It was the early 1990s, and I was on choir tour with the youth choir at my church—because that’s what youth choirs did in those days. Operation Desert Storm was still fresh on everyone’s mind. Each church where we sang had a host of military veterans in the congregation. After our opening set of worship songs accompanied by Baptist-church-approved choreography, we would break for intermission and come back for the second act decked out in red, white, and blue. Every patriotic song you can think of was in this set with a stirring rendition of “God Bless the USA” to close out the concert. The applause for the second set often exceeded that of the first.
Fast forward to 2025, and the American culture looks far different from the days of 1990s youth choir tours. The idea of a choir performing an entire set of patriotic music in church after church to standing ovations seems as far from reality as Democrats and Republicans working together to pass a budget bill in Congress. It is into this new reality that Dan Darling’s book In Defense of Christian Patriotism speaks.
So, can a Christian be both patriotic and faithful to the mission of Christ? In other words, can we be faithful citizens of our earthly kingdom without sacrificing allegiance to the heavenly kingdom? Darling asks this question in his own way as he writes, “So does our status as exiles and strangers imply that we should withdraw from the life of our nation, as some people imply? That we should not at all identify with the United States of America?” (p. 43)
The primary way we can answer this question is by emulating the instructions God gave to Judah in the face of exile in Babylon. Concerning their time in exile, the Lord said, “Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. . . . Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive” (Jer 29:5, 7). We are to seek the welfare of the place where God has planted us. Even if we feel like exiles in a country that does not support our faith, we can pursue its well-being. And the fact of the matter is that life in the United States is generally more supportive of the Christian faith than not. Sure, there are some lawmakers, policies, or trends that seek to undermine Christianity, but when compared to situations of fellow believers around the world, the United States provides extensive freedom for Christians to exercise our faith with impunity.
Darling couches this idea in terms of “love must start with loyalty” (pp. 40-46), meaning that loyalty to the nation leads to love for neighbor, which expresses love for God. Patriotism to one’s country is not de facto antithetical to God’s purposes. A healthy definition of patriotism should actually help us see how service to country can be service to God. Darling writes, “Patriotism is love of country as manifested in loyalty, service, and giving honor to one’s country” (p. 31). Such an understanding of patriotism falls in line with the biblical instructions to pray for those in authority (1 Tim 2:1-2) and honor those to whom honor is due (Rom 13:6-7). Darling helps us see that by adopting a healthy form of patriotism we can, in fact, be proud to be Americans while still pledging our ultimate allegiance to the kingdom of God.
Evan Lenow serves as director of Church and Minister Relations and associate professor of Christian Studies at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. He is also the director of the Clinton Extension Center for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a B.A. in Communication from Mississippi College and an M.Div. in Advanced Biblical Studies and a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His books include Biblically Correct: Engaging Culture with Truth (2013), Biblically Sound: Embracing Doctrine for Life (2014), and Ethics as Worship (co-authored with Mark D. Liederbach, 2021).