Sunday, June 8, 2008

Struggling Patriot

Its been over a year since my last post so I doubt that anyone still looks here anymore. But Here it goes anyway.

I am a patriot -I bleed red, white, and blue. I was raised on Air Force bases across our Country. As a child growing up on the headquarters of Tactical Air Command, every day was like an air show. All I had to do was look up into the sky and there would be multiple F-15's doing cool things in tight formation. My dad was an influential scientist / developer known as the Czar of SAR (synthetic aperture radar, I could explain but then I'd have to kill you.)

I am a patriot - but for a couple years now I have been struggling with the possible conflict between my patriotism and where and how God wants to direct my life. As most of you know I am on a journey attempting to follow The Way of Christ as he reveals it to me.

Christ was apolitical and could certainly not be called a patriot. I have previously dismissed the divergence between myself and Christ in this respect, because I live in the frigin' US of A. I mean those Romans were evil, bad dudes and our country was founded by Christians right?

At my church we are talking about the Kingdom of God and this has renewed my struggle. Can I be a patriot concerned about the USA's Kingdom and at the same time be 100% sold out to God's Kingdom. There was a time when I thought they (the two kingdoms) could not be in conflict so it doesn't matter, but I have a tough time believing that anymore. It even seems to be similar to serving two masters.

As always I'm more interested in your thoughts than mine - what about civic duties? Civil obedience? the military? so many questions

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't have answers to your questions, but I love the heart behind the asking!

Sam said...

I read a thread once that begged the question, "Is revolutionary war ever biblical?" The question was based on Roman's 13:1 and submitting to the governing authorities. If we read that scripture and take it verbatim, then even the American Revolution was against God's scripture. You know, the one led by Christian men with Christian views who truly believed our God was behind them. How do you deal with that?

It was great to see a post from you, brother. Sorry I didn't post a decent answer, but I need to think some more before anything makes sense.

drifter said...

Romans 13:1 thats a great one - talk about the mystery of the bible. It speaks about submitting to authority and at the same time they were illegally meeting as Christians. hiding in catacombs and in peoples homes etc.

Sam said...

Priceless stuff, huh? I love that book.

Chel said...

Steve,

I just want to affirm you for jumping back on the blog wagon. My head is really screwed up in this area having spent most of my adult life in a pacifist church community, and being an ancestor of Sargent Yorkhttp://www.medalofhonor.com/Sgt.York.htm, and a child of Vietnam Vet, I had a lot of conflicting viewpoints, so darn, I'm just confused!
Anywho, it is cool to hear your views on the topic...