Mark Tooley recently gave a presentation to the Wesleyan Theological Society about “godly nationalism.” This column, "Sin-Drenched Nations," is his response to some of the reaction he received:
.... Several questions I got afterwards from young people in the audience were revealing. One asked if Christians must love countries like America and Israel founded on “stolen” land. Another similarly asked if American Christians must love their country built on greed. Still another skeptically asked about loyalty to a racist nation like America. ....
All nations are drenched in sin, I responded, yet we are called to love and serve the community where God has placed us, just as Christ Himself did. And we should recall that, unlike Christ, we are ourselves sinful, each of us actively contributing to the faults of our own societies. So we should judge our nations, present or past tense, modestly and reluctantly. Smug contempt for our own people can be self-righteous.
Contempt specifically for America, including among many Christians, especially in academia, reflects partly the dominance of the Howard Zinn perspective, which chronicles American history as primarily a catalog of repressions. These recalled injustices are often very real, but the distortion is tagging America as uniquely perfidious, racist, sexist, greedy, militarist, etc. America is sinful, like all nations, but it never had a monopoly on sin. And more often than not, American ideals have provided a level of human justice unusual in world history.
The Christians who disdain America often suffer from particular theological confusion, believing humanity basically good, while America is the odious aberration. .... [more]
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated. I will gladly approve any comment that responds directly and politely to what has been posted.