A Second Take

I participated in Tim Dalrymple’s ongoing series on whether or not patriotism is idolatrous for Christians. You can find what I wrote through the link, but a few other posts there got me thinking about how we detect when Christians have become idolatrous in their relationship to the State.

I have a suggestion for you to consider, and I’d like your feedback:

Christians become idolatrous when they believe more in the State than the Church (not to mention Christ), when their focus for change is on what the State can accomplish instead of the church locally embodying that change, when their energies are spent electing one candidate vs. another instead of on the ministries at their church, and when they find their time spent at their local church less than time spent reading news about the State/election/parties or working for political change.

Patriotism is idolatrous when our hope is in the State and when our “agent” of change is the State, or the election and a specific candidate.

Patriotism becomes idolatrous when our politic becomes State and not Church.

For the follower of Jesus, the hope of the world is Jesus Christ and his embodiment in the Church, the People of Jesus.

Some who read this will say “But we need to have both.” Fair enough. That’s not the issue, as far as I’m concerned. The issue is that too many Christians spend too much of their time supporting partisan politics and think in doing so they are furthering the justice of the gospel. So, I would urge us all to take a good look and ask ourselves these two questions: “When it comes to justice, where does my energy focus? Is that energy shaped toward the Federal and State governments, or is it shaped toward what my local church/the churches of my community are doing?”

I suggest the answer to that second question may well inform us about idolatries among us.

Maybe it all comes down to this: Who is your agent of change?

[Yes, that’s a pic of Duke Chapel, not a church, but a nice picture nonetheless and a good image for what we’re talking about.]