How to Have Patriotism Without Nationalism

Christians have always been called to love place and neighbor over the power of state.

In sixth grade, I won my first college scholarship in a local Veterans of Foreign Wars essay contest on the question “What does it mean to be patriotic?” My winning entry fetched $50, enough for at least half a textbook. The essay is long lost, but I vaguely recall being inspired by a trip to Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg, where I’d been enthralled by the commercialized mythology of American founders like Thomas Jefferson, tried my first limeade, and left clutching an etiquette book penned by George Washington himself.

The question isn’t so easily answered now. What does it mean to be patriotic, and should Christians even want to be? What does it mean, as an American evangelical, to mark July 4 after January 6, when supporters of our former president—many of them professing evangelical Christians, many clad in red, white, and blue—overran the US Capitol in attempted sedition?

My Anabaptism always has me treading lightly here, but I think Christians can be rightfully patriotic. The crux of the matter is what that patriotism entails: Is it love of our place and neighbors, or love of the state and its power?

American patriotism is too often the latter. It frequently indulges in jingoism, pride, militarism, and idolatrous civil religion. It is competitive, aggressive, and offended by even constructive criticism: “Love it or leave it” is the familiar refrain. It takes words Jesus used for the people of God—the “city on a hill” language drawn from Matthew 5:14 by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama—and exploits them for political ends. It is, as C. S. Lewis put it in The Four Loves, “a firm, even prosaic belief that ...

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At Its Best, American Patriotism Is Blessed with Two-Dimensional Vision

A healthy love of country looks backward and forward, recognizes triumphs and failures, and flows from the head and the heart alike.

In the pre-dawn hours of May 15, 1918, Private Henry Johnson was pulling sentry duty with Private Needham Roberts in a French trench that faced the German line just west of the Argonne Forest. Johnson and Roberts were members of the 369th Infantry Regiment from New York. The 369th, known as the “Harlem Hellfighters,” was an African American regiment, one of the first led by Black officers and NCOs in the US Army. The regiment had joined the French line as replacements, and its soldiers were given French equipment to face German front-line veterans of four years of trench warfare.

At 2 a.m., Johnson and Roberts heard German trench raiders clipping wire, preparing to surprise the Allied troops, spread mayhem, and seize prisoners in hopes of gathering intelligence. Johnson started throwing grenades into the darkness, toward the sound of the Germans, while Roberts ran back to the main line to alert the French. In the melee that followed, Johnson expended all of his grenades and grappled with the Germans in hand-to-hand combat, armed with a 14-inch bolo knife. He killed four Germans, plunging his knife into the head of one of them, and wounded 20 more, all while sustaining over 20 gunshot wounds. He also saved the severely wounded Roberts from being taken prisoner.

From then on, the 369th never lost a man to capture. It endured more uninterrupted combat time than any American regiment in the war, and its fighters were the first to reach the Rhine. Johnson and Roberts were also the first American privates to receive the Croix de Guerre from the French government in World War I.

But when Johnson returned home to Jim Crow America, his discharge papers did not mention anything about his combat record. He received no disability ...

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Nepal Churches Struggle to Serve as COVID-19 Kills 100+ Pastors

Amid a second wave of infections, Christian leaders wrestle with leadership vacuum and how openly to raise funds to aid neighbors under a suspicious government.

Congregations in Nepal are reeling after a deadly surge in COVID-19 cases this spring threw the Himalayan nation into chaos, overflowing hospitals and crematoriums and leaving the national army to deal with 100 bodies a day in the Kathmandu Valley alone.

The Nepali church has lost more than 130 pastors during a second wave of the pandemic that has pushed reported cases past 635,000 and confirmed deaths past 9,000. Half of those cases and two-thirds of those deaths have been tallied since April.

“In the month of May, pastors were dying almost every day,” said B. P. Khanal, a pastor, theologian, and leader of the Janajagaran Party Nepal. “I have never seen something like that.”

Christians comprise a distinct minority of Nepal’s 29 million people: a 2011 census reports 1.4 percent, while local Christian leaders report 10 percent. Yet according to Khanal’s database, which tracks the pastor deaths, from February 2021 to today more than 500 pastors and their families have contracted the coronavirus, which multiple times has taken the lives of fathers and sons who co-led churches together.

For example, pastor Robert Karthak’s 56-year-old son, Samuel, died days after his respected father. While Robert had the privilege of a proper funeral, Samuel’s body was taken by the Nepali army which performed his last rites.

Other noteworthy deaths of Nepali pastors, according to Khanal, include Timothy Rai, Ambar Thapa, Man Bahadur Boudil, and Amar Bhaouja, as well as a Christian attorney and prominent religious freedom advocate, Ganesh Shresta.

A “vacuum in leadership” now faces many churches, said Hanok Tamang, chairman of the National Church Fellowship of Nepal (NCFN).

“Some churches—particularly ...

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Navigating Change in a New Church

Approaching times of transition as opportunities

Over the years I've had the honor of both planting churches and helping churches revitalize. On several occasions, I've been the interim pastor at churches that eventually welcomed new pastors. In fact, summer of 2020, I finished an almost four-year interim at the historic Moody Church in Chicago.

I'm often asked about how best to navigate change as a new pastor. Times of transition offers opportunities, and we never want to waste an opportunity. Nevertheless, times of transition are also always challenging. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to stepping into the leadership of a church, but there are two general rules for navigating change as a new pastor.

Proportional Change

Think of it in terms of being proportional to the level of crisis the church is in. When stepping into leadership at a church where things are going well, you can afford to take your time as you establish what needs changing. In this kind of situation, steward your time well by learning as much as you can about the past and present of the church and who the power players are.

An example would be Moody Church where I just finished an interim pastoral role. Moody is a historic church, stable and not in crisis. The new pastor, Phillip Miller, is an effective leader. Someone asked me, “Do you expect big changes?” My response was, "Well, why? Things are going pretty well." There is no reason for dramatic, sudden, and swift change.

On the other hand, I served as interim pastor years ago at a church near bankruptcy. As I recall, I had to let 21 people go the first week. Most were part-time, but not all. This was a church averaging 3,000 in attendance at one time but had shrunk to two services of about 300 each. ...

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Accelerating the Great Commission: Do We Need More Research?

Article 6 in a series of articles based upon the Lausanne North America Listening Call

In the previous post, Part 5, we shared three answers North American church leaders gave to the following question that Lausanne Global is asking church leaders across the globe: Where is further research needed to accelerate the Great Commission?

Here are the final three areas where more research needs to be done in order for the church in North America to become more effective at participating in the Great Commission.

1.) Understanding and implementing a polycentric leadership model in leading and engaging in missions.

Polycentrism is an approach to governance where the doctrine where a plurality of independent centers of leadership, power, or ideology may exist within a single political system.

Based upon this definition, polycentrism applied to the church’s mission is different than a plurality of leadership in a local church. Polycentrism is about independent bodies coming together under a single system yet maintaining their autonomy and distinction as an organization.

This terminology may be new for many. The reason for this may be because it was introduced last year by Joseph Handley in his dissertation entitled, “Polycentric Mission Leadership.” Handley notes in an article appearing on the Lausanne website, “During my studies, I came to believe that polycentrism provides a stronger leadership paradigm for leading missional endeavors in an interdependent, globally networked world.”

Handley goes on to express:

I am convinced that a collaborative, communal approach to leadership that empowers multiple centers of influence as well as a diverse array of leaders is better suited to addressing the issues before us during this era of a globalized world, even more so now that I see the nations pulling ...

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Evangelical Covenant Church Rebukes Doctrine Justifying Colonization of Native Land

Standing with indigenous people, leaders are also calling for a deeper look into US residential schools.

The Evangelical Covenant Church became the latest Protestant denomination in the United States to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, the theological justification that allowed the discovery and domination by European Christians of lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples.

Delegates at the Covenant Annual Connection voted overwhelmingly (84%) on Friday to approve a resolution acknowledging the damage done to indigenous peoples in the Americas by taking their land and rights and lamenting the church’s complicity in the continuing effects of that history.

“After 125 years, the healing is beginning in the Evangelical Covenant Church, and I’m grateful to be starting this journey with you today,” the Rev. TJ Smith, president of the indigenous Ministers Association, said in an emotional speech after the vote was taken.

While the Evangelical Covenant Church has been working on its resolution for the past five years, its action came the day after the Cowessess First Nation announced it had found indications of at least 751 unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Weeks earlier, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation had used ground-penetrating radar to confirm the remains of 215 children as young as 3 years old on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Kamloops was opened by the Roman Catholic Church in 1890 and became the largest school in Canada’s Indian Affairs residential school system, with enrollment peaking at 500 students in the early 1950s, according to the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc.

Smith, who is Lakota, and others drew a line from the Doctrine of Discovery ...

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Headed to Outreach as General Editor, and Goodbye to my Friends at Christianity Today

I’ve accepted the role of general editor for Sermon Central, ChurchLeaders.com, and other publications at Outreach, including becoming editor in chief of Outreach Magazine.

Earlier this week, the folks at Outreach announced that I will be joining them as editor-in-chief of Outreach Magazine, and general editor of Sermon Central, ChurchLeaders.com, and their other web resources. They explained:

Outreach Inc. will soon be welcoming a new face. As of July 1st, noted missiologist, evangelist, researcher, author, preacher and regular Outreach magazine contributor Ed Stetzer will be joining the team as general editor of Outreach media group and editor-in-chief of Outreach magazine. Stetzer will provide editorial direction, helping these platforms continue equipping the church for greater gospel impact.

As you may know, I’ve been a columnist for Outreach Magazine for a long time. I’ve loved writing for their small church issue, their church planting issue, their innovation issue, and, yes, their Outreach 100. That will continue, though my role will be different now.

As part of this move, I will be leaving Christianity Today. I’m thankful for my time there. It includes several friendships and some significant impact together. I will remain a paying subscriber and a supporter because I think that Christianity Today is an important part of evangelicalism. As this will be my last week blogging at Christianity Today, I wanted to say thanks to the team there. I’m grateful for the platform you gave me to steward.

For me, the invitation to speak into all of those publications mentioned above, and the desire to focus on equipping pastors and church leaders, was a good fit for me. James Long was the long-term editor of Outreach Magazine (and, was also a part of Christianity Today before that).

Jim once explained his vision for the magazine.

The mission of Outreach is to further the kingdom ...

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