Analyzing My Allegiance

There are two things I remember about chapel in third grade at my Christian school in California.

First, I remember the enormous, wall-sized, stained glass window of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus hovered over us as we sang “Whose side are you leaning on?” in the padded pews. 

Second, I remember we started every chapel by pledging allegiance to the American flag and the Christian flag. In that order. 

I never questioned this exercise, of course, as kids never do. And after all, I was leaning on the Lord’s side. And after all, I didn’t want to mess around with wall-sized Jesus. 

But as I think back on this routine, now I have questions. Why, at our Christian school, did we put our hands over our hearts and pledge allegiance to a country? This regimen is actually pretty unusual among democratic countries. Isn’t that something that children are required to do in, say, communist countries? In fact, don’t we teach children to celebrate the biblical heroes who refused to “pledge allegiance” to government powers? 

And, why did we always pledge allegiance to the American flag (and to the Republic for which it stands) first and pledge allegiance to the Christian flag (and to the Savior for which it stands) second? Doesn’t that subtly communicate a certain set of priorities?

Things that make you go hmmm.

In 2001, I started teaching at Haven of Peace Academy in Tanzania, and I was given a popular American Christian curriculum to teach from. As the year went on, I became increasingly more uncomfortable with it. Only two or three kids in my class of 25 were American, yet this curriculum was teaching them that America had special status, possessing a unique blessing from God over all the other countries. It taught them being a good Christian meant being a good American.

It was awkward. I looked at these words through their eyes–most were from non-American, but Christian families, and I could tell they were hurt. And confused. The next year, we switched to a secular curriculum and wove in our own biblical worldview. 

At the time, I thought that curriculum was an anomaly in American Christendom, not the norm. But since moving back to the States, I’ve been perplexed at the interweaving of American patriotism and Christianity that I’ve seen on display. I spent half my life overseas; this isn’t the version of Christianity I was taught. That is, until I started thinking about those Pledges.

What is the role of patriotism in any Christian’s life? And is it any different for American Christians, since our country was founded on Christian principles? Does God give America special status among the countries of the world?

It was because of these questions that I picked up Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Du Mez. In it, Du Mez traces the history of evangelicalism in America during the last 75 years. Let me tell you something–this is not a fun book for a Christian to read. It is a scathing critique of American Christianity; I winced my way through it. There is practically no stone unturned: Dobson, Falwell, Piper, Promise Keepers, Mahaney, Driscoll, MacArthur. There’s probably not a single (white) American Christian who could read this book and not be offended. 

And truthfully, I don’t agree with some of Du Mez’s conclusions. She’s a professor at a Christian college, so she’s writing from “within” evangelicalism, but the book feels really abrasive. It’s hard to figure out her worldview and her view of Scripture. However, this book made me analyze my faith and my country more than I ever have before. Sometimes our harshest critics help us to do our best thinking.

As a missionary, I’ve learned how to recognize when culture contradicts the Bible. That is, I can do this with other cultures. But what about my own culture? Du Mez writes, “Today, what it means to be a ‘conservative evangelical’ is as much about culture as it is about theology.” Is this true of us in America? Have we allowed Christian news, Christian media, Christian consumerism to influence us more than the Bible? 

Or how about the influence of world events? One of the things Du Mez chronicles in Jesus and John Wayne is how the fear of communism is what inspired America to brand itself as a “Christian” country. Did you know that “Under God” and “In God We Trust” weren’t added to the Pledge and to money until the 1950’s? It didn’t come from the Founding Fathers, it came from Eisenhower–in direct response to the communist threat.

Born in the 70’s, I had little knowledge of the effect of communism on America generally and Christianity specifically: “For decades, anticommunism had been a linchpin in the evangelical worldview, justifying militarism abroad and a militant pursuit of moral purity at home.” And once communism was no longer a threat? Radical Islam took its place. After 9/11, how many of us were conditioned to believe that Muslims were an imminent threat? How did that view influence how we perceived the priority of war versus the priority of evangelism? How often was our perception of refugees influenced by this fear? 

If you are like me, you grew up believing that America is a favored nation, a Christian nation set apart by God to bless the rest of the world. Where did this belief come from? And is it true? Could a country that embraced 100 years of slavery, 100 years of racial oppression, and 50 years of abortion be truly considered “blessed” by the God of the universe?

As a long-time fan of Christian education, I was shocked to find out that many Christian schools were founded specifically with the purpose of maintaining segregation. Du Mez writes, “When the tax-exempt status of these ‘segregation academies’ was revoked in 1970, evangelicals defended their right to whites-only schools by arguing for the authority of parents to make decisions about their children’s education, free from governmental ‘overreach.’” How often have today’s Christian parents expressed the same fear of “government overreach”–not realizing it was used to defend racism only 50 years ago?

How much of what I believe comes from culture, and how much from Scripture? 

I’ve noticed that many are mourning the loss of America’s “Christian-ness.” And it can’t be denied–many of the prevailing values of the majority are no longer in line with the Bible. But we have to ask ourselves: Is this the end of the world? Do we need to be fighting for America to be “Christian?” Is it really that important for Christians to be the majority? Or are we just afraid of the loss of power and influence that being the majority grants us?

I guess it depends on what we are interested in: A secure life surrounded by people who believe the same things we do? Do we just want a moral nation, a society that feels comfortably Christian? Are we most interested in turning America into God’s kingdom, or are we most interested in building God’s kingdom, which isn’t a physical place at all? In American Culture is Broken, Is Theonomy the Answer?, Andrew T. Walker writes, “We look not for culture to be redeemed, but for the redeemed to speak prophetically to the culture as only the church can: through the power of the gospel.”

I’m writing as one who doesn’t have all the answers. And just in case you’re worried, I still consider myself conservative and evangelical. I still am patriotic. But introspection is a good thing, right? Beliefs are complicated and need detangling. The glory of Jesus is far greater than that stained-glass window; my Pledge of Allegiance to Christ is far deeper than memorized words. I want to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. But first I have to recognize it.