The Olympics, Nationalism, and Christianity...and that Coke Commercial from the Super Bowl

Here are some barely-organized thoughts:

The Olympics are starting in a couple days.  It's always fun to root for your home country to do well, especially if, like me, you're an American whose country tends to win a lot of medals.

That being said, as a Christian, there are some concerns I have with nationalism.  I'm taking a church history class right now, and learned recently about the theology of the two kingdoms.  I was actually familiar with the idea, although I did not realize it was an essential part of Luther's reformation in 1517.  The basic idea is that as Christians, we are citizens of two kingdoms--the kingdom of God is our primary allegiance.  The second kingdom we represent is whatever nation we are from.

Many Christians today do not remember to separate their allegiance to the Kingdom of God from their allegiance to the kingdom of wherever they live.  This is especially true in America, which was a so-called "Christian Nation" in many people's minds.

As Christians, we ought to only celebrate our national identity as believers.  According to the New Testament, we are a new nation, made up of every ethnicity, language, and culture.

We need to keep our national affiliation to the Kingdom separate from our national affiliation to the USA or wherever you're from.  On top of that, we need to prioritize our affiliation to the Kingdom over our earthly nation.

Is it OK to root for your home country in the Olympics?  Sure, I don't see why not.  But, is it OK to root for your home country in a war?  I'm not so sure about that one.  Or, is it OK to root for the predominance of the language you speak?  I'd say no.

This past weekend in the Super Bowl, there was a Coke commercial in which "America the Beautiful" was sung in multiple languages.  Most people who didn't like the commercial were bothered that English was not being respected as the national language.  I don't think a Christian should care much for the predominance of English--we believe that one day America (and yes, even English) will pass away.  A Christian ought to look for ways to express the love of Christ to people who speak every language, even if they don't know the language of the country they live in.

But, that commercial did get me thinking about the song "America the Beautiful."  The song does something awful!  It takes biblical imagery of the kingdom of heaven and assigns it to America.  In the final verse, the song says:

O beautiful for Patriot's dream that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears

The author of the song (originally a poem, according to Wikipedia) is saying that the American Patriot has the foresight of the future Kingdom of God (expressed in Revelation 21-22), to see the "alabaster cities," which is biblical language used to describe heaven.  In other words, the entire purpose of "America the Beautiful" is to perpetuate the belief that we can create heaven on earth through building human society.

If you're a Christian, you can't agree to that.  It is not through the building up of America that we will come to a society "undimmed by human tears."  Only through allegiance to our first Kingdom--that of Jesus--will we arrive in an alabaster city with no strife.

The song assigns Christian ideas of the New Jerusalem to America.  In a similar way, the Coke Commercial assigned Christian ideas of a perfectly unified nation made of every ethnicity to America.  So, those who are complaining about the commercial are missing the point that Coke made the same error as the original author of the song--conflating America with the Kingdom, and appealing to our God-given intuition and desire to be a part of that Kingdom.