Proud to be an American-Christian! (If you don’t like it, you can go to @#%*!)

Did the title of the post wake you up? It is just a little bit provocative, I will admit. But, I hoped to wake up your reasoning ability, because the problem with carnality is, that it is never farther away than your heart, i.e. the physical pump beating in your chest at this very moment.

This post is based on something that has occurred to me over time, since I taught a Wednesday Evening bible class just over a year ago. The title of the lesson was “When Faith & Politics Meet”. I have posted the lesson in most of my blogs and have posted most of it here on Scott’s blog as well.

I see this bumper sticker quite often that says “I am Proud to be an American”, the magnet version is in the picture posted above right. (Whoops! How did that get in here?)

It is a point that Scott has encouraged me to contemplate, because the attitude that is revealed will necessarily divide humanity between America and others.

However, the goal of the Lord is, and always has been, to have all barriers removed from between individual men and women as well as from between humanity and God.
St. Paul certainly recognized this, look at the following passage and think about the pride within the bumper stickers.
“Power of Pride” indeed.

Galatians 3:26-29, 26 So you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have been made like him. 28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians—you are one in Christ Jesus.(emphasis added by the Holy Spirit. If you don’t believe it, just ask Him!) 29 And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and now all the promises God gave to him belong to you.

Galatians 3:26
Greek sons.

Galatians 3:28
Greek Jew or Greek.
Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 . Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

To the above passage we might add ‘there is no American or European’.

Nevertheless, we have jumped headlong into the very trap, about which Paul warned the Galatian Church.

And furthermore, we do it gladly with pride. We boast arrogantly about our nationality and our state of birth. We stick red, white and blue magnetic slogans on our cars, such as; “The Power of Pride”. All the while we forget that the the power of pride is death…, always & without exception. Pride is a dead end street.

It is only by humility that we become like our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not see Jesus walking around Palestine, for the three years of his ministry, carrying a placard that said “Proud to be a Jew”. Consider this final section from St. Paul’s letter the the Galatians.

Galatians 6:14-16, 14 As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world died long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. 15 It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people. 16 May God’s mercy and peace be upon all those who live by this principle. They are the new people of God.

Galatians 6:14
Or Because of him.

Galatians 6:16
Greek the Israel of God.
Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 . Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Does the passage above have anything in common with with a philosophy of division or superiority?
As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What if we did our “identity-pride” based on our galaxy, the Milky Way, instead of all of the other ways, e.g. by nationalism, sports teams, automobile manufacturers, etc.?

We would be far more unified with this approach to division?

Instead of seeing bumper stickers that read “Texas Native” or “Proud to be an American”, we could just have “Proud to be a Milky Wayan” or “Proud to be a Milky Wayfarer”.

God bless,
DSM