{"id":4342,"date":"2017-07-03T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T15:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/e2medianetwork\/?p=4342"},"modified":"2017-06-29T16:08:03","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T00:08:03","slug":"ask-pastor-john-patriotism-place-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/e2medianetwork\/2017\/07\/ask-pastor-john-patriotism-place-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Pastor John: Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?<\/span> <\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\nWe will soon celebrate July 4th, Independence Day as it\u2019s known for us in the States. And the day itself raises questions about national loyalty for those of us who are strangers, exiles, aliens, and pilgrims on this earth. \u201cPilgrims and Patriots,\u201d that was our topic back in a past year, in<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/interviews\/pilgrims-and-patriots\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">episode 378<\/a>. But this year we will take a closer look at patriotism in the local church, and the time seems right to pick up an important email from a pastor named Scott who writes: \u201cPastor John, are there any acceptable displays of patriotism in a church service? I was brought up in a very conservative and patriotic background in which every patriotic holiday was celebrated in a Sunday church service, including Fourth of July, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, the anniversary of 9\/11, etc. Elements like pledging the flag and singing patriotic songs were heavily used. Is this okay? I pastor a church that has a history of this, but it makes me uncomfortable.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10319\" src=\"https:\/\/christianpodcastcentral.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/patriotic-flags.png\" alt=\"Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?\" width=\"600\" height=\"314\">Scott, I have been in several churches recently \u2014 not just growing up especially in the South I am thinking, because that is just my experience \u2014 where on the Fourth of July the focus on the branches of the armed forces seemed to me uninformed, unshaped by the radical nature of the gospel, and out of proportion to the relationship between America and the kingdom of Christ.<\/p>\nI share your discomfort. Indeed, it is more than discomfort, I think. There are real biblical principles at stake, and so it will be helpful, I think, to face those principles, and then we will see if there is time to deal with practical transition issues in a church. So, let me say a word about principles.<\/p>\n<h2>United with Christ<\/h2>\nWhen we are born again, we are united to Christ, our King, and we are delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God so that now it can be said with glorious and profound reality, \u201cOur citizenship is in heaven\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Phil%203.20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Philippians 3:20<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\nTherefore, wherever we live on earth, whatever country, whatever tribe, whatever family or clan, we are pilgrims, sojourners, refugees, exiles in all of those. Our first identity is with the King of the universe, not any country or nationality or political party or governmental regime.<\/p>\nAmerica is emphatically\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0our primary home or primary identity. That should be spoken. It should be felt and it should be precious. We should never be ashamed of identifying, first and foremost, as citizens of the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven.<\/p>\n<h2>Our Ultimate Allegiance<\/h2>\nJesus Christ, therefore, is our absolute Lord. We swear absolute allegiance to him and to no one and nothing else. All other commitments are relativized. To be sure, citizens should submit to the laws of their government. Employees should submit to the rules of the employer. Wives should submit to husbands. Children should submit to parents. Church members should submit to the elders of the church.<\/p>\nBut none of these commitments of submission is absolute. All of those authorities are subordinate and secondary to the authority of Christ and, therefore, all submission is qualified. Written over every commitment for the Christian is: unless Jesus commands otherwise.<\/p>\nTherefore, there is no unqualified allegiance to any political party, any nationality, any ethnicity, any tribal identity, or any branch of the armed service. It is all qualified. It is all secondary. It is all relative to the will of Christ. We should not say anything or do anything that looks as if that were not true.<\/p>\n<h2>Sunday Worship<\/h2>\nTherefore, the question of what to do when the people of God are gathered to worship Jesus Christ on the Lord\u2019s Day is not merely a question of whether a particular act is permissible in general with all of those qualifications that I just mentioned, but whether it belongs in a worship service, where the focus is on the absolute lordship of Jesus and worshiping and praising and honoring him. My own opinion is that any pledge of allegiance \u2014 like the one to the American flag \u2014 does not belong in a worship service that is called to the highlighting of the absolute allegiance that we have to Jesus, even though the pledge says that the nation is \u201cunder God.\u201d<\/p>\nNevertheless, what is being highlighted and foregrounded is an earthly allegiance. And the recitation of a pledge to a human authority in the setting of the worship of divine authority does not provide for the kind of Christian qualifications and nuances that are so necessary precisely in our day.<\/p>\n<h2>Giving Thanks<\/h2>\nWhenever Christians pay tribute to earthly blessings like American freedoms, which are wonderful, and the sacrifices made to have them and the people who made those sacrifices, the emphasis should be on humble thankfulness to God who is great and in his great mercy has given us what we don\u2019t deserve.<\/p>\nWhen he gave them, we didn\u2019t deserve them. We don\u2019t deserve them at this moment that we are enjoying them and, therefore, words and songs should have no triumphalist or assertive tone, especially not for any military expression, but, rather, should have a feel of humility and lowliness and dependence and thankfulness along with a suitable call to repentance and need for ongoing mercy.<\/p>\n<h2>Champion the Gospel<\/h2>\nAnd the last thing I would say in and over everything we do and say in our worship services, especially the ones that give thanks for American blessings and privileges, there should be the dominant expression of the work of Jesus Christ, the gospel, to forgive American sins and American sinners like us and a call to make Jesus supreme in this particular service we are in and over the hearts of the people and over the land.<\/p>\nNow, those are some of the biblical principles that I think should shape our expressions of thankfulness for America in worship. And I realize I am out of time and I haven\u2019t even touched on what is probably this pastor\u2019s most painful situation is, I have inherited a church where things don\u2019t seem to be in proper proportion and I would like some practical help. And so I am going to do that in another Ask Pastor John episode.<\/p>\nFind other recent and popular\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/interviews\/by-series\/ask-pastor-john\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ask Pastor John episodes here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/authors\/john-piper\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Piper<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnPiper\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">@JohnPiper<\/em><\/a>) is founder and teacher of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">desiringGod.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/books\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">more than 50 books<\/em><\/a>, including\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desiringgod.org\/books\/peculiar-glory\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">A Peculiar Glory<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n(By Desiring God.\u00a0Discovered by <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianpodcastcentral.com\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Christian Podcast Central<\/em><\/a> and our community \u2014 copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pastor John Piper answers with Biblical accuracy a tough question for American pastors: Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1775,"featured_media":3639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5193,136,5192,724,5191,23,1279,3793,3641,4064,5190,2288,52],"class_list":["post-4342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-4th-of-july","tag-bible-study","tag-biblical-principles","tag-christian-living","tag-citizenship","tag-forgiveness","tag-freedom","tag-identity","tag-independence-day","tag-john-piper","tag-patriotism","tag-pledge-of-allegiance","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Ask Pastor John: Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pastor John Piper answers with Biblical accuracy a tough question for American pastors: Should Patriotism Have a Place in Church?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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