Redefining McCain's Country First meme

Religious Leftists are hard at work these days and they're predictably all singing from the same song sheet... imagine that.

First up, Mike Todd:

As followers of Jesus, we should not and cannot put country first. Our allegiance is to the King and the Kingdom, not the president and the country.

...

As a believer my God comes first. Then, I would suggest comes family and/or community, depending on whether or not you view those two terms as separate or not. After that might come country.

Then comes Mike's hero, Jim Wallis, my favorite pretender:

Should country be put ahead of faith, too? I kept wanting to yell back at the people yelling at me about putting the country first and say, "No, not me, I'm a Christian." Because we as Christians simply can't put our country first, ahead of God, ahead of Jesus Christ, ahead of the body of Christ (remember the worldwide body of Christ), and even family and friendship. Especially when our country is wrong, and when most of the rest of the body of Christ around the world thinks so.

And in a piece cloaked in Obama worship, Greg Boyd (by way of Tim Chesterton) begins:

I’m a citizen of a different empire (Phil 1:27; 3:20) and therefore a foreigner in this one (Heb. 11:13; 1 Pet 1:17; 2:11). I’m only here as an ambassador and soldier sent to defend and advance the interests of my own homeland while being careful not to get too involved in civilian affairs (2 Cor 5:20; 2 Tim. 2:4).

Now, there's lots I could say in reply, lots to counter what I deem to see as an obfuscation of what McCain (and many patriots) have to say when they refer to country being first.

But I can't match the eloquence of James Joyner:

One presumes McCain doesn’t quite literally mean that he values his citizenship above, say, his family, friends, and former comrades in arms on a day-to-day basis.  I’m rather sure he doesn’t.  But he’s willing to risk all those things, and his life itself, in support of a higher calling.

America was quite literally founded on the idea of individual rights.   But while we’ve declared those rights to be inalienable and God-given, they nonetheless have to be guarded and defended by men like John McCain.

And there's the rub. 

Either in ignorance or with willful deception, we're led to believe by the progressively pious that country first is a blasphemously negative concept when in reality, it's quite the opposite.  Jesus himself spoke of this I believe when he spoke of the greatest love. 

Obama admittedly spoke of country first as well though I think firmly that he spoke of a country he hopes to see America become and not the country America has already been.  Just ask his wife.

Obama's country first idea is one I'm willing to bet Mike, Jim, and Greg would be more willing to embrace should this country become what Obama wishes it to become. 

And then country first would be redefined once more.

For more on this, with eloquence and passion, see Mommynator's piece.

Comments

[Tim Chesterton]

Rick, I'm not quite sure, after reading this piece, where you stand on the actual issue. For a Christian, is it OK to love your country more than you love God, or not? I would say it is not. Anything I love more than I love God is an idol.

Second, you're doing the standard militarist misapplication of the passage from John. Jesus, was about to allow himself to be crucified without resisting or retaliating - this was how he was going to lay down his life for his friends. 'You are my friends if you do what I command you'. None of the disciples in the upper room that night interpreted that verse to mean that if one of them was being attacked, the other should kill the attacker in their defence, and that if they died trying, they had a special claim on Jesus' friendship. That is a matter of plain historical fact.

[Leslie]

>>For a Christian, is it OK to love your country more than you love God, or not?

Tim, this is NOT the question in this case. John McCain's own slogan "Country First" which he's using for his own campaign is being used to portray the sentiment that he's putting the country first before himself. Putting others before self IS a Christian sentiment at least as far as I know.

I would think those who feel concern over the power of the evangelical right in the US might be relieved to see a Republican presidential candidate not using God as a campaign tactic for once.

[Rick]

Tim, Leslie has stolen some of my thunder though likely more articulately and eloquently.

You've couched this in your favor by attempting to state that John McCain (and others) loves his country more than he loves God. I mean, if that's the premise, the argument's over is it not?

And isn't your premise steeped in judgment? I mean how do you know that John McCain loves country more than God? How do you know that any of his supporters do? Isn't your accusation steeped in presumption?

And finally... I'm interested in this "standard militarist misapplication" of Scripture idea... if something like that is possible, and I think it could be, then is there the possibility that you, on occasion, do the "standard pacifist misapplication" of passages in Scripture?

Just curious.

[Leslie]

>>Leslie has stolen some of my thunder

Oops.

[Tim Chesterton]

I didn't make an accusation, Rick - I asked a question. And the question wasn't about Mr. McCain's views, it was about yours. I asked it because in all the time I've been reading your blog I don't think I ever recall you discussing the issue of what happens when loyalty to Christ and loyalty to your country are in conflict with each other. I can't even recall you discussing hypothetical circumstances when that might be the case. So rather than me speculating (e.g. "I guess Rick must think that God's interests and America's interests always coincide"), I just thought I'd ask.

As to your question about my 'standard pacifist misinterpretation' - of course it's possible. None of us can be absolutely certain that we're right. All we can do is try to do the best possible exegesis of the text. For me, that includes taking into account the context. That's what I did. If you think I'm wrong about the context and what it says to us about the meaning of the text, by all means say so.

Leslie, you're quite right, of course - I have no way of knowing what's going on in Mr. McCain's heart, and of course I don't want to see people using 'God' as a campaign tool.

I guess my disquiet (and I suspect Mike's too, but I can't speak for him) is twofold. First, too often (all over the world, including the country of my birth) I've seen people whose belief that their country comes first includes a belief that other people's countries somehow aren't as important or worthy or significant. The nation becomes their basic community of identity. I can't believe that can be right for a Christian, because we're told that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female - we are one in the family of Christ. So my basic community of identity ought to be the family of believers around the world.

Secondly, I guess I'm skeptical because there's not a politician alive who doesn't claim, when they're trying to get elected, that they love their country and will put their country first.

Do I love my country? Of course I do - all the more so, because I chose to become a Canadian. But that doesn't mean I think Canada is somehow better or more worthy than any other country - or that I think Canada should follow policies that cause suffering in other countries just because they're good for us right here - or that when I criticise my country I'm somehow being less patriotic.

Sorry for going on a bit in this reply!

[Rick]

I'm trying to understand how all of us (believers) being one in Christ (and this would obviously exclude many... correct? And doesn't that just bite the liberal in the butt?) and being heirs of God's promise to Abraham is somehow intrepreted to mean that a heirarchy of nations is then done away with... I mean... doesn't the verse deal just with the family of believers? And wouldn't it make sense that we'd elevate that nation (or nations) that allow, promote and in some way encourage the freedom to join that family?

I mean, I just got lectured on the use of context... you tell me how you're arriving at your conclusions based on the Galatians 3:28 verse?

I'm not sure that your standard pacifist misapplication of Scripture applies here but I think your standard eisegetical misapplication does...

... just sayin'... but hey, I'll allow you the time to straighten me out here.

And by the way... the loyalty question and why you've not seen it addressed here...

I don't think my not addressing it means what I'm thinking you might think it means...

Suffice it to say that I think it to be about as interesting as the angels on the head of a pin discussion.

[Tim Chesterton]

Hmm. Good question. Let me do my best, off the top of my head.

The immediate catalyst for Paul's writing of the letter to the Galatians seems to have been a dispute about whether loyalty to Judaism should come before unity in the Body of Christ. As Paul makes clear in the first couple of chapters, what happened was that the Christians in Antioch, both Jewish and Gentile, were sharing their common meal (probably an early informal eucharist) together, despite the fact that this was against Jewish law (eating with Gentiles, who weren't circumcised and didn't keep kosher). To the traditional Jewish Christians, this was disloyalty to God's covenant with Abraham, which required circumcision and stipulated that anyone who refused to be circumcised should be cut off from his people. To Paul, the new covenant means that the boundary markers have changed - it's no longer an ethnic nation defined by circumcision, sabbath, food laws, but a multinational community characterised by faith in Christ and baptism into Christ.

In short, I don't think I'm engaging in eisegesis at all. The whole point of the letter is that faith in Christ unites those who had previously been divided along national lines. Precisely what I've been trying to say here.

As far as unity in the Body of Christ excluding some folks, and this 'biting liberals in the butt', is concerned - I'm really not trying to be a consistent liberal, I'm trying to be a consistent Christian. This means that I'll look for sisters and brothers in Christ across national (and political party) divisions, and my primary loyalty will be to them, as a result of our common loyalty to Christ. Conservative or liberal, left or right - we'll all be right some of the time and wrong at other times. I'm sure I'm wrong at times. That's one of the reasons I hang around on the blogs of people who disagree with me. If being 'bitten in the butt' can set me straight about what it means to be a loyal follower of Jesus, that's fine with me.

And I'm a bit surprised that you think the issue of clash of loyalties is insignificant, Rick. The early Christians died for it. They were required to offer incense to the emperor as a god - which in those days was very much the equivalent of a pledge of allegiance. They refused, and paid with their lives.

Hierarchy of nations? I've no idea. The New Testament doesn't speak to the issue. But I'd be wary of the idea that the Body of Christ necessarily needs a sympathetic state in order to be able do its evangelistic work well. After all, after 45 years of communist rule church attendance in Poland was still over 90%. That's a lot better than Edmonton.

[Rick]

You return to the clash of loyalties theme despite the fact that I (and Leslie) have pointed out that we're not seeing what you're seeing.

And, again, I think that what McCain (and other America lovers) are attempting to communicate when they speak of country first is that country that allows them to be agents of freedom, a freedom that allows them unhindered access to worship who they wish to, when they wish to and with whom they wish to.

Finally, I wonder what you and Mike, Greg or Jim would be saying if we had a Presidential candidate who did nothing but attempt to put God first. I mean, you guys are normally pretty huge on the whole separation of church and state idea... correct? I imagine that only if you folks would see the man putting God first in a manner that aligns with what you define that to mean would you be happy. And if that's the case, what happens if other believers disagree with that definition.

Oh yea... it would mean that they're interpreting those actions incorrectly or not within the proper context and that you're the judge of whether or not that interpretation meets your standards.

Which does nothing more than make you God.

Which I'd call idolatry.

[Leslie]

http://revcjconner.com/?p=184

[Morgan K Freeberg]

This is NOT about which comes first. And I can prove it: These "God Before Country" liberals are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the secular types who want to expunge any tincture of recognition of any Higher Power from anything in public view...e.g., Moses from the Supreme Court building; any facsimile of the Ten Commandments within; "In God We Trust" from our money.

If it was really all about "God Before Country" there would be at least the hint of some schism within the left-wing side, about whether such an exuberant and energized campaign of sanitization is appropriate. Or, if it's appropriate, whether it should be made a priority. There is no such schism so far as I can see. So ends the "Which Comes First?" argument. It's a phony charade, nothing more.

No, the Todd/Wallis camp is just proving Ann Coulter correct. Maybe that's the proper rejoinder -- hey, you just proved Ann Coulter right.

Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position.

It isn't about prioritization; it's about destruction, plain and simple. Prioritization is just the excuse.

[Mommynator]

As you say, Morgan. Exactly right.

Please note that these lefty purists are worse than the prohibitionist ladies.

The prohibitionist women had actual grounds for their protest even if it went too far. There was real and rampant abuse of alcohol at the time (much worse than we can imagine), and real women and families were being negatively impacted by that abuse. It was a major cause of continued poverty, physical abuse and female death by violence.

These proto-feminists didn't sit idly by and pooh-pooh at how evil men were (they already knew that because as Christians, they knew that all of us are evil) - they rose up as a body, enlisted like-minded men and raised awareness of the evil, protested, legislated, etc. That this drove alcohol underground did not minimize the good they did when prohibition was repealed - many families did benefit from this. Many families were spared the slavery of a head of the household spending the family's income on something destructive when abused.

How history is re-written, how true the evil in the hearts of men and women when they seek to dominate instead of serve (this is the real definition of witchcraft, btw), all disguised with squinty eyes, pinched nostrils and the air of righteousness.

Now that's worse than treason to one's country - that's treason to one's fellow human beings whom we are supposed to be treating like we would like to be treated.

That is the root.

[Howard]

OBAMA = BETRAYAL
Obama supporters are foolish to think that he will never betray them.
Obama was a close friend of Pastor Wright for TWENTY YEARS.
Obama threw Wright under the bus for personal ambition.
McCain would not betray his country even, after 5 years of torture.
You can put lipstick on a traitor, but he's still a traitor.

[charles]

Change you can trust, a slogan that could turn around McCain's campaign?

Change you can trust contrasts beautifully with change you can believe in.

Everyone wants change, only with a team that we can trust to implement it.
If you're in a tough spot, you want someone to come to help you that you can trust, not someone you believe may want to help you.

John McCain, polls show, is rated as highly qualified and highly trusted. This slogan, change you can trust, reinforces this message.

It can even be added on to John McCain’s current slogan. Country first, change you can trust. Or perhaps Change you can trust that puts Country first. Or how about Change you can trust that puts America first

It implies without directly saying it that the other side is perhaps a little less trustworthy.

It also reinforces the message that in a time we were facing battle with Al Qaeda worldwide and two conventional wars, John McCain is a commander in chief you can trust to lead us to victory.

There are 30 days left before Election Day. Sarah Palin’s debate performance was good, but it's really up to John McCain to win.

CHANGE You Can TRUST

CHANGE You Can TRUST to put COUNTRY FIRST

CHANGE You Can TRUST to put AMERICA FIRST

CHANGE - TRUST
COUNTRY FIRST

John, are you listening???

http://strategicthought-charles77.blogspot.com/2008/10/change-you-can-trust-slogan-that-could.html