As we continue seeking answers to our question, “How would Jesus have Christians approach politics in America?” we cannot avoid the important subject of our allegiance. For misplaced allegiance is at the heart of so much that is corrupting the Gospel and misrepresenting Jesus to those outside the faith in our culture. In the name of allegiance to a political party or personality, many of us who would describe ourselves as “followers of Jesus” have been influenced to adopt words and take actions and positions, which, though consistent with allegiance to our “tribe,” are inconsistent with allegiance to Jesus and what He taught us.
For many, our introduction to the term “allegiance” came through the pledge we learned as children and recited each morning with our classmates. But few of us, I daresay, have probably given much thought to the concept of allegiance or considered its deep but unconscious impact on our daily lives.
The term isn’t found often in modern American vernacular outside of the pledge. It enjoyed its highest public usage around 1810 and has seen a fairly steady decline since. But even though we may not use the term “allegiance” often, we are familiar with its meaning and its synonyms: ideas like loyalty, fidelity, devotion, and faithfulness. We are equally familiar with some of its antonyms: words like faithlessness, treason, disloyalty, sedition, and dishonor.
If we claim salvation in Christ, then He and His Kingdom must be our supreme allegiance. His word must rule the day. His commands must be our marching orders. We must seek His Kingdom first, foremost, and above all others.
Because …
He bought us.
He paid our debt.
He called us.
He adopted us.
He took us from death into life.
He released us from bondage to the kingdom of this world and made us citizens and ambassadors for His Kingdom.
Other allegiances have no such claim on us. Our allegiance belongs to Him and Him alone.
Colossians 1 reminds us,
“He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Seemingly, it is only between our commitment to Christ and earthly dynamics like politics that we allow our discernment to get murky and think that, somehow, the two allegiances can co-exist with no harm done.
When we consider how things work in other relationships in our lives, however, we immediately recognize how wrongheaded this idea is.
In marriage, we have an allegiance to our spouse that rightfully supersedes allegiance to any other person. The allegiance to our spouse creates boundaries and limits that determine what is and is not acceptable for us as we relate to other people and situations as a married person. Before we were married, we were free to send love notes to whoever we wanted, buy gifts for whoever we wanted, or invite anyone we wanted out to dinner or to share our bed. But when we get married, all those options are no longer open to us if we want a healthy, thriving marriage relationship. And if we persist in them after we’re married, it’s completely reasonable and understood that those actions that were acceptable before marriage become acts of disloyalty, faithlessness, and even treason afterward.
It would be hard to find a better metaphor for our relationship with Christ and our engagement with outside forces like politics. It highlights the temptation to allow other allegiances to violate our first responsibility to Christ. As followers of Jesus, we have priority allegiance to Him not only because He is our Savior, but also because He’s our Teacher and our King. We routinely celebrate the first part while often explaining away or dismissing the latter parts. But make no mistake, obedience to his teaching and submission to his Lordship are as real and as binding as his death on our behalf.
But, how does this question of allegiance connect with the question of proper political engagement for Christians?
An example may help.
A significant portion of the evangelical church in the US identifies with a political position and a political leader that is characterized by mean-spirited verbal attacks and name-calling. It’s become common for anyone who disagrees with the ideology or values of the person and party to be labeled with derogatory names, mocked, and to become the brunt of dehumanizing caricatures. Entire people groups - those of the opposing party, those who are not heterosexual, or those not from the US - are dehumanized and routinely demonized.
I don’t point this out to stoke anger or reaction. Just the opposite. I point it out because it's true, and it's something that we, as Jesus’s people, need to face.
This spirit began at the top but it has bled into the whole of the movement. Embracing that spirit has become, for many, just part of what allegiance to the party and the party leaders involves. Many heartily support the dehumanizing talk precisely because their leader(s) hold in contempt and ridicule the same people they hold in contempt and ridicule.
Now in the context of normal human culture, one might find this kind of talk and these kinds of attitudes off-putting, but in America, everyone is entitled to their opinion and are free to express it. Much like the bachelor who is free to swipe right to his heart’s content, folks who don’t claim to have a relationship with Jesus have all these options open to them.
But like the married person, the disciple of Jesus does not.
We don’t have those options because Jesus made it abundantly clear how we are to treat others and how we are to speak as His representatives, and that unarguably does not include dehumanizing characterizations, mocking, name-calling, and contempt.
There are dozens of scriptures that we could cite in support of this assertion. Here are just a few example:
· Ephesians 4:29
· I Peter 3:9
· Colossians 4:5-6
· Colossians 3:17
However, no passage is more straightforward in its instructions or its implications than James 3
5 …the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Misplaced allegiance naturally and inevitably results in not just a “poor choice of words” but a violation of our allegiance to Jesus that leads to compromise and disobedience.
It violates both the direct instructions about how we are to speak and the entire spirit of love for others that we are told to exhibit as disciples of Jesus. It also reveals what’s truly in our hearts, despite what we often say.
I John puts it as bluntly as is possible.
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
So this question of allegiance is a big one. Regardless of what political party or personality we are inclined to align with, we must always keep the question of our first allegiance in full view.
So, when that video comes through our social media feed that “owns” the party or people that our tribe opposes, we must pause before we hit ‘share’ and ask ourselves whether the content is consistent with Jesus’ call to love others. When the meme comes across our path that denigrates or dehumanizes individuals or groups that our tribe feels justified in treating with contempt, we have to ask ourselves, is this consistent with how the New Testament says I should be speaking?
But what’s true of how we speak is extended to all things involved in our other allegiances. Allegiance requires obedience. And much to our chagrin, Jesus inconveniently ties our obedience to our love for Him, saying “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments”, clearly indicating the opposite way of expressing it: “if you don’t keep my commandments, it’s because you don’t love me.”
We can make all the exclamations we want about how we love our spouse while actively sleeping with someone else, but the truth is revealed in our actions.
So, if we take our relationship with and commitment to Christ seriously, we must be prepared to accept our misplaced allegiance and repent of it. Many of us need to drop the label ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican.’ Some, in obedience to Jesus, need to throw away the red baseball cap and the spirit of contempt that it so often represents. Some need to repent of the “anything goes” idea of love that refuses to take holiness seriously. And this can feel like an impossible task, especially if we’ve allowed this other allegiance to become part of our identity. But as painful and distressing as those things may be to untangle, it must be done if faithfulness – if allegiance – to Jesus is to be our highest goal.
If our words, actions, and social media feed over the past year were the evidence (and in great measure it is) all of us must ask ourselves, what does it say about my true allegiance?
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