Is It Time to Declare Our Ultimate Allegiance?

The Lord's Prayer (Le Pater Noster), by James Tissot

                In recent days, we have witnessed the President of the United States declare his intention to obliterate the nation of Iran (on Easter Sunday, no less). Then he used Orthodox Easter to display an image of himself as some spiritual force (could he be pretending to be Jesus), while lambasting the Pope because the Pope called out the nations waging war, stating clearly that God does not heed the prayers of those who wage war. At the same time, the Secretary of Defense (self-styled Secretary of War) was offering prayers promising violence and no mercy against the nation’s enemies (Iran). Then the Vice President got into the act by telling the Pope to be careful when he was doing theology, to which the Speaker of the House offered his amen. Why, because the Pope defined a just war, in which the current war with Iran does not fit.  I can’t forget the Secretary of “War” comparing the press to the Pharisees who challenged Jesus. All of this takes place as the current administration likes to portray the United States as a “Christian Nation,” such that it has been divinely called by God to protect Christians (though not all Christians, just the ones that support it).  Note the attacks on the Catholic Church. When it comes to religious freedom, note that Trump’s commission on religious liberty doesn’t include any representatives of mainline Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, or Hinduism, and only one rabbi. So, when it comes to matters of faith and theology, I think I'll trust the Pope on certain matters, and people who I believe exhibit more Christlike behaviors and beliefs. I can't say the same for Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Mike Johnson, or JD Vance.

 I write all of this as a preface to a claim that I wish to make concerning what I believe is a

Christian’s ultimate allegiance. That would be to God, as stipulated in the Lord’s Prayer. I wrote about this in my book Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer (Energion, 2010). In that book, I likened the Lord’s Prayer to a pledge of allegiance. We can love our country and yet recognize that it is not ultimate.

So, if the Lord’s Prayer serves as a model of Christian prayer, then, as I wrote in the book Ultimate Allegiance, this prayer and all prayer should be subversive to secondary allegiances, including to the nations in which we live.

In prayer, we come to God, pledging our allegiance to the one who is our patron, our provider, our protector, and the one who will guide us into the future. As we pray prayers that are guided by this model, then we are committing ourselves to embracing God’s reign, both on earth and in heaven. [Ultimate Allegiance, p. 57].

As I ponder the verbiage we are hearing from the current administration and many of its supporters who embrace what is known as Christian nationalism, especially those who seem to be deifying the President, who at times seems to liken himself to divine status, my mind goes to one of the “national hymns” in my denomination’s hymnal and in many others. Titled “This Is My Song,” it was written by Lloyd Stone, with a third stanza added by Georgia Harkness. It goes to the tune Finlandia.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine;

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

 

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;

but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

 

May truth and freedom come to every nation;

may peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together,

a world united, righting every wrong;

a world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming peace together in one song.*

 

*Third stanza by Georgia Harkness.

St. 3 © 1964 Lorenz Publishing Co.

Sts, 1, 2 © 1934, 1962 Lorenz Publishing Co

 

With this hymn serving as a reminder that the God we know in Jesus is the God of all the nations, not just the one I know and love, I now close with the Lord’s Prayer, inviting my Christian siblings to pledge our allegiance to God and God’s realm, which transcends this nation and its leaders.

 

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts (sins, trespasses),
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.