of Life, which is an example of another line I heard in childhood, one I rejected. "Death is a part of life," the adults intoned. Nonsense. It was never meant to be that way, and Little Me knew it. Adults forget what children instinctively know.
In our minds, then, God and country often go together. Serving both is a grand pursuit that calls on our best talents, efforts, and may require the ultimate sacrifice--a level of meaning I would argue humans are hungry for. But we need to make no mistake: God is first, and it's His kingdom of which we are citizens. Country is temporal, of this world. Only Jesus can and has truly made death meaningful--as our gateway to eternity with Him.
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