Reflections on Patriotism:

Here we have no Lasting City

(Hebrews 13:14)

Finished Songs of America on the front porch of the Kinser Cabin at Lake Tahoe. All sorts of reflections… like how the Lake was at its most beautiful—filled to the brim; and how God created the world more beautiful than need be. Or, the sad part about how Gary wasn’t here to enjoy it all, and how we miss him. All the while, reading the history of our nation in prose and song. The read caused me to wonder about what it means to be patriotic.

It’s not a simple matter. As our Lord explained to the Roman Governor (Jn 18):

My kingdom is not from this world.

      If my kingdom were from this world,

my followers would be fighting

      to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.

But as it is,

      my kingdom is not from here.

Even though “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phl 3:20); the Apostle Paul boast of his Roman citizenship: “I was born a citizen of Rome” (Ac 22:28). So we live with a dual citizenship. Sometimes they complement each other as when Paul makes use of his Roman citizenship to propagate the Gospel; or, sometimes we find ourselves at odds, as when the Apostles confessed that they “must obey God rather than any human authority” (Ac 5:29). In which case there’s a good chance one might become a martyr.

While, reading Songs of America, I was taken by how the civil rights movement, from Frederick Douglass to MLK managed to honor both kingdoms. Martin Luther King insisted on non-violence because he believed in America. He was a patriot who cherished our founding documents: “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.” Or again, “In Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice …and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Non-violence, King reckoned, would move Americans to be faithful to their founding declaration. All the while, pointing through hymns, prayers and relentless biblical illusions (“I’ve been to the mountain and I’ve seen the promise land”), to that eternal Kingdom.

Watch these two kingdoms dance in the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Written somewhere between Douglas and King, the hymn is now best known as the Negro National Hymn/Anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ENoYXaMmuA