Government & Politics

Question: Should Christians Pledge Allegiance to a Flag?

Kirk E. Miller

Recent events have rekindled an old question:

Should Christians — whose ultimate and only unqualified allegiance is to Christ — pledge their allegiance to a national flag, or similarly (but maybe a little different) participate in a national anthem? This in light of the fact that a nation’s interests and activities may — and quite expectantly will — in ways conflict with one’s Christian convictions? But also this in balance with Biblical imperatives to submit to our government and give honor and respect to whom it is do (e.g., Rom 13)? (But even this — at least the imperative to submit — is not unqualified [see, for example, Acts 5:29]).

And, to nuance this properly, if Christians were to abstain from such activities, would they do so as an absolute principle (e.g., never pledging due to its inherent inappropriateness, like many anabaptists hold) or only in particular cases and for particular reasons? And if the latter, in what incidences should we abstain (e.g., one could think of a nation’s legalization of the killing of the unborn as a potential legitimization)? What criteria should we use to determine these sorts of incidences?

It would seem that most Christians would draw the line somewhere. (For example, I can’t imagine that many of us would be comfortable giving our allegiance to Nazi Germany.) As such, I’m not sure we can blankety reject the idea out of hand. We can debate the when and where; but I’m not sure we should debate if or whether.

In other words, if our response is an unthoughtful, gut reaction of “[Bleep] no, ’cause… well, ‘Merica! I’m a patriot, gosh darnit!” I’m not sure that’s the best ethical system. These are definitely things to be thought through. And — personal confession — I’ll admit, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with these things (i.e., pledge of allegiance, national anthem) out of principle.

The Danger of Abortion as a Wedge Issue (Carl Trueman)

Kirk E. Miller

The use of abortion as a wedge issue and as a clear dividing line between Republican and Democratic parties has the potential to kill intelligent discussion on a host of other political topics.  After all, if Republican and Democrat are the only two credible electoral options in most places, then, according to many, the Christian way of voting is obvious, and it is pointless to discuss any other policies or issues.

Such an attitude is in my experience very common in Christian circles, and it is problematic for two reasons.  First, it fails to address the difference between Republican rhetoric on abortion and action on the same, which is often dramatic and serves to weaken the rather stark polarities that are often drawn between Republicans and Democrats.  Second, it preempts discussion on a host of other issues – poverty, the environment, foreign policy, etc. – and thereby runs the risk of provoking a reaction among younger evangelicals that relativizes the issue of abortion and thus achieves the opposite of what it intends.

Carl Trueman, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, xx.

This is one of those cases where we have to make sure we are good and fair readers (I’m afraid we often fail in that respect…)

Notice: Trueman is not saying abortion isn’t horrendous. He’s not saying it isn’t an important political issue. Nor is he saying we shouldn’t oppose it with all of our political fiber. He’s not even necessarily saying here (he may say this elsewhere–I’m not sure; but he’s not saying it here at least) that one shouldn’t or can’t be what’s called “a single-issue voter,” if by that we mean that stances on certain issues necessarily disqualify a candidate from one’s vote (see someone like Denny Burk), not that only one issue should concern our vote (Trueman is obviously opposing that).

What he is saying, however, is that there is a danger (it’s just a danger, not an entailment) in using abortion as a litmus test for candidates. And that danger is shutting down the conversation on other important issues like foreign policy, the environment (think climate change), poverty and economic inequality, criminal justice, the racialized nature of our society, immigration, the refugee crisis, etc.

And, if I’m going to be honest, I’m afraid that’s what’s happened in much white American evangelical engagement in politics (note the recent fiasco criticizing Thabiti Anyabwile; see this Twitter thread for a good example). It would appear that abortion-as-wedge-issue has resulted in us becoming painfully partisan, in a way that results in us merely becoming pawns for a particular political party.

The Use of Scripture in Politics: A Comparison and Analysis of Jim Wallis and Wayne Grudem

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The following is a paper submitted to Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ST 7505 Use of Scripture and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in December 2015 in Deerfield, Illinois.

The full title of the paper is The Use of Scripture in Evangelical Political Proposals – A Case Study: Comparing, Contrasting, and Analyzing Jim Wallis and Wayne Grudem’s Use Of Scripture to Authorize Their Distinct Approaches to Economics.

Note: I’m not the proudest of this paper. Due to time restraints I was forced to write it in the timespan of merely two days. Nonetheless, I share it in case anyone may benefit from it by its prompting critical reflection. I only ask they you read with an extra dose of grace on this one. Thank you.

Introduction

“Our guys won!” Those were the words of one of my fellow church members after Republican candidates largely swept their Democrat counterparts in the 2014 midterm elections. A neither small nor insignificant assumption was present in her statement: the Republican candidates were the evangelicals’ candidates; a victory for the Republicans meant a victory for Christendom.

Such a wedding of the religious right with the political right is not uncommon in the American evangelical consciousness, and, by extension, the perception of the popular culture at large. For example, if one listens consistently enough to Albert Mohler’s daily broadcast The Briefing,[1] one will be repeatedly “informed” that the ultimate difference between the political right and political left is one of worldview: progressive policies are spawned out of what is an unqualifiedly non-Christian worldview (either that or political liberalism is equated with theological liberalism) while political conservatism is described in such terms (and without nuance) so as to lead one to believe it is essentially a Christian (evangelical) worldview gone political.

One can trace this formalized “hypostatic union” of evangelicalism and republicanism—deeming theological conservatism and political conservatism “equally yoked,” and “deifying” the political right in the process—back to (at least) the emergence of the Moral Majority movement beginning in the 1980s with Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell. However, authors such as Carl Trueman in his work Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative challenge this “sacramental union” as “accident” not “essence.” As Michael Horton writes in his recommendation to Trueman’s work,

Carl Trueman points out in his witty, provocative, and deeply well-informed way [that] the alliance of conservative Christianity with conservative (neoliberal) politics is a circumstance of our own context in U.S. politics—neither historically nor logically necessary.[2]

“Amen, amen!” says fellow Brit N.T. Wright:

The combinations of issues [i.e., the bundling up of certain political issues as “conservative” and others as “liberal” and binding evangelicalism to the former] seem to make sense in America, but they don’t make sense to many people elsewhere in the world. . . .[3]

[T]he political spectrum in the United Kingdom, and indeed in Europe, is quite different from the spectrum in the United States. In Britain, issues are bundled up in different ways than in America. What’s more, over the last forty years, those in the United Kingdom who have tried to integrate faith and public life have mostly been on the left of the spectrum, while those who have done the same in the United States have tended to be on the right.[4]

“The British are coming! The British are coming!” and they are challenging our American political-religious bundlings in the process.

But lest we think these Brits are just off their rockers, interestingly a 2007 study by Baylor Religion Survey found that the more frequently one reads the Bible the more likely one is to lean politically liberal on certain issues. And, statistically, those who read their Bible’s most were found to be evangelicals—the stereotypical political conservatives. Expectedly, frequent Bible reading correlates with opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But it also surprisingly (at least given the contemporary stereotype of evangelicals) has the effect of making readers more prone to agree with political liberals on issues like criminal justice, the death penalty, environmental conservation, and, most interestingly for the purposes of this paper’s case study, social and economic justice. These results hold true “even when accounting for factors such as political beliefs, education level, income level, gender, race, and religious measures (like which religious tradition one affiliates with, and one’s views of biblical literalism).”[5]

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