Love of Country
Amos 7:10-17
Acts 5:12-29
July 4, 1971

John M. Buchanan

I would begin by relating three brief stories which demonstrate the dimen-—
gions of our topic this morning: Love of Country.

The time is 750 B.C. Jeroboam II was King of Israel, reigning in a rare
era of peace and prosperity. Israel's enemies were occupied with domestic
‘problems and the Kingdom was free to develop its resources and turn its atten—
tion to matters other than survival. But all was not well with Isracl. The
rich were oxploiting the poor: religion was very popular but quite ineffective
in torms of justice and fair play: the affluent wiled away the hours in lavish
living. ;

One man dared to speak, Amos was his name and he addressed his people
out of a deep love for the nation and a deep conviction that Israel's future
was dependent on her willingness to obey the moral laws of God. But, predict-
ably, when he spoke the King, the priests and many of the, people didn't like
what they heard. In fact, the priest of Bethel, a man by the name of fmaziah
told Jeroboam the King, "Amos is conspiring against you. . . the country
cannot hear what he is saying.” nd to Amos, himself, Amaziah said, "Be off,
you seer! Off with you to Judah! You can earn your living and do your pro~
phecying there, But never prophecy again at Bethel, for this is the King's
sanctuary." That is, JAmaziah, had he owned an automobile, would have attached
a bumper sticker declaring "Israel: Love it or leave it."

That's the first story. The second takes place 800 years later in Jeru-
salem. The powers in authority were Roman, The day to day rulers of the
people were Jews who collaborated with the Romans. 4 man by the name of Simon
Peter got himself arrested for preaching and teaching something about the
sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The case was very clear. The government issucd
an injunction. Peter was ordered to stop, on the grounds that what he was

saying was subversive to the constituted authorities and treasonous to the

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legitimate government. Peter was incarcerated a second time and the high priest
confronted him with his crime: "We expressly ordered you to desist from teach-
ing in that name: and what has happened? You have filled Jerusalem with your
teaching, and you are trying to make us responsible for that man's death."

To which Peter replied with characteristic bluniness: "We must obey God

rather than men."

That is the second story. Amos was exiled. Peter was flogged for that
particular infraction, but the issue is the samc. To whom does one owe ultim-
ate allegience, and can one be loyal to nation while at the same in opposition
to and disobedient of the constituted authorities of that nation?

fho third vignette is a bit broader in scope. The time is the second half
of the 18th century: the place - Great Britain's colonies in the New World.
The majority of people who braved the wilderness of the New World were Cal-
vinists and Presbyterian. They didn't like monarchy or totalitarianism of
ety form: they didn't like taxation without representation: they didn't like
the state infringing on their right to worship as they pleased: in fact, they
were adamantly opposed to any government which presumed to dictate the content
of their conscience. "That", they affirmed, "belongs to God." In far away
England, where a few skirmishes in the year 1716 were not even newsworthy, the
affair was officially dubbed "The Presbyterian Revolt." ind in that same
year, a Dr. Ingles, rector of the inglican Trinity Church in New York, wrote
in his diary one of my favorite historical observations. "I do not know one
Presbyterian minister, nor have I been able, after strict inquiry, to hear
of any who did not by preaching and every effort in their power promote all
the measures of the Continental Congress, however extravagant." { & Brief

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History of the Presbyterians, Il. i. Loetscher ]

Those three illustrations from history deliniate the issue involved in
the topic, "Love of Country". Can a man be a patriot and at the same time
be faithful to his God? Can a man give allegience to nation while reserving

ultimate allegience to God, the Lord of conscience? Can a man love hig,

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country so mich that he disobeys the constituéed authorities because he is
convinced they are eptine-acoudsie’ It is no casy issue, and in a sense it
has been the cause of the deepest soul searching by mon of good will since
time began. |

How it is resolved, of course, depends on how you define patriotism,
or love of country. And it is both the uniqueness and greatness of our nation
that the definition is written into the system: the Declaration of Indopen-
dence: the Constitution: the Bill of Rights: and the continuing process by
which the courts of the land define and redefine the law.

The American experiment, you see, was initiated on the basis of some
fundamental assumptions about the nature of man individually, and corporately
in the body politic. It is assumed, for instance, that the individual man
is important; that he has inherent worth and dignity: that he was created
to be free. The documents express it in terms of "certain unalienable rights”
such as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." History taught the
founders of the Republic that governments, inevitably, infringe on those
rights: that political systems, invariably usurp individual rights rather
than protect them. {md so they created a new system, based on the assump-
tion that the rights of the individual will forever be protected in this land.

The second assumption, is that while men were created to be free, they
are also hopeless egotists. Therefore, government needs always to contain
restraints and checks and balances so that men do not have the opportunity
to exploit and use other mon. |

The third assumption is that a man's conscience is sacred, and that no
earthly authority has the right to dictate the content of a man's conscien¢¢s
In terms of religion, it meant that the state would support not particular
religion: that Saohin would be free to be religious or not religious when
and how and to the degree they please. In terms of the common life, it meant

that men would be free to disagree with their government: free to live here

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and nice ae rights and privileges of the nation, even if they didn't love
it: free to oppose the constituted authorities ‘so long as they did not
advocate violent overthrow of the system.

Those assumptions - which, by the way, are very dear to the heart of
Presbyterianism - are both the uniqueness and greatness of our nation. The
trouble is, that we don't always understand that, and many people who do under—
stand it, don't appear to agree with it. The founding fathers were correct:
the thread of liberty is frail indeed and the American system is always in
danger of becoming something other than they intended it at the hands of men
who don't understand or don't buy the fundamental assumptions. The super—
patriot, for instance, who advocates putting all war-dissenters in jail, and
bombing North Vietmam back to the stone age, as a matter of national honor,
may be spouting some very popular rhetoric, but he is also engaging in un-
Americanism, at the most profound level.

History teaches us that patriotism is at once one of man's noblest
emotions, and also one of his most dangerous and destructive. When patriotism
becomes nationalsim, as it often does, it evolves into an extension of our
individual egocentricity. You and I hava a deeply felt need to be number
one, to build a little world with self at the center, to regard others as
instruments to be used for our own gratification. We Presbyterians call
that original sin. Extreme nationalism feeds on it and appeals to it. Barly
in our history it led us to a doctrine called "Manifest Destiny", which in
the vernacular meant "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". In Germany
it was famed by the rhetoric of Nazies that - Germanic people were better and
had more rights and were, in fact, entitled to rule the world. It shows its
head regularly in conversations Cae coe own pogture in international
relations, whenever someone advocates that we have the right and resporsi-
bility to tell another people how to order their life.

In a recent article Saturday Review on Psychiatry and the Survival of
Man [S.R. 5/22/71] the author maintained that patriotism which turns the

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cornor into extreme nationalism is one of the three major problems that must

be resolved if mankind is to survive. He put it succinctly: "If man is to
have a future on this shrinking globe, the valucs of 'One World' and the
'Pamily of Man’ will have to wopetees’ the ethnocentric biases and suspicions
that now set nation against nation and race against race."

We are in a time when the appeal of nationalism is very strongs is we
learn more and more about the duplicity and deception that led us into the
Asian war we.want very badly not to face the truth, to be assured that our
country was and is right. {nd one very easy way to avoid the pain of honesty
is to shut out the truth and talk about preserving national honor, and rant
and rave about the greatest power on earth backing away from a band of committed
Vietnamese. That's destructive nationalism which, we of all people, ought to
oppose. But most of all, it is not really an expression of love for one's
country — as that country was intended to be.

Can a Christian be a patriot? Can a man who has given his ultimate
allegience to Jesus Christ, maintain a loyalty to his nation?

My answer to that question is affirmative, wholeheartedly affirmative.
ind I believe we not only can - but should -— love our nation in three procise
Way's.

First, I think we can love our country by pievacke Won and gratitude for
what is good about America. I don't think we have to be defensive about it
or apologetic for it. I think we can look at what this nation means and
what it has done and what it is, and be grateful. I think we can look at the
standard of living engendered by our system and be proud. I think we can and
ought to get up in the morning to begin a new day in a land where freedom
means I can live without fear, and be thankful. I think we can travel the
length and breadth of this incredible land and give passionate thanks for
its beauty and strength. I think we can go downtown to a meeting of the
3 city council, or pull the lever on the votineymaching and offer a prayer of

passionate appreciation. I think we can look into the past and shed tears

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of gratitude for the nobility and self sacrifice of those who made this exper—
iment work. For me it is the memory of John Calvin McCormick, for whom I
was named and who died on Saipan, and Prank Arndt Buchanan who died in
Normandy. I'm grateful for that and for what that meana and I'm one of those
who starts out singing the national anthem but has difficulty making it all
the way through without that memory and many others filling my cyes with
tears. There is much that is great and good about {imerica, and love of
country means being grateful for it. But that is not all.

Love of country means support of and participation in the political pro-
cesses by which its decisions are made and the course steered. I have very
little patience with the myth that the system will work apart from the partic-
ipation of people. I put little credence in that love of country that is
neglected on election day, or during the campaign, or that dismisses politics
as dirty business and all politicians as opportunists. Love of country means
bearing responsibility for it. Robert F. Kennedy said it eloquently: "if
we fail to dare, if we do not try, the next generation will harvest the fruit
of our apathy — a world we did not want — a world we did not chose - but a
world we could have made better, by caring for the results of our labors.
find we shall be left only with the hollow apology of T. S. Eliot; 'This is not
what I meant at all. This is not it at all." I know that you do not mean
to leave this kind of world to your children. But if you do not care, who
will.”

Love of country means caring to the degree of involvement. Finally, it
means a love mature and deep enough to be critical. It means the ability to
see what should be and then speak out when we fall short. It means knowing
and feeling words like justice and freedom and then expressing indignant
anger when they are ignored. It means loving the promise and potential of
fmerica, and then working for change when the promises are broken and the
potential unrealized.

Plato once said, "A lifo without criticism is not worth living." 5o
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it is with our notion. To love it is to acknowledge its failures: to look ~
at the truth honestly: +o know and to feel that our infant mortality rate is
tragically high: that we lead the world in crimes of robbery, rape and assault:
that a youmg black girl was shot down on the street of o Southern town: that
we are unwilling to tax ourselves for better education and to end poverty while
at the same time pouring billions of dollars into the weapons of war. To love
imerica is to take its problems seriously. To be a patriotic {merican is to
avoid the simplo-mindedness of nationalsim and deal critically with the ere
lems that are Imocking at our doors.

_ So let us love our land: and as we celebrate ite birth and formation let
ws recall that our ultimate allegience is to Jesus Christ alone - and that the
freedom for that allegience is part of what it means to be an imerican. Let
us love our country, not in a blind allegience, but gratefully, actively, and
critically: let us love with a love that wants the nation to be more than it
is: a love that sees the vision - that dream — the potential. fi. love that is -
thankful, vigorous and tough.

That, I would suggest ~ is Christian patriotism. |
JMeN
Our father, you are the Lord of all men and all nations, and we presume

no favoritism as citiz°Ms of this land. We are grateful for our country. x
Grant us conviction to work for its ideals: to affirm its goals: and to
work for the realization of its fondest dreams: through Jesus Christ our

Lord.

winen .