Kyle Gebhart

Before I launch into my examination of American Civil Religion I want to establish a working understanding of some key premises. The first premise is that many Christians are unaware of the power of nationalism over their worldview.

Historically, it can be argued, that nationalism is quite young only emerging in its current form in the 1800’s. For much of history the ties that bound people together were more localized. Those ties related to families, clans, tribes or races, and in some cases a common language or religion. It is only with the ascendancy of democracy that large groups of peoples with different ethnic and religious backgrounds were united under the broad, inclusive flags of the modern nation-state.

Under democratic ideals nationalism is pluralistic. It states that each should willingly lay aside religious, cultural, or ethnic differences to unite around a shared value system or ideology. Democratic nationalism states, “We will lay aside our differences, to engineer a nation around these political or social goals.” Unity and agreement with these ideals becomes the source of our greatness. For Americans, these ideals are succinctly stated at the beginning of the Republic in the Declaration of Independance: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In honoring our revolutionary past, we chose the term ‘patriot’ for anyone who is inspired to throw off the bonds of slavery to other masters and forge ahead in the spirit of liberty. This language fills the pages of our newspapers, magazines and news programs. Being patriotic is central to our popular discourse. A political candidate who appears unpatriotic has signed their resignation. Good Americans are patriotic, bad people are unpatriotic. Burning an American flag is illegal in several states, supporting the troops is essential, having the heart-strings pulled when the national anthem is sung mandatory. If you are a good American, you are patriotic. If you are not patriotic then perhaps you are a communist, a terrorist, or a traitor.

Patriotism is most esteemed within conservative circles. Those circles include a large, vocal portion of the evangelical Christian community. The influence of Christian patriots can be clearly seen in the number of books and articles written over the last decade on the subject. The liberals have penned hundreds of alarmist diatribes fearful of a conservative takeover of America. The conservatives have characterized their opponents as unpatriotic, supportive of terrorism and un-American.

I think, however, that the patriotism of many evangelical Christians is far more dangerous to their spiritual life than they have seen. Jesus and his apostles never supported or denounced political candidates. I won’t go so far as to say endorsing certain candidates is wrong, but the prophetic voices of the New Testament have made it clear to us that our citizenship in heaven is primary. If our nationalism overrides our allegiance to The Kingdom of God, then we have compromised our spiritual well-being.

I believe that there are many in the American church who are already compromised in this way.