A Day with a Toddler

To rise at dawn and shake the world
With bright stampedes of little feet;
To fly in father’s arms downstairs,
In joyful cries the house to greet;

This is the morning of my son,
A day writ large in toddler’s joy.
We wheel pajama’d legs around
In sheer delight of being boy.

Into the living room we storm,
And see a zoo of friends around:
There’s Tigger, Pooh, and Curious George,
All heaped together in a mound.

Oh, the bliss of finding friends
With glossy fur and smiling eyes!
And oh, the joy of lining them
In new arrangements of surprise!

Now breakfast—that’s a messy thing:
It seems that spoons are just too slow;
So milk-dripped fists make quicker work
Of cereal; then off we go!

Baby Sam is borne downstairs,
And told directly where to stay;
He’s greeted with a “Hi, Baby!”
And then his brother’s off to play.

First lines of shapeless Play-Doh ducks,
Then markers on a cardboard box;
Next hiding underneath a chair
While Dad wrestles him into socks.

The world outside is bright and cold,
And full of reckless wonderment.
In coat and hat we face the day
And ponder where the leaves all went.

We pat the giant of a tree
That stands alone beside our car;
And murmur sympathetically
When we dislodge a chip of bark.

We chase the pigeons or a cat
If e’er they stray across our yard;
Driven by fascination’s fire
Rather than any thought to harm.

Puddles are perfect for jumping,
Or better, for sitting down in;
Picnic tables are for climbing,
And fallen leaves for tumbling in.

Inside for lunch, then take a nap
(A bright reprieve for Mom and Dad!)
Two hours down, or three at best,
Then face the world with vigor glad.

We read a stack of story books,
All familiar, yet wildly new;
Well-known books are fonder friends,
At least for boys not quite yet two.

At supper we sit down to eat
And have a battle of the wills—
He, who wants no more than cheese,
And parents urging vegetables.

Bathtime’s a fierce and wild cascade
Full of rubber ducks and splashing;
Pajamas slide on wheeling limbs
With laughter and with thrashing.

Now off to bed, but with a prayer—
He often wants to pray for “house!”
We pray for all within our home,
Then hug tight Pooh and Mickey Mouse.

He falls asleep; we breathe a sigh;
We’re done with one day for our son.
But then we stop and realize—
Oh man, we’ve got another one!

Matt's sermons now available online

You'll notice that there's a new link in the top lefthand corner of my blog--"Podcasts of Matt's Sermons." By clicking this link, you'll be brought to the website of the Second Baptist Church, where you'll see a list of recent sermons available for download. Most sermons are in .mp3 format, so they can be downloaded and played on most computer media players, as well as on any IPod or MP3 player. The Sunday morning services throughout this year have focused on a study of the Gospel of Luke, and the evening services have followed a study of some of the "Heroes of the Faith" from Christian tradition. We began with two early martyrs of the second century, Ignatius and Polycarp, and are now up to the High Middle Ages. These studies also include a set of notes in a handout, which you'll also find available for dowload in .pdf format. Enjoy!

Happy News for the Burdens

A few weeks ago, we welcomed a new addition to our family--our second son, Samuel. Now we have two little boys livening things up in the parsonage, and we're learning to get by on less sleep than usual. Here's a picture of the new little guy:



We had a bit of a scare going into it all, but it turned out wonderfully in the end--a marvelous testament to the power of prayer and the grace of God. The pregnancy had all gone very well, and we were at 37 weeks when they decided to do a late-term ultrasound to verify that the baby was in the right position for birth. That was when they noticed something wrong with his heart--one of the ventricles looked bigger than the other one. They sent us to Bangor (the nearest city of any size, about two hours away) for another ultrasound, and that was where the bad news really hit. The doctors thought they saw multiple abnormalities in the heart--we were looking at the possibility of complex congenital heart defects. They thought they saw not only the problem with the ventricles, but also a leaky valve, a narrowing of the aorta, and maybe even an abnormal hole in the septum. On top of this, they thought his stomach wasn't working quite right, and there were so many problems that they wondered whether there might be an underlying chromosomal disorder playing into all of it. We were devastated, of course--it sounded like our son might not make it at all, and if he did, we would be bringing him into a life of tremendous pain--of open-heart surgeries and hospital stays, maybe for months on end.


They sent us immediately down to Portland (the largest city in Maine, about four hours from home), where the baby was monitored overnight. By this time, of course, we had family and friends and church folks praying for our situation. The next morning, the pediatric cardiologist gave us our first glimpse of hope. There was still no way of knowing for sure what was going on, but he guessed that all of the problems in the heart might be related--it looked to him like a part of the baby's heart that is naturally supposed to close after birth was already closing early, and that narrowing was putting undue pressure on the right side of the heart. He wanted us to have the baby delivered right away. So, that afternoon, just three whirlwind, broken-hearted days since we heard the first hints of bad news, we were ready to bring our son into the world. He was delivered by C-section and taken quickly to the newborn intensive care unit. But, wonder of wonders, Samuel's heart problems completely disappeared all on their own. It was exactly as the pediatric cardiologist had suspected--all of the problem areas of the heart had been related to one problem--an early narrowing of a part that wasn't supposed to close until after birth. As soon as he was born, his lungs opened up and the blood was no longer backing up in the right side of his heart. All the other problems, too--the worries about his stomach and some later concerns over his leg--turned out to be nothing in the end. We have a healthy baby boy at home--praise God!

Update and Thoughts on Writing

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated my blog. No doubt my hordes of faithful readers have been pining away for another post for the past five months. But they say that "absence makes the heart grow fonder," which I'm sure is entirely untrue in this case.

During these past few months away from the blogosphere, I've been busy with quite a number of other things. First and foremost, there's another baby on the way, which is always exciting news. Soon there will be two little Burden boys running around. And pastoral work has kept me busy, as always. But it's pleasant work, and it affords me time to read and think and pray, and for that I'm grateful. A good deal of my creative energy has gone into a new sermon series for our Sunday evening services, focusing on the stories of various "heroes of the faith" from the pages of church history. It's a favorite topic of mine, and it's been fairly well-received by the congregation. Incidentally, I may be able to upload my sermons and talks as podcasts on our church website at some point, so I'll add a link to that if that ever becomes a reality.

And I've been working on writing, too. OakTara Fiction, my publisher, just put out a new edition of Freedom Cry (Book 1 of the Hidden Kings Trilogy). Having a second edition printed is usually an indication that sales are going well; but in this case the reverse is actually true. The great length of the novel was making the sale price too expensive to actually entice anyone to buy it, so the second edition was produced for the purpose of making the novel more marketable (ie, smaller font size equals less pages equals less cost). And as an added bonus, the cover art scheme has been revamped, as you can see in the photo on the side. I think it looks great. The lead character has grown quite a bit of hair since the first edition came out (he had kind of a buzz cut before, if you remember). If we ever do a third edition, he'll be in desperate need of a haircut by then!

We've also been working on getting Book 2 of the Hidden Kings Trilogy out--The Conqueror's Song. You can see an early sample of some possible cover art in the picture to the left, featuring a dashingly handsome young woodsman with a Bieber-esque haircut as the hero. I'm very excited about this book, and it should be out soon. I've had some great help from family and friends in the editing process and in the artistic design of the maps, and I'm tremendously grateful for that. Hopefully the novel will be coming out shortly; I'll give more updates as we get closer. This book is a bit of a change from Freedom Cry, because it actually jumps back over a thousand years and explores the legends of the mythic hero Warlent the Conqueror. Reaction from my early readers on this one was a bit more mixed than for Freedom Cry, partly because it does have a bit of a dark twist near the end. But never fear! It all works out in the end, and it sets up the plot of the final installment, Pathways of Mercy, for a wonderful wrap-up. Whereas Freedom Cry and The Conqueror's Song could each stand on their own as separate novels (although there are a lot of intriguing ironies for the reader of The Conqueror's Song if they're familiar with Freedom Cry), the third one is going to lean on both and bring them together into one single story. In Pathways of Mercy, we'll return to the cast of Freedom Cry and tie in some of the plotlines of that world's history that we learned from The Conqueror's Song, and with the whole trilogy in view, I think it will make a marvelous epic. So if you fell in love with the heroes of Freedom Cry, don't despair that book 2 will take you to a different story--we'll come back to them soon enough and tie it all together.

Anyway, it's all very exciting. But to tell the truth, I've been having much more fun working on a completely different story this summer. The trilogy is already complete on my end (it's just a matter of the publication process now), so I started work on a new project. It's shorter than any of my previous novels (at which news some of you will breathe a sigh of relief), and with much more of a whimsical flavor to it. It's called "Whispers of Adventure" (that's just a working title for now), and it's set up as a sort of Shrek-meets-Pilgrim's-Progress allegory of the Christian life. But not only is it a lot of fun, it also turned out to be quite a bit more substantive and edifying than I thought it might. I began writing it a few years ago as a tongue-in-cheek spiritual autobiography of sorts, and it took on a life of its own.

And that brings me to a complaint. One of the difficult things about being an author, at least in this early stage of my "career", is that by the time one of my novels gets published, it's already ancient history for me. I'm doing a talk at the local library about Freedom Cry this week, which is nice and all, and I'm very excited about it, but it's been four years since I finished writing the revised version of the novel (seven years since I started it)! The Conqueror's Song has been basically done for five years, and even Pathways of Mercy has been sitting around for a couple. So the book I'm most excited about now, "Whispers of Adventure," will probably not get out in print for a few years, either. Which is tremendously disheartening, because one of the great joys of writing is to have someone share in one's delight. When I write a book, I fall in love with the characters, the world, the story, with the sheer act of creation. And I want other people to love it, too. But I only have a few family members (my brother Josh, my wife Rachel, and my Grandma Burden) whom I pressure into reading my first drafts; everyone else often seems to prefer to wait for the published version. But by the time the published version comes out, my delight has waned and is already focused on another writing-project in the works.

Oh, well. I guess there's not much I can do about it. But if you're one of my family or friends who has read this and would like to share in my joy, just let me know and I can get you a draft-copy of "Whispers of Adventure." Or, in the meantime before it gets published (if it gets published, that is), you can support my hobby by buying copies of the Hidden Kings Trilogy. If you've read this far, I hope you've enjoyed these scattered thoughts/exultations/complaints about writing. I'll try to blog more regularly in the weeks to come.

In Praise of Church People

I was at a local pastors' meeting about a week ago, and the conversation turned to the topic of the people in our various congregations. And, as one might expect, there was some mutual commiseration expressed over the difficult people that we pastors have to deal with. And certainly, there's some truth to that. Pastors have to work very closely with a great number of people, and all people, suffering as we do from the same broken human nature, invariably disappoint us. This is especially true when they are being measured against an ideal standard of behavior like Christian morality. But it got me to thinking. One hears too much about the difficulties and personality conflicts and pettiness of church people. One hears too often about people getting "burned" by other Christians or by experiences at church. Naturally, it is the bad things that get talked about--the way that church people gossip and backbite and complain, the way they never seem quite able to "love one another" the way the New Testament exhorts.

And there is some truth to that. But there's also another side to this discussion, and it doesn't get spoken about often enough. As a pastor, I can honestly say that I count myself a very fortunate and blessed person. Why? Because I get to work with some of the best people in the world. I get to live and fellowship with people who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, people who are being shaped into the image of Christ, people who are becoming partakers of the divine nature. Yes, there are some people in church who act pettily from time to time. But there are also saints there, men and women of radiant virtue. I am continually amazed to see the depths of love, care, gratitude, and gentleness that flows from these church people, like rivers of living water. I have been blessed to stand in the presence of men and women who have been faithful servants of Christ for decades upon decades, who seem to overflow with the grace of God. I'll say it again, because I genuinely believe it to be true--church people, for all their failings, are the greatest people in the world, and I am honored to walk among them.

Update and a Book Review

First of all, my apologies for my long hiatus from blogging. But I take comfort in the fact that my few faithful readers must have long ago lost their expectation of frequent, regular posts from me. My creative muses have fallen rather silent recently when it comes to writing essays or poetry, possibly because so much of that creative energy is funneled into sermons and Bible lessons now that I'm a pastor. I haven't been making much headway on writing my novels recently, either. My fantasy trilogy is already complete in the manuscript stage, and the second installment, The Conqueror's Song, was just signed under contract with OakTara Fiction, so hopefully that will be out in print relatively soon. I have a few other ideas for new novels I've been toying around with, but I'm not yet convinced that any of them have enough merit to actually pan out into a complete work. (Some of them are just fun stories that are so unlikely to actually appeal to a real publisher that I might just shrug off the fear of intellectual theft and serialize the stories here on my blog for your enjoyment.)

Second, a very quick update: Life is good, both at church and at home. Josiah is a delight, now almost 14 months old--he toddles through the halls of the parsonage, babbling away all the while. And I'm happy to announce that we're now expecting our second child! The due date is September 5 (Labor Day, ironically).

Third, an encouragement to read a literary treasure: In lieu of writing my own essay for this post, I thought I would offer a review for a book I read about a month ago, which deserves to be a well-read classic but, sadly, has fallen on hard times in terms of its popularity in recent centuries. This review will give you a good bit of detail as to the background of the book, and I offer it up because I really believe that this book is worth reading: The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. Don't let the title scare you--it's actually written in story/dialogue form, and Philosophy is an actual character in the story, not just a dry subject of interest for scholars. And don't let the arcane name of the author scare you, either. Boethius is a great guy, and represents a period of history that is tragically misunderstood today. The Consolation of Philosophy stands as a shining example of the literary and intellectual creativity of the period of late antiquity in Europe that is usually dismissed as irrelevant--the 5th and 6th centuries--often described as "the fall of the Roman Empire," or the beginning of "the Dark Ages." Incidentally, if your history teachers described this period of European history in those terms, they were probably either ignorant or lying to you. But that's quite beside the point for now, except in making the suggestion that it's only because of that very ignorance and "chronological snobbery" that The Consolation of Philosophy is so little read nowadays.

If you have any interest in philosophy, in classical literature, in early Christian theology, or in the cultural legacy of medieval Europe, Boethius should be on your to-read list. The Consolation of Philosophy was wildly popular and influential for a thousand years after it was written in 524, and it formed a bridge from the world of classical philosophy, through the Middle Ages, all the way to the Renaissance. And it's worth reading not just because of its importance in the history of Western thought, but because it addresses questions that are just as relevant today as they were in the 6th century--questions about the meaning of suffering, the problem of evil, why bad things happen to good people (and why good things happen to bad people), what attitude the person suffering from a twist of fate should take, and so on. And, as the title suggests, the answers to these questions form a consolation--a true comforting, a positive take on life's most negative aspects. The real genius of the book is not any originality in its answers--that's not what Boethius was shooting for. Rather, the aim was to take the best answers from classical traditions--principally from Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism--and to present them in a winsome format of dialogue and poetry, combined with some poignant reflections on theological issues that touch on these questions (such as free will, providence, and determinism). The result is a book that's relatively easy to read (at least compared with some other ancient philosophical literature), and that is rich with practical wisdom and theological insight. (The one part which might prove challenging for some readers is the final section, which focuses on human free will and divine foreknowledge, but for anyone with a taste for theology, it's well worth tackling.)

The story begins with Boethius' own situation. He was a high-ranking statesman in Rome, a consul who worked with the Senate (yes, Rome still had a Senate even after its "fall") under the rule of the great Ostrogothic king Theodoric. He was also a classical and Christian scholar of international fame, with a reputation as a master of logic and philosophy that lasted throughout the Middle Ages. By the time of his downfall, he had risen to the office of "Master of the King's Offices," one of the highest positions in the Western Empire. Then he had a twist of fate--he was unjustly suspected of treason, stripped of his titles and holdings, and locked up in prison to await his eventual execution. While in prison, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, and that's the setting of the dialogue. He's in his cell, pondering why all of this has happened to him, when he receives a vision from the Lady Philosophy. They converse back and forth about the questions that have been puzzling Boethius, offering various layers of explanation and practical advice, and each section of discourse is punctuated by an interlude of beautiful poetry.

Among the most poignant sections of the discourse are those where Philosophy explains why the problem of Fortune rewarding evil men is merely an illusion. She reminds us that it is only the good who possess true power, nobility, and wealth, whatever their material circumstances may be; and that the evil man, regardless of his material bounty or favorable circumstances, has evil itself as his constant and sufficient punishment. I won't give away all of Boethius' main points, because they're well worth reading for yourself, even if you're well-versed in classical philosophy. But I'll offer up a few gems gleaned from his pages, just to whet your appetite:

"You are wrong to think that Fortune has changed toward you. This is her nature, the way she always behaves. She is changeable, and so in her relations with you she has merely done what she always does....Really, the misfortunes which are now such a cause of grief ought to be reasons for tranquility. For now she has deserted you, and no man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune."

"If you possess yourself, you have something you will never want to give up and something which Fortune cannot take from you....If happiness is the highest good of rational creatures, and if nothing which can be lost can be a supreme good (because it is obviously less good than that which cannot be lost), then clearly unstable Fortune cannot pretend to bring happiness."

"Man is constituted so that when he knows himself he excels all other things; but when he forgets who he is, he becomes worse than the beasts."

After describing how the cosmos is ordered and held together by the love of God: "O how happy the human race would be, if that love which rules the heavens ruled also your souls!"

"If you consider your beginning, and God your Maker, no one is base unless he deserts his birthright and makes himself a slave to vice."

"Only the wise can do what they want to do; the wicked can follow their desires, but they cannot accomplish what they want. For they do what they feel like doing, and they suppose that they will find among their pleasures the good they are really looking for. But they are bound to fail."

"Anyone who abandons virtue ceases to be a man, since he cannot share in the divine nature, and instead becomes a beast."

"In this way, wise men could abolish hatred; for no one but a fool would hate good men, and hating evil men would make no sense. Vicioiusness is a kind of disease of the soul, like illness in the body. And if sickness of the body is not something we hate, but rather regard with sympathy, we have much more reason to pity those whose minds are afflicted with wickedness, a thing worse than any sickness."

And here's a snippet from Philosophy's final conclusion: "Our hopes and prayers are not directed to God in vain, for if they are just they cannot fail. Therefore, stand firm against vice and cultivate virtue. Lift up your soul to worthy hopes, and offer humble prayers to heaven. If you will face it, the necessity of virtuous action imposed upon you is very great, since all your actions are done in the sight of a Judge who sees all things."

A Christmas Poem for Josiah

My son, Josiah, just turned one year old a couple days ago, and this Christmas was his first. As a celebration of the joy that he brings to Rachel and me, I wrote this poem for him, and I thought I'd share it with you. (Josiah himself was more interested in wrapping paper than the poem when we read it to him, but maybe someday he'll appreciate it.)

You are my joy, little one, little son.

Many things I love to see,

But one I love most of all—

I love to see you in your mother’s arms,

Beaming joy at me.

I love the way you march about

With arms upraised,

The way you growl and shout

Your excitement to the world,

The way you clap your hands

And wiggle your hips to music,

The way you laugh whenever we chase you

Or surprise, or tickle you.

All the work and labor we put into you

(And it is a lot of work, little son!)

Is repaid a thousand times over

Every time I see you smile.

May God’s grace fill you up this Christmas,

Little one, little son,

And may it overflow in marches and shouts

And clapping of hands,

In dancing and laughing and play,

And in a hundred smiles for me.

You are my joy, little one, little son,

And this day—this Christmas Day—

And forever,

I will love you, and love you, and love you,

In fondness and delight.

God and Country: The Dangers of American Patriotism in the Church

Our church here in Calais, Maine, has traditionally been a very “patriotic” church. There are a large number of veterans among our members, and the congregation often makes its nationalistic pride felt through such means as our special Memorial Day service and a wall in the fellowship hall honoring our veterans. I’ve blogged here before about some of the hyper-patriotic attitudes that rub me the wrong way, but in this piece I want to focus on some basic pastoral concerns I have about congregations who hold American patriotism and Christian faith a little too tightly bound together.

First, a few clarifications at the outset. This isn’t a critique of our church as such—it’s entirely understandable, even laudable in some sense, to honor veterans and to love our country. If there’s a fault here, it’s not a major fault. It’s rather the simple difficulty that arises from conflating two loves which probably ought to be held separately. This is a matter I haven’t been swift to address, mostly because it’s largely innocuous in comparison to many of the other problems our American churches are dealing with right now. But our church is in the process of thinking through these issues of faith and patriotism at the moment, so for the sake of clarifying my position I thought I’d spell my concerns out here. (I don’t think anyone in my congregation actually reads this blog, but the content isn’t anything different than what I’ve expressed in conversations to various church members over the past few weeks.) The second clarification is simply to note that much of my reflection on this subject has been shaped (but not fully determined) by Anabaptist influences. Truth be told, real Anabaptists would be shocked and dismayed by the patriotism of our church—having Sunday School kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance, considering putting an American flag up outside the church, etc.—and while I am not quite as shocked at the potential syncretism, I do find it troubling.

To put the matter in theological terms, we Christians are the citizens of two very different kingdoms—the Kingdom of God, and our earthly societies. And I believe our allegiance to the Kingdom of God should be held quite free and separate of our political allegiances. Christ instructed us to give both kingdoms their due (“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”), but I don’t think he had in mind festooning church sanctuaries with Roman banners and emblems. Now, when I say that our allegiances should be held separately, I mostly mean that our political allegiances should not be allowed to invade our Christian faith. Our faith, however, should inform and influence and shape our political allegiances. Why? Because our citizenship in the Kingdom of God is the higher of the two loyalties. My identity as a Christian is eternal; my identity as an American is a passing affair. Some day my Americanism will simply be part of the beautiful diversity of the “melting pot” of heaven. I don’t expect that the USA will exist in the new heavens and the new earth for us to treasure and extol. But the church will persist. Christ’s kingdom will persist. So that’s where my highest loyalty lies. Thus my faith—my deepest identity—invades and determines my political allegiances, not the other way around. Our Christian identity is fundamental; our American identity is secondary.

And because the Kingdom of God is our highest loyalty, I consider it to be inappropriate to pledge allegiance to anything other than God himself in our churches. While the Pledge of Allegiance is fine and proper in other contexts, the church is an assembly of the Kingdom of God, and it is inappropriate for us to pledge allegiance to the US here in our churches. It is just as inappropriate as it would be for the whole US Senate to swear oaths to a Masonic order or their local Rotary clubs from the floor of the Senate chamber. The two things simply ought not to be put together, regardless of how appropriate or meritorious they may be elsewhere. My congregation loves and treasures the Boston Red Sox, but that doesn’t mean we should pin up Red Sox pennants around our sanctuary.

Thus I take my position against the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance in church, regardless of the circumstances, and against having an American flag flying outside on church property. (There is an American flag inside the sanctuary, but that’s such an old tradition that I’m not sure it’s worth the bother of dislodging it, and it’s happily tucked away into a corner sufficiently far away from the pulpit and altar.) The honoring of veterans in church is not quite as troubling. From my theological perspective, we must guard against such a practice being an extension of the cult of Americanism into the church, but as a celebration of community members who have made heroic sacrifices for the common good, I find it perfectly acceptable. (Although, to be fair, we ought to be doing the same thing for all those who make heroic sacrifices for the common good—policemen, firemen, teachers, social workers, etc.)

It’s worth remembering that Christ himself absolutely eschewed any taint of politicism or patriotism in his ministry. And his ministry, his example, is the foundation of the church. We should note that Christ could have easily encouraged patriotism in his church—his home country, after all, was Judea, populated by the chosen people of God. And everyone expected the Messiah to be a highly political, patriotic figure. Even one of his disciples was a Zealot, a Judean patriot. But although Jesus certainly focused his ministry on the Jews, there was no trace of patriotic nationalism whatsoever in what he did. In fact, he told Pilate quite plainly, “My kingdom is not of this world.” If Jesus himself, the Messiah, declined the patriotism that everyone thought would be proper and laudable for the Messiah, shouldn’t we be wary of conflating patriotism with faith in our own lives?

To make my case clearer, allow me to point out a few of the potential dangers of allying our American loyalties too closely with the practice of our faith:

First, and perhaps most troubling to me, it leads to a loss of the deep connection we should have with our brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world. We are more intimately connected (in a spiritual sense) with Christians in Swaziland than with our American neighbors, and our family loyalties should lie more strongly with the global church than with the USA. But in practice, this is seldom seen in American churches. During the Iraq war, all one heard about was the Americanist/political news. How many Christians showed any concern for the effects of the war on the native Iraqi Christian population? (In brief, the war was devastating for them, and several native church groups which stretched back more than a millennium and a half and constituted a decent minority of the Iraqi population a few years ago are now all but gone, forced to emigrate out because the war has raised Muslim/Christian tensions and made their ancient homeland unlivable.)

Second, it forces us to lose some of our prophetic voice against the abuses of the American system. Part of the mission of the church is to stand against injustice, but that can be hard to do if we conflate American patriotism and the faith. We too often shy away from denunciations of the ill effects of our materialism on other countries or from apologies for past American atrocities (against the Native Americans, for example), because such things make us sound “unpatriotic.” And so we mute the voice of the church.

Third, we tend to associate the enemies of America with the enemies of the church, and we lose the ability to love and pray for our enemies. Christ himself commanded us to love our enemies. But how many American Christians do you know who pray for the salvation of Osama bin Laden and the men of Al-Qaeda? According to Jesus, that’s what we should be doing, but our Americanism has blinded us to that calling. Far too many American Christians seem to believe that Muslims are our enemies, rather than the objects of our missional love and compassion.

Fourth, it leads to a tendency to associate American causes (especially wars) with righteous motives, whether or not that is the actual case. Fifth, it perpetuates the conflation of Americanism and Christianity in the eyes of other countries (much to the detriment of Christianity). When I was serving in missions in North Africa, I found it a fairly common assumption that Christianity was characterized by Hollywood, pornography, materialistic greed, and so on, mostly because Muslim countries associate the USA with Christianity, and we Americans (unfortunately) have only reinforced that assumption with our “God and country” syncretism. Sixth, it creates an unwelcoming environment in our churches for non-American Christians in our midst, especially those who might harbor justified resentment against America.

Seventh, it leads us to believe that certain American customs and morals are actually Christian, when in fact they are merely “optional” cultural add-ons to the Gospel or actually run against it (individualism, nuclear family systems, capitalism, “the American dream,” ways of dressing and eating, etc.), thus setting extra barriers in the way of experiencing the full force of the Gospel in our own lives and leading to an attitude of judgmentalism against those who practice the faith in a different cultural context. We are fostering the darkest kind of ethnocentrism—that which is fueled by ignorant religious opinion. And eighth, we run the risk of raising a generation who will be too subservient to American patriotism (the lesser of the two loyalties) when American interests run against the interests of the Kingdom of God.

These are just a few potential dangers, and I think they’re real enough to give us pause when we consider adding blatant shows of American patriotism to our churches.