Nationalism verses the Kingdom of God
Have you been watching the firestorm on social media concerning the H1B visas? It’s opened up quite a dialogue with the Trump/Maga followers. The arguments as to why the H1B visas should be stopped are reasonable because they are being abused and used in ways that were not intended when they were first designed.
Those who want the visas to go away are defending American citizens first. I’m a Christian, and I ask myself this question: What is more important, my American citizenship or my Kingdom citizenship? If you are involved in local, state, and national issues like me, it’s not a black-and-white answer.
Most pastors argue that our citizenship is in heaven, so we should dwell on that alone and ignore the national political issues and not weigh in on them. A big question to those pastors is, “What does it mean to dwell on heaven alone, and how do I see that in action?” Many Christians are global Christians and don’t believe in a national cause. These Christians believe that national Christians have two masters and elevate their nation over the kingdom of God. My question to you is, do you have two masters? Are you a global Christian or a national Christian? Can you be both and please God?
Your ideology, not your theology, will determine your answer to the questions above. Your worldview will be the foundation for the answers above.
I’m thinking about this subject and will write more about it in the following substacks.
Let me know your thoughts.
Mary
Mary, good question. I'd like to share my thoughts on the subject.
I'm currently taking classes from Covenant Theological Seminary and the very first class I took was Genesis 1-4. Our first assignment was to study the part where God told Adam to "tend and keep the garden." We were to write a short paper on what that meant to us. Then we were instructed to look up the original Hebrew words for "keep", share what they were and say if knowing what the original words meant changed our understanding of the paper we had just turned in. It did...!
There were 6-8 different Hebrew definitions for the word 'keep'. Basically they were: to protect, to care for, to look after, and to cause flourishment.
God had told Adam that He wanted him to care for the world he had given him in such a way that it would enable mankind to 'flourish'. Anything that would help man do well and flourish was obeying God's mandate, serving Him and bringing glory to Him.
I had originally thought it just meant to water the trees and scrubs, prune them and things like that. But if you created a sewage system, that helped sanitize your environment and improved the health of people, was that within the mandate? Yes...!
What if you created an educational system, a judicial system, came up with a standard unit for money that encouraged honest economic transactions; or grew food, made products that were needed and wanted, or anything else that helps man flourish? Was that within His mandate. Yes...!
When the founding fathers created the U.S. Constitution, which made way for the industrial revolution that helped bring billions of people across the world out of poverty, was that fulfilling His mandate. I think yes...
So is maintaining or improving that form of government something that God would approve of? I think He would... I believe we can serve God by serving our brothers and sisters in the maintenance and improvement of a government that provides them the freedom and liberty to use the gifts that God has given them to help themselves and others, both here in America and around the world.
One who studies medicine for 8, 10 or 12 years to be able to help people, does he not serve this world AND the kingdom of God...?
Just my thoughts...
Timothy Ramsey