Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #16: Matthew 22:20-21

 

Matthew 22:20-21     New International Version

20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

It has been a long time since I was a math nerd.  The A that I earned in Calculus in high school was the last math class that I ever needed, or wanted, to take.  But I still enjoy a well laid out Venn Diagram's ability to explain the relationship between things that otherwise are confusing to people.  In my World Religions seminar I created a three circle Veen Diagram to illustrate the overlap and differences between the terms: Jew, Judaism, and Israelite because people can belong to one, two, or all three of those categories.

When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus between the power of the Roman Empire and man's higher obligation to God, Jesus could have given an answer that would have resoundingly supported both Jewish Nationalism in the 1st Century, and Christian Nationalism in the last two thousand years.  But he didn't.  Not at all, not a bit.  Instead of ranking the obligations that we owe to God and earthly powers, Jesus differentiated between them.

The Pharisees were expecting Jesus to argue that "B is proper subset of A" (the circle within the circle in the chart above), either that God's rule is supreme, or Rome's, but they're all one circle.  In a sense, that's true, God is indeed supreme over all, the entirety of the created universe belongs in a circle contained within the all-encompassing circle of God.  But, and this is key, that's an ontological answer (i.e. the nature of reality), not a functional one.  God chose to allow humanity a degree of freedom and autonomy, to let the governments of humanity exist without being theocracies directly under his immediate rule {Israel prior to their requests for a king come closest to that model}.

In the end, 'Christian' Nationalists want the two circles of human government and God's rule to perfectly overlap, to make them one in the same (i.e. one circle, not two).  Jesus rejected this idea, he wasn't interested in conquering human governments, his Kingdom would be founded on different principles and pursue different goals.  The Church of Jesus Christ must follow his lead.  We are not called to triumph over Caesar, or even to be Caesar, but to continue to give to God what is God's. 

What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God?  That's an important question, and one God-honoring men and women in the Church might not always agree upon, but one thing is certain, there is a distinction between them.

Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #15: Matthew 21:31

 

Matthew 21:31     New International Version

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

When asked in episode 3 of the new Disney + series Andor how he acquired a highly secret piece of Imperial hardware, the show's title character Casssian Andor (played by Diego Luna) responds with scorn that because the Empire is so full of itself the only thing you need to do is put on a uniform and walk in like you belong there.

An age old question for both Judaism and Christianity has been how to differentiate between those who properly belong to the religion and those who do not.  The question is complicated by the realization that our methods or criteria for inclusion or exclusion may not properly align with God's such that we may be welcoming those whom God has not, and scorning those whom God has chosen.  Jesus himself makes much of this dissonance, repeatedly rejecting self-righteous Pharisees and others with power and authority within 1st century Judaism, while welcoming fishermen, women, tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, and various others that had been labeled by society as outcast 'sinners', but who were willing to come to him in faith.

The Church, for its part, has struggled throughout its history to require genuine discipleship from all its adherents, while at the same time keeping its doors wide open to anyone and everyone whom God may call to repentance.  The more power and influence the Church has wielded in society, the more it has been likely to welcome the rich and well connected with no questions asked and turn up its nose at the poor and forgotten despite Jesus' example to the contrary.  Jesus called us to be better than that.

'Christian' Nationalism is especially vulnerable because of its pursuit of worldly power to the charge of accepting false devotion (i.e. that which is based upon selfish motives and not grounded in repentance and faith) among those who can help it achieve its goals {Including the related topic of ignoring heretical beliefs, even clear apostasy when coming from a political leader or ally}, while at the same time rejecting as unworthy those who demonstrate faith and righteous living, but happen to not share the same politics/ethnicity/nationality.  In other words, 'Christian' Nationalism is defining 'us' and 'them' by superficial criteria that mock Jesus' willingness to speak hard truths to the powerful and hold out hope to the weak.

Why?  Because 'Christian' Nationalism is trying to 'win' in this world, the consequences to the next are secondary at best.  The true Church is willing to lose everything in this world for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #14: Matthew 18:3-4

 

Matthew 18:3-4     New International Version

3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

One of the things that made George Lucas' fictional Force interesting as a story plot device was how counter-intuitive it was for most of the characters.  Luke's first interaction with the Force is a training exercise where Obi-Wan Kenobi asks him to try to defend himself against a drone with the 'blast shield' on the helmet lowered, i.e. to fight blind.  After initially failing, he eventually starts to get the hang of it.  At the end of the movie, Luke demonstrates that he learned something about the Force in the brief interim by destroying the Death Star by 'using the Force' to aim his proton torpedoes rather than his targeting computer.  The Force, in Lucas' imagining, is not like anything we know from our own experience here on Earth.

As Jesus explains the Kingdom of God to his disciples, he time and time emphasizes that the methods and goals of the kingdom he is founding are not those of this world.  It won't operate according to this world's rules, and it won't chase after what this world covets.  The Kingdom of God will be different.

The Church, therefore, must follow this series of commands and teachings by Jesus when considering how we are to fulfill our obligations as encapsulated in the Great Commission.  If we attempt to achieve the correct goals, but do so using the methodology and tactics of this world, we will fail.  If we attempt to achieve goals other than the ones that Jesus told us to pursue, we will fail.  It is that simple.  

Unfortunately, Church History is full of examples of men and women, some of whom were acting in sincere faith and devotion, others not so much, who either abandoned Jesus' methodology, or eschewed his goals.  The results were, entirely predictably, disastrous.

Here is where 'Christian' Nationalism comes in.  As a movement, it is BOTH utilizing strategies and tactics that are in direct contradiction to Jesus' example of servanthood and righteousness by placing morality as a lower priority than winning, AND doing so in the service of the pursuit of worldly power (and the wealth and fame that go with it) that Jesus never, not once, told his disciples to pursue.  Knowing that either immoral methodology, or faulty goals, will doom any human endeavor that is supposedly undertaken on God's behalf, it is certain that 'Christian' Nationalism will fail, as it has always done throughout Church History, no matter how much power it manages to scrape together in this world.  Make sure you understand this: Even if 'Christian' Nationalists "take back America for God" they will fail.  Even if they control the entire government, in perpetuity, wielding all of its power in pursuit of their politics, they will fail.  It may not look like it from the heights of world power, but it will most assuredly be true when looking at the effect upon the Kingdom of God.

Failure is inevitable because the Kingdom of God doesn't work this way, and the Kingdom of God isn't interested in what Nationalists so badly want. 

Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #13: Matthew 16:25

Matthew 16:25     New International Version

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

In 1519, Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes, facing attempts by some from his expedition to abandon their mission and sail back to Cuba, ordered his entire fleet to be scuttled {The popular story is that the ships were burned, but given how costly they were, Cortes would have only put holes in the ships, making sailing them impossible in the short-term so they could be salvaged at least for the wood later on}.  Having eliminated the possibility of retreat, Cortes then led his men onward in the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

An illustration from a conquest carried out, at least on paper, in the name of Christ is not something one would normally use when writing against 'Christian' Nationalism since that's the attitude we need to avoid, but the well known actions of Cortes, in an unjust cause, still serve as a reminder of how differently people act when they have passed the Point of No Return.

Every single legitimate follower of Jesus Christ throughout history was past the Point of No Return from the moment he/she became committed to Jesus until death.  What does this mean?  This world is not our home, this life is not ours to do with as we please.  We are here on a mission from God, called to serve a purpose, we cannot do that and try to live for wealth, power, or fame in this world too.  

'Christian' Nationalists certainly have a sense of purpose and mission, that's not the problem, the problem is that they've turned the focus of our calling as Christians toward this world and not the next, toward the physical and not the spiritual.  Toward power and control here and now, not the service and sacrifice that Jesus demands of us.  In the end, they're still trying to save their lives (and/or country) here rather than give them over to the Gospel.

As the Steven Curtis Chapman song, Burn the Ships, inspired by Cortes' bold move says,

"Burn the ships we're here to stay

There's no way we could go back

Now that we've come this far by faith

Burn the ships we've passed the point of no return

Our life is here so let the ships burn and burn"

The Stories We Choose to Tell: God’s use of The Exodus

 

My beautiful wife Nicole and I have been married for 21 years and counting.  Early on in our married life she began a habit of asking, “tell me a story” at the end of our day.  Aside from an occasional foray into fiction, my go-to response was to tell her about how we had met, about our first kiss, reminding her that she asked me to kiss her, and how we had subsequently fallen in love. 

Along with these origin stories about how our union came to be, which she enjoyed even though they lacked any radioactive spider bites or experiments with gamma radiation, I recounted to her the tales of road trips we had taken together to Texas, Virginia, Glacier National Park and Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park, and once more to Glacier National Park, and the various adventures, and misadventures that accompanied them. 

For example, “Do you remember the time we pulled a pop-up camper to RMNP, only to discover while we tried to set it up in the dark at the end of the first day that we’d left two of the poles behind, necessitating making new ones from some pipe purchased at a Lowe’s the next day, have the stove be unusable because the gas line was clogged with a wasp nest, discover the hard way that misquotes had multiple ways inside that we needed to plug, have a flat on the car in Colorado and on the trailer in MN, and finally have the lift mechanism stuck in the up position while I beat on it with a rubber hammer at Tahquamenon Falls State Park in MI’s U.P.?  Ah, fun times.”  FYI, that was the only trip we took with that trailer, sold it the next summer.

For Christmas 2007, I created a journal of memories to give to Nicole that covered our relationship from 1999 when we first met until then.  It was a leather-bound journal with the written version of the stories from my point of view that I had been telling her at night, in my dubious handwriting, but also with stickers representing the various events in our lives together and places we had visited in it that I had purchased at a craft store to give it some flare.

In 2014, when Nicole and I returned to Glacier National Park, hiking to some of the same places as we had in 2004 like Avalanche Lake, but adding a 13.6-mile round trip trail with 3,526 feet of elevation gain to Sperry Chalet, the last mile or so on top of the still six or seven feet deep snow that remained in mid-June.  It was a climb that seemed endless to Nicole, especially since you can’t see the goal to know if you’re getting close or not until you’re almost to it.  After that trip, Nicole took it upon herself to one-up my effort of commemoration by making this professional looking book on the computer and printing it on Shutterfly.

The thing is, we both knew the stories that we were telling each other, or writing about, already.  It wasn’t new information the first time we told it to each other, let alone on subsequent retellings, so why did Nicole want me to share with her those same memories over and over again? 

The reason has to do with the value we place on the stories we choose to tell about the past.  There was a reason why she didn’t ask me to, and I didn’t choose to, recount boring everyday stories, things from work, traumas, or sorrows, but rather focused upon those seminal moments, those vivid, comic, and happy memories that we shared together.  Our shared stories are instrumental in explaining how we became who we are now, the experiences themselves having molded and shaped us along the way.

It turns out, God does much the same thing by choosing to share, and reshare, specific stories about the past in the scriptures.  One moment in time stands out as the example par excellence: The Exodus. 

The first time God tells Moses that The Exodus is going to be a recurring theme occurs during the instructions about the Passover,

Exodus 12:14     New International Version

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Even before it had happened, God told Moses that his people would be required to commemorate this display of God’s power and covenantal faithfulness with a yearly ceremony in perpetuity.

It was much less than one year before the story of The Exodus was brought back up, even before the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai, God needed to remind them of the plagues that had befallen Egypt, this first time using the story to put a stop to their grumbling along the way.

In fact, Moses used the story of The Exodus when talking to God, who certainly hadn’t forgotten about it, in his plea for mercy upon the Israelites following the Golden Calf debacle.

Exodus 32:11-12     New International Version

11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.

Thus begins a pattern repeated many, many times in the remaining books of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, of God, the psalmists, the prophets, Jesus, the Apostles, and more making direct references and easily identifiable allusions to God’s actions in The Exodus. 

The Exodus in subsequent portions of scripture becomes a catch-all capable of both admonishing the people when they go astray from the covenant and encouraging the people during times of oppression.  While pointing to the past, references to The Exodus also become the basis for promises about what God will do for his people in the future, with the ultimate culmination being the Messianic fulfillment of Jesus whose life and ministry is steeped in Exodus imagery highlighted by a Passover meal at the beginning of his Passion.

The past, for God, is a tool capable of teaching his people what he needs them to know in a variety of settings and circumstances.  It is not meant to be forgotten, but remembered and learned from not once, but multiple times.

What then do we do with what God has done in our lives, individually, our families, as a local congregation, and as a region of the American Baptist Churches?  Commemoration and celebration are certainly in order, as is storytelling and preservation of that history that allows it to be shared now and in the future. 

Following the biblical examples of how The Exodus is used, perhaps the most important things we can do with our knowledge of what God has done for us and through us in the past, is use it to help us confront, and by God’s grace overcome, the challenges of the present.  Have we strayed?  Remembering how God forgave our past can guide us to repentance again.  Are we burdened?  Recalling how God provided in our past can comfort us and give us hope.  Do we need motivation? Praising God for the outpouring of his amazing grace in living memory can help us find it.

What stories do you need to tell of the love of God manifested in your church and your family?

The stories I can choose to tell to Nicole in the present have a new character in them since she made “Nicole and Randy’s Big Adventure” in 2014: our precious Clara Marie.  And while we were already aware of God’s presence in the first 14 years of our journey as husband and wife, especially the difficult years that led step by step to our decision to move to PA in 2012, and while we have already given him glory for seeing us through those days, parenthood is often God’s way of saying, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”  We have so many stories to tell of God’s love and faithfulness.