Saturday, August 9, 2014

Allegiance

Knowing that I work at a school, a friend asked me the other day how I treat the Pledge of Allegiance. Every working day for me starts with my students being asked to stand and recite The Pledge. And every day, this is a reminder for me about my beliefs, my journey toward pacifism, my anabaptist heritage, and the subtle differences in this country between patriotism and nationalism. The students, of course, notice. I opt out. And this leads to an opportunity once a year or so to have a discussion about all of these subtle issues. A starting point for me is allegiance. To whom or what do I owe allegiance? And to whom do I pledge mine? Allegiance implies loyalty, and the following of orders, arising during the middle ages with liege lords and vassals. And the bottom line is, I do not pledge allegiance to my country. There are things that my country could (does) ask of me that I am unable to do. Instead, my allegiance is to God. In my worldview, there are some things that happen where God and country are in contradiction. Capital Punishment might be one such example. And were you and I to sit down and have a discussion, we could probably come up with a few others that we might agree on. More likely, I would have some, and you would have some, but we would not agree. And that would be a fun discussion. And if you push me, I am sure that my professed allegiance to God has holes. That is, there are things that God clearly requires of his followers that I do not do. But like my pacifism, my Christ following is a current and ongoing journey, not a destination. For me, standing in silence, conspicuously respectful, during a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is a daily ritual reminder of where my allegiance does belong, where I am on that journey.