I was originally
going to write this post about the confusion of Christianity, patriotism, and
American nationalism in the United States these days. But President Trump has just decided to end
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that kept
undocumented/illegal* immigrants who came to the US as children from being
deported. While many of these immigrants
are now adults, they were brought here as children through no choice or fault
of their own, and many don’t know any home but this country. The US government is punishing children for
the actions of their parents.
Aside from the
justice or injustice of the American** immigration system, this whole thing
should make those of who identify as Christians take a moment to think about
our place in the world.
Here in America,
Christianity and nationalism seem to go hand in hand for quite a lot of us –
many Americans say that the United States is a “Christian nation” – a biblical
“city on a hill” – and not so subtly imply that American patriotism is part of
being a good Christian. Of course, all
of this presupposes that Christianity the a kind of thing that can have nations
and national allegiances. Regardless of
the degree to which that is true or false, polities are a thing, and Christian
people are a part of them.
In trying to
understand nationalism, historian and political scientist Benedict Anderson
writes about nations as what he refers to as “imagined communities”.*** These
communities are “imagined”, not in the sense being fictional, but in the sense that
their members do not interact face to face as in a family or small town. While I might know and interact with a
certain number of other Americans on a personal level, I have not and never
will meet the vast majority of them. The
same can be said of every other American (unless you travel a lot and are
really, really friendly), yet we have a sense that all of us are somehow the
same kind of people: Americans. Granted,
there are always arguments about who’s really
in and out of that or any other group, but the point is that we conceive of
ourselves as common members of a meaningful community despite our lack of
personal intimacy. As such, these
imagined communities are key to our sense of identity and the way we understand
our place in the world, and they can motivate us to engage in a variety of
actions and for reasons we might not otherwise.
Those of us who
are American Christians need to think about three imagined or conceptual
communities in particular right now:
1. The
Church broadly conceived; the great body of Christians throughout the world,
whatever their theology, practice, or denomination; the Body of Christ****
2. Humanity
as a whole, and I mean everyone; the community of every single person on earth
3. Our
country: the United States of America
In what order do
we rank the importance our membership in these imagined communities for
ourselves? The order above is my answer,
but you have to answer for yourself. But
answer honestly, lip service does us no good.
We can be
Americans and proud to be Americans, but we will always come to a point at
which our faith demands that that identity take a back seat to our commitments to
other communities.
I find today’s
slogan of “America First” to be fundamentally at odds with the Gospel of
Christ, which calls us to emulate His sacrificial love. What that might look like politically and
internationally is complicated and without easy answers.
But when it
comes to DACA, as well as how we view and act towards all manner of refugees
from war, poverty, and violence, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ words in
Matthew 25:31-46:
When the Son of
Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his
glorious throne. Before him
will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but
the goats on the left. Then the King will
say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was
naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and
you came to me.” Then the righteous will
answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty
and give you drink? And when did we see
you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and
visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it
to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”
Then he will say
to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. For
I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I
was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”
Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or
thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to
you?” Then he will answer them, saying,
“Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you
did not do it to me.” And these will go
away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
I’m not going to
tell you what to do, but I hope I’ve given you something to think about.
* There’s lot of politics involved with how you refer
to people who entered the country outside of legal immigration channels (which
themselves have major problems that make them difficult to use), but I’m not sure
the discussion makes a huge amount of difference in what I’m talking about
here.
** “America” is obviously a problematic term here –
North America, South America, Latin America, etc. – but I’m going to use it to
mean the United States of America, as that’s where I and most of my readers
live and how we refer to it.
*** Anderson, Benedict. 2006 [1983].
Imagined Communities: Reflections
on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
London: Verso.; I am in no way giving Anderson’s ideas the complex
explanation they deserve, but such are the realities of blogging, I guess.
**** Like many other Christians, I believe that there
is a very real spiritual dimension to this community that goes beyond the type
of thing Anderson is talking about, but that’s beyond the scope of this type of
analysis.
