United States Christian Flag

I was driving home from church last night and skimming through the radio, when the phrase "U.S. Christian Flag" caught my attention. I'm always interested to hear how people are equating the United States with Christianity with the implication that the US is God's new chosen people, much in the vein of this:

The ad gave the website and I had to check it out. It's at http://www.uschristianflag.com and the flag itself is very interesting.


I won't bother explaining every aspect of the flag, but you can find that here. The thing that always interests me is simply the phenomenon of why people have this need to place America firmly in the place of God's new chosen. I won't bother to point out the sins committed to make America what it is today (Native American resettlement, dropping nuclear bombs, etc.); someone else would point out the ideology of people settling in America for religious freedom, as well as to proselytize the Native Americans. And I don't think it's wrong to want the best for the place where you live.

I do think the problem is that we become so focused on being Americans, that the Christianity takes a back seat. And even the ugly co-mingling of the two still tries to place them as equals, which is just as idolatrous.

Being an American is not a bad thing, just as for Paul being a Roman was not a bad thing, but something to be used for the advantage of spreading the Gospel of Jesus. In the same way, we can use our influence (waning as it might be) as Americans to do the same, whether that's using our economic power to spread fair trade, or even refusing to buy materials made in sweatshops.

The United States of America is NOT a Christian nation. It might have been founded by men with some Christian principles. It might even be populated by Christians in the majority. But nation's by their very nature are not Christian. Nations cannot sacrifice themselves for the good of others; nations generally seek their own preservation, but that preservation is not eternal. All of the great empires have fallen: Persian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British, even the American Empire will fall.

What will not fall is the Kingdom of God and that is where the true citizenship of a follower of Christ is. As Paul said in Philippians 3:

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.