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,
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
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
Obviously the prayers of Christian nationalists are gonna look way different from
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
Trying to avoid nationalist prayers.
If you’re anxious lest the people of your church are unintentionally (or,
Praying as Jesus wants,
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.
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
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?
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,