I pledge allegiance to no flag. To no country. To no ethnicity. To no single tribe.
I pledge allegiance to the work of God, to the cross that destroyed the significance of every division except one - do you follow Jesus, or do you not?
I have no enemy except one: Satan, the adversary of all.
On paper, I am an American. I was born in what is called America. I speak English and (unfortunately) only English right now.
I was born in Niles, MI. I was raised in South Bend, IN. I lived in a neighborhood of predominantly black-skinned people, but my skin is white. The neighborhood was full of drugs, gangs, violence, racism... The schools were dangerous and featured metal detectors - this includes the elementary schools. Someone got killed in most of the local schools at least once a year. There was violence in the elementary as well as the high schools, to my understanding.
I was homeschooled and raised to be a right-wing, republican conservative - despite the fact that we were on food stamps. I thought everyone was on them. I really did not know what Republicans were, I thought they were just "the good people, the people who honor God and want to keep our nation free and close to God." Nevertheless, I voted third-party when turned 18.
I was led to think that the color black was absent from heaven, everything was white and gold. Gold was everywhere there. I asked my parents what our neighbors would look like in Heaven, and they didn't seem to know what to say. They seemed nervous...
These were my impressions of the world and the universe growing up (keep in mind I was a child internalizing things, not thinking for myself. This is absolutely not a reflection of where I stand now): I got the impression growing up that America was created by God to solve all the world's problems, that our founding fathers loved God, built our country according to God's design and God's word, ran it from its beginning according to His dictates just like the authors of scripture, and that was why he blessed us and made us powerful. We were powerful because we were the best, God said so and to disagree was to do the work of Satan. The country of Russia (this was the cold-war era) was not of God, was full of the devil and their government was established against God. They did not like us because our country and our leaders did what God said, and theirs were on Satan's team and didn't. They were about taking the world into darkness to be like them, and have no freedom and to destruction, and we were sent from God to make people free, just like Jesus.
God worked to make America because we were to hold his light up in a darkened world, show the world how life was really supposed to be lived and how God wanted things done, and we always fought to for the right and for His will in nations, to make others do what was right. "Indians" were bad people who did terrible things for a long time and God gave us their land just like He gave the land of Israel to Abraham's descendants, and for the same reasons.
God was our father, not our mother. God was a man, even though he wasn't. God really wasn't male or female but it was very important to call God "He," to do otherwise was heretical. Non-pentecostals/non-charismatics were wrong, their ideas were bad. Catholics were bad and wrong. Evangelicals were bad and wrong. Denominational churches were bad and wrong.... People who dressed funny were bad and wrong. People who listened to secular music were too. People who drank alcohol were going to hell, and if they said they were Christians, then they were deceived.
Black people - well there was a confusing topic. I heard that skin color didn't matter, AND the N-word out of the same mouths at different times - outrage against racism and outrage against other "races," depending on the mood of the speakers. It changed a lot. I wrestled with it a lot. As part of my home education, I watched the "Roots" saga, written by Alex Haley. Anti-racism won out, I think mostly because of that powerful show. We also watched "Dances with Wolves," (though not for school purposes) where I heard the other side of the "Indian" story, and I heard my parents complaining about how awful the things that happened were. My mom said she was ashamed of her skin color, all her street friends growing up were Mexican, Puerto Rican, and black. Never white, never Polish. She was really emotional at the end of that movie, often in tears, though it was still one of her favorites.
Eventually, My dad told me that His Mom's side of the family was part Cherokee. I WAS an Indian - kinda. I would have expected to be upset by that, because of the crap I thought, but instead it made me deeply happy and I did not know why. I think maybe the Holy Spirit within was happy to see an ugly attitude in me destroyed.
HOW could I walk around believing that our ancestors were saints who only did the will of God when I knew the story of slavery and segregation, and some of the atrocities committed against American Indians and the obvious sins and injustices thereof? I have no idea. Brain-washing, I guess. The "identity" I had as an American, and the history I knew clashed like crazy. The country I pledged allegiance to, with tears in my eyes and pride in my heart was an imaginary one, a place where God was always honored, where policies had always (until the 1960's, that is) reflected God's will and God's value of every person as equal, and God's respect for different people from all over. Meanwhile, I knew that my Grandfather, a first generation Polish immigrant, had been attacked and knocked off his bicycle while delivering the mail and beaten down very badly because he was a different ethnicity than his attackers. I knew all kinds of crass "Polack" jokes. I eventually came to understand those jokes were mean, and directed against my family - half of it anyway. I knew my mom grew up poor in a Polish neighborhood and her father had a served in WWII. He had a lot of trouble finding a job after he returned from the war and started a family, largely because he was Polish and had an accent.
I saluted the red white and blue with tears in my eyes, thinking "There's a country who accepts everybody and takes people from every background, not caring where they came from and gave them a chance to be free and fulfill their destinies, no matter what obstacles have faced them before, this is a safe place, a place to be free . . . my country is like Jesus . . . I am a native of the ONLY country in the world, other than Israel in the Bible, that was actually MADE by God!" BOY was I proud. And WRONG. I should have known I was wrong, too. Evidence was all around me, right up in my face, all my life.
It's been a long journey and is a really long story, but I definitely do not believe "My country 'tis of God" anymore, at all. I don't think any country is. In the Bible, when God called a people to be his example (not Americans, btw, and this was the Old Testament), it was supposed to be for the redemption of the whole world. "A mixed multitude" left Egypt, evidently some Egyptians came to know God and followed him across the parted Red sea. Jonah was sent to a Gentile nation, and God rebuked him for his nationalism at the end, reminding him that he also made and cared for the Ninevites. Paul said his heritage as a Jew was dung to him, that he became as a Gentile to help Gentiles, and as a Jew to help other Jews. He said that none of it really mattered: there is no class, no race, no nation in God's view. In addition, God told the prophet Samuel that Israel desired a human king because they rejected His leadership, and in the message granting their request, He listed all the crappy things that would come with human rule.
God works in all things, both good and bad. He has a perfect will and a permissive one. The permissive one is like when He granted Israel's request for a king,though it was not His perfect will. I believe all government has to do with God's permissive will. If people insist on following other people, or have no law on their heart to care for each other, they will get what they ask for, and He will continue to work in that situation as much as they're hardened hearts allow.
In a nutshell, I am an anarchist. I do not believe that human government is God's perfect plan for anybody. I do not believe in governments, or the borders they set and fight over, or the identities and pride/brainwashing they universally instill in children who grow up under their power.
Part of Satan's work in the world is to instill prejudice, to create factions. He gets you to think others are your enemy, instead of him being your real enemy. Then he gets you to hurt people, thinking you are doing something good. Thus, you do his work for him. Satan will point to what you did, after you swallow his garbage, and try to get people whom you call your enemy to focus on what you did, so that THEY will go and hurt "your" people "back'. He gets them into the same state of mind you were in when you hurt someone. Then you will see this "retaliation," and the whole process repeats. Pride is of the devil. Prejudice is of the devil. Divisions and factions and labels and stereotypes are of the devil.
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| If this image is copyrighted, please excuse. I don't recall where I got it. It's been in my PC for years. |
I am not a patriot. My Christianity does not lead me to defend any ideas about the history of where I live. God's will for this land or any other has NOTHING to do with how it got started or who started it or anything they said or did. I base my battles, my "politics", and/or anti-politics, on what I understand as God's will. That is NEVER going to include anything based on any human's actions or merits, because humans don't have any such merits. None of us ever have, or ever will. The history is not important except to understand how Satan has been working here, and how to resist him. In America, he has mainly worked through pride, greed, and illusions of moral superiority/entitlement. I know it is expected of me to have certain sentiments, commitment, and reverence, much like the reverence I have for God, towards a flag, a name, a set of man-made borders, and etc. I don't though. I can't do that anymore, because I do not believe that it is real/right.
On the downside, sometimes I get unhealthily upset by "patriotic Christianity" (which I find to be almost an oxymoron), because I feel like Simba confronting Scar at the end of "The Lion King", when he said, "Everything you ever told me was a lie." That is the part I still need to deal with, it sometimes causes me to become like a faction unto myself. I am working on that.
The best I can do right now is, if you VERY STRONGLY feel that it is your duty before God to protect this "heritage" we're supposed to have had, and "fight for it", and diminish or gloss over deeply rooted problems with self-aggrandizing lies (E.G. Our founding fathers were saintly. Our country is made by God and has a heritage of righteousness, and therefore is entitled to 80% of the resources of all the world. Our forefathers did not commit genocide, they did not really steal any land. They were enormously righteous and just, and those who say otherwise are tools of Satan out to destroy our saintly heritage and tell us we aren't better than everyone else." like I was raised), and its part of your mission, plan, and core, I don't think we can work together. At least not right now. Otherwise, there is a good chance we can agree on SOMETHING and if so, I will try to work with you towards that.
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