A Lesson in Patriotism

This past Sunday I received a powerful lesson in patriotism. Partway through a long, passionate prayer, the Rev. Elvin S. Bloice of Muckle Memorial Baptist Church launched into a series of invocations for our nation's leaders. He prayed for the President and his cabinet, for both houses of Congress, then for the governor and the local political leaders, for the men and women of our armed forces, and even for victory over "the forces of evil" in Iraq and Afghanistan. He prayed so much for America that my own patriotism was put to shame. What was all the more remarkable was that, except for my wife and I and a few visitors, no one there could even vote in a federal election.

Muckle Memorial is on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, a territory which was purchased from Denmark for reasons of national defense in 1917. The congregation is entirely black--with the exception of ourselves and a young Hispanic woman visiting from Florida with her Crucian-born husband--and, on the whole, lower-income. They do not strike a visitor as the types to be waving American flags and donating to the Republican Party. Here in America's Caribbean, it would seem they could escape the turmoils and concerns of those in the 50 states. Yet they prayed more fervently for their country, for my country, than I do on most occasions.

This was one of the most profound demonstrations of patriotism I have seen in some time. It was not even remotely political, nor did it stem from a blind certainty that America is always right. They genuinely loved their country, simply because it was theirs. It was because of this, as well as enlightened self-interest (1st Timothy 2:1-2), that they prayed for all of those in our government, regardless of party. I left wondering why I didn't pray for my country more. I left wondering if Christian conservatives would pray as fervently and lovingly for a President Hillary Clinton as for President George W. Bush. After all, if you think someone is a bad president, ought you to pray even harder that they would act with wisdom and have the courage to do what is just? I left wondering if, despite our rhetoric about one nation "under God," our political activism sometimes crowds out our trust in God's sovereignty and His ability to work through all political authorities--even evil and incompetent ones.

For now, I'm grateful that my disenfranchised island brothers and sisters reminded me what it meant to be a true patriot.

The World Will Remember

As I was reading the Bible in my hotel room in China this past December, a single word captivated me and has been on my mind ever since. Psalm 22 is a Messianic psalm, written by David, pointing to the crucifixion of Jesus and the redemption it brings about. Verse 27 predicts, "All the ends of the Earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You" (ESV, emphasis added).

Remember? Remember what? Isn't the proclamation of the gospel, the good news, something new? One could surmise that those in Christian or post-Christian cultures will remember what they or their ancestors believed. But what are the Chinese, the native peoples of America, the Indians, the Thai, the Japanese, the Turks, the Aborogines and the Namibians supposed to remember? In many cultures the gospel is seen, not as good news, but as something foreign and at odds with the traditions handed down to them.

The remembering that David speaks of stretches much farther back, not only before the time of Christ, but before his own time, before Abraham's time, back to the earliest epochs of human history. According to Genesis, at one time all of humanity knew who God was and worshipped him and him alone. Over time, as the ravages of sin drew mankind further and further away from God, this knowledge was lost and the worship of one God was forgotten or replaced by other practices. But everyone alive today, in every culture in existence, is descended from one man and one woman who knew God personally and lived in or near the Middle East.

The Genesis account is being increasingly verified both by scientific and cultural studies. A 1987 paper in Nature concluded, from a study of mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited only from the mother) that essentially all humans alive today are descended from the same woman. Over the next 20 years, additional work narrowed in on the date and location of “Mitochondrial Eve,” suggested that all humans may share a common male ancestor as well (Adam?), and found evidence of a severe constriction in the human population at one point (a severe flood?). Although views of human origins remain contentious, the leading contender is now the Out-of-Africa Hypothesis, which claims that humanity originated in northeast Africa and spread from there over the entire Earth.

Cultural insights corroborate this. In his book Eternity In Their Hearts, missiologist Don Richardson recounts over 20 instances in which missionaries discovered striking analogies to the gospel in primitive cultures. In one instance, after two Americans were enthusiastically received and found their message readily embraced by an isolated tribe, they told of an ancient prophecy in that tribe that one day two pale-skinned men would appear with a book telling them how to be reconciled to God. American Indians serving as short-term missionaries in Mongolia discovered astonishing similarities between their own cultural practices and those of the nomadic plains people they met—not surprising if North America was originally settled by peoples from Asia migrated through Alaska. In the midst of explosive growth of Christianity in China, Faith of Our Fathers: God in Ancient China by Chan Kei Thong with Charlene L. Fu documents the increasing evidence that the early Chinese were monotheistic, worshipping and sacrificing to Shang Di, “The Emperor of Heaven.” The authors claim to have found the entire first several chapters of Genesis represented in Chinese language, myth, and traditions. A recent documentary, meanwhile, makes similar (though less far-reaching) claims about Japanese culture. These are just a few of the many examples of what Paul claimed in Romans 1:19-23, that evidence of a supreme Creator abounds in all cultures.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. … For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. … [they] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

In the anti-missionary movie At Play In the Fields of the Lord, an American Indian pilot working for missionaries in South America asks an idealistic young man, “If God made Indians they way they are, who are you to change them?” The answer is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not an invitation to become Western, but an invitation to be reconciled with one’s own creator and to see one’s culture redeemed and restored to what God originally intended it to be.

So what are all the world’s diverse peoples being called to remember? The God whom their ancestors worshipped, who created their unique culture and left them with clues to prepare them for the truly good news that He is their God and their Redeemer as well.