Beware the sin of nationalism
May 30, 2011 2 Comments
Bro. Dave Black, a professor of Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, spoke up in his Sunday School class at Bethel Hill yesterday. He made a statement with, in his words, “something of the sensation of a man about to jump off a cliff with a cannonball tied to his leg. But it was a point I felt I had to make, especially in view of all the American flags flying everywhere on the church campus — it being Memorial Day weekend.”
Here is what he had to say about the experience in his blog at daveblackonline.com…
Our God is a color blind God, I said. I added: Our God is a dollar blind God. Our God is a status blind God. And then I said this: Our God is a nation blind God. To say or to imply that America is somehow a “holy nation” is, in my humble estimation, blasphemous. The household of God (to which I belong by God’s grace) is the only holy nation on earth. It includes in its membership all Christians of all ages, all nationalities, all levels of social strata, all levels of intelligence. The lesson is clear. From the moment of my conversion to Christ, and from the moment of your conversion to Christ, we have been in fellowship with every other Christian in the world, be they American or Ethiopian or Chinese or Iraqi or Iranian. The Bible tells us “we are all one in Christ Jesus” — and that includes our guest speaker this morning who came to us from southern India.
It is here, on the national level, that we are called upon to demonstrate to a lost world the reality of our fellowship. We are bound together by a unity that goes far beyond mere geography or nationality let alone hobby or personal interest or political affiliation or denomination. Only when we learn to see ourselves as this kind of a holy nation, only when we learn to treasure that kind of fellowship, only when we experience this kind of trans-national love, will we fulfill our vocation as saints.
Beware of the sin of nationalism, my friends. A Christian is a citizen of a heavenly commonwealth because he or she belongs to the holy nation of the people of God. This, and this alone, is the only Christian nation. Other nations may contain Christians, and they may be influenced to one degree or another by Christian principles, but there will never be a Christian nation except the people redeemed by the blood of Christ.
I pray believers everywhere will begin to adopt this kind of kingdom mindset and abandon the worldly nationalism that so easily entraps us.