16 October 2024

Praying for your homeland without getting all nationalist.

Many churches pray for the country they’re in. Every Sunday morning, during the worship service. Mine doesn’t; we pray for the United States, or California (where we live, obviously), whenever there’s a serious crisis, like hurricanes, wildfires, floods, mass shootings, and so forth. Our prayer team does pray for our homeland on a regular basis, but otherwise it’s up to each individual Christian to remember to do it. Some of us do; some don’t.

But we should! All of us should. The people of our homelands need Jesus. Need to recognize their need for him. Oughta be encouraged to seek and follow him.

And yeah, of course, we oughta pray for the usual civic problems. Pray for our leaders to govern wisely. Pray for obvious supernatural answers to civic problems which’ll get people to give God credit, and glory. Pray for elections; that voters will choose leaders of good character, and partisans will respect the rule of law and let the election happen without incident. (Used to be we didn’t have to pray for that last thing, but times change. Namely because voters didn’t choose leaders of good character.)

The only problem with praying for our homeland, of course, is an influence which corrupts Christianity all the time, and therefore corrupts our prayers. It’s nationalism, the racist belief that our country should only consist of, or be ruled by, people of one race; namely the race of the nationalists. And of course there’s the “Christian” variant, Christian nationalism, which focuses less on race and more on religion, and insists our country should only be inhabited and led by Christians. Because if it isn’t, claim Christian nationalists, God gets upset and bad things are gonna happen to us.

Obviously the prayers of Christian nationalists are gonna look way different from the sort of prayers Jesus will suggest. Their prayers exclude; his includes. Their prayers condemn and vilify; his forgives and loves. Their prayers are all about our homeland becoming great; his are that God’s will is done, on earth as it is in heaven, and heaven has no border patrol.

So if you’re in a church where the pastor and prayer leaders are nationalists, praying along with them for our homeland is gonna prove a giant waste of time; y’all are praying for stuff which runs contrary to God’s will. Hope you’re not in such a church! And if you’re not, feel free to join in with their prayers for our country and state. If they’re praying for God’s grace and compassion for the world, by all means pray that too.

Trying to avoid nationalist prayers.

If you’re anxious lest the people of your church are unintentionally (or, in my experience, wholly intentionally) trying to slip some nationalism into the prayers, I remind you: It’s ridiculously easy to tell whether they’re praying as Jesus wants, or going the civic idolatry route.

Praying as Jesus wants, wants to make his kingdom great. Wants to make his name great. Wants to seek and save the lost. Wants to help people—whether they’re our fellow citizens or not, whether they’re members of the same political party or not, whether they’re Christian or not. Jesus loves everybody; prayers which follow Jesus also love everybody.

Nationalist prayers are more interested in making our homeland great. (Whether “again” or not.) And aren’t so interested in helping anybody but certain worthy people—namely people who are in our group, however wide their group is, and it’s not all that wide.

Christian prayers recognize the kingdoms of this world are gonna become the kingdoms of our God and Christ. Rv 11.15 So our nation isn’t special. None of ’em are. (Not even Israel.) We might love our country, and certainly want it to improve, and want it to do righteous things. But we’re not gonna promote our country by demoting other countries, or speaking evil of other countries. In fact we’ll actually pray for those other countries too, and ask that God save their people, and solve their problems. They need Jesus too. He’s hardly just our Jesus.

Nationalists are gonna talk about the unique relationship our country has with God. Sometimes based on actual history—sometimes they’ll refer to the actual faith of actual people who helped found the English, Spanish, French, and Russian colonies, Mexican states, and indigenous Indian and Hawaiian nations which eventually became the United States. But most of that religion gets hugely exaggerated, and made to sound like all these territories were created by devout Evangelicals. American history isn’t quite that holy. But nationalists throughout history have always used or created mythology in order to paint themselves as special… because it’s way easier to justify your evildoing when you’re “special.”

But truly Christian prayers are always gonna acknowledge we’re not special. We’re all sinners in dire need of God’s grace—and now we have it, and isn’t that awesome? But God’s grace is for everyone. Outsiders included. Outsiders in particular—let’s invite them to be insiders!

Lastly, Christian prayers are gonna ask God to solve these problems—either by himself, or of course he can always use us as his hands and feet, which he typically does. Nationalist prayers, in contrast, are gonna ask God to help them gain political power. A power, I should remind you, which is not directly controlled by the Holy Spirit. It’s either a legitimate power, like the democratic power of the people; or an illegitimate power, like the power of fear, intimidation, and totalitarianism. But because it’s not directly controlled by the Spirit, it can be used every which way, including in ways the Spirit can’t approve of. It can be used to build the temple… or the Tower of Babel, and more often than not it’s something like Babel. Nationalists claim they’re gonna use this power for good, but they have a profoundly lousy track record.

In short, you’re gonna know whether this is a Christian prayer, or a nationalist prayer, by its fruits. Does it promote God’s kingdom, or are they hoping for a thousand-year nationalist reich? Our prayers should always be about God’s kingdom and its business. Anything else is a waste of breath.