Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” So the king took counsel and made two flags of red, white, and blue. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

I was inspired by Rick to draft this paraphrase. And now, Peter has inspired me to post it. In fact, I’m going to break with proper etiquette and quote Peter in full in case someone doesn’t want to follow the link:

According to an AOL report, Greg Boyd has lost 1000 members of his church because he has refused to promote conservative political causes.

According to the report, “he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing ‘God Bless America’ and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.” Who wouldn’t be alarmed at this Baalist conflation of God and country?

But what are the people in his church thinking? Boyd has been an advocate of open theism for some years, and apparently that bit of heresy was OK so long as he continued to endorse conservative politicians and promote a rightwing agenda. What God are these people really worshiping?

God forgive me. I was actually a member of a church at one time whose main attraction was exactly this sort of crap. I suppose I should take some comfort that these were presbyterians of some sort and not free will theists, but it really only makes me feel worse.

I hate this. I thought back in the nineties that it was dying but I keep seeing it come up.

I could go into particulars but I don’t have time. And frankly, if you claim to be ignorant of the insane nationalistic culture in American Evangelicalism, I will assume you are an apologist for it until proven otherwise.

And the accusation that unless one embraces this garbage one must be in some sort of violation of Romans 13 and honoring the government is pretty much on par with a husband accusing his wife of frigidity because she doesn’t want him to tie her up and beat her with a whip.

Patriotism is to citizenship what S&M is to sex.