How far should our patriotism go?

The Fourth of July is just around the corner. It seems that it comes and goes so quickly. Some have suggested that we have a patriotic season from Memorial Day culminating with Independence Day (Flag Day is in there as well). Interesting.

I've always been patriotic. Maybe it's because I've lived in the south for most of my life. It could be connected to the Texas pride that has been ingrained in the very atoms of our beings here. I remember being taught at a young age, as all school-aged kids are, the pledge of allegiance. It was one of my favorite parts of the morning school ritual.

As I grew up fireworks was the way to express our national pride and celebrating our freedom as a country that has the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

In high school I developed a strong sense of nationalism. American pride was oozing from me like cheese leaking out of a Juicy Lucy. It was around Operation Desert Storm that this pride really took off. I remember supporting Pat Buchanan's ultra-conservative views (Didn't he advocate way back then putting up border walls?). If you are going to be in America then speak our language. All that nationalism jazz was what I believed.

My world changed when I moved to Kansas City in 2000. Maybe it was the crisis of "culture shock." Maybe it was me getting out of a dominant point-of-view and was starting to hear other political voices that were just as authentic and genuine. Perhaps it had more to do with my theological molding that I would frame while attending Nazarene Seminary.

I now find myself back in the south. I used to get excited when Old Navy put their current year's flag shirts on sale to express my commercialized patriotism. Now, I don't know exactly how to view myself as one who eagerly wants to live and operate and have my being rooted in the kingdom of God while I live and am a citizen of these United States of America. It seems that at times the way of the kingdom and/or the ways of America are diametrically opposed from the other. The values of America (self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, profit at all costs, "you're-either-with-us-or-against-us," "exploit other countries by using their national resources and polluting their air and water so we don't have all that junk here while underpaying their workers so that we don't have to pay our own people to do it and provide job benefits," and others) don't seem to align with the way of Jesus and the kingdom.

This doesn't even yet deal with how we view America and her early beginnings. I don't really want to take the time to spell out anything about our history as a "Christian" nation. But for several years I've doubted that notion.

Have any of you struggled to find how to be in two places at once regarding this issue of American patriotism and living in the kingdom? I do not want to associate/equate patriotism and nationalism because I think that they aren't required to be linked. What does it look like to be seriously Christian -- in the way of the kingdom -- and having pride in America?

-- Even now I am thankful that I live in a country that allows us to talk and publish questions such as these.