Deification of the State

A biblical person, writes William Stringfellow, must always be wary of claims which the State (nation, government) makes for allegiance, obedience, and service under the rubric of patriotism.  Such demands are often put in noble, or benign or innocuous terms.  Stringfellow suggests that in any country where the “rhetoric and rituals of conformity and obedience to a regime or ruler” are demanded, we are in danger of deifying the State, that is, subverting, overturning, undermining and invalidating the First commandment of the Ten:  “You shall have no other god before me,” or as rendered in the New Testament, “Thou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment (and the second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself”).  

Patriotism is not “my country, right or wrong.”  Patriotism is not an allegiance to a flag, or a national anthem, nor is it the acceptance of whatever is handed down as being patriotic. Patriotism is not a Republican Party thing—just as it is not a Democratic Party thing—it is bigger than either—and bigger than both combined. Patriotism is much bigger than that—unless we decide to belittle its meaning by making it mean my party only, my country only and my kind of people only (above all other countries and people)  are my god!  “Thou shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above,  or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”  I love my country, I honor the flag, but these are not my god.  A biblical person must always be wary so as not to be sucked in by the faux patriotism running rampant in America today.  One wonders, given some of the rhetoric of alleged Christians, whether the Lord’s House has become the Trump House!

Howard Zinn reminds us “that the words of the Declaration [of Independence] apply not only to people in this country, but also to people all over the world.  People everywhere have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  When the government becomes destructive of that, then it is patriotic to dissent and to criticize—to do what we always praise and call heroic when we look upon the dissenters and critics in totalitarian countries who dare to speak out.”

Our flag, our anthem, our country, are not the only things to which we owe our allegiance.  We owe our allegiance to justice and to all humanity.  James Bryce writes, “Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”