Papers of a Perverse Patriot (1)

Perverse Patriotism is the unique and exclusive loyalty (what we call “faith”) to apocalyptic Jesus that serves him in a Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement             (SCRM, a.k.a. in polite society as “church”) 

Perverse Patriots Serve Apocalyptic Jesus

Not a wisdom Jesus or a prophetic Jesus. Both seek to “make a difference” in the world as we know it. The former by helping us “get along” in it; the latter by making it a bit “better.” Either Jesus allows this world as it is to set the parameters for its reality. Either Jesus trades on the conventional difference believed to exist between patriotism (good) and nationalism (bad). I believe the Jesus I argue for undercuts the coherence of this distinction and places both in question.

Apocalyptic Jesus is the Jesus who inaugurates a new world defeating the powers that sustained the old world rendering it decaying and passing away. That new world is the reality in which Apocalyptic Jesus calls us to live. A world in which neither patriotism or nationalism has any claim on us.

Apocalyptic Jesus’ followers (his Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement) live not to make a difference in this decaying, passing away world but to inhabit, exhibit, and incarnate a different world in its midst. But living and exhibiting this different world amid the decaying, passing away world will create opportunities to make a difference and teach a way to live. Thus, prophetic Jesus and wisdom Jesus can be reclaimed and redeemed by apocalyptic Jesus and under his aegis play their proper roles.

This makes God’s SCRM the heart of his mission to his world. God’s mission is this people before it is works we do for him or others. They are subversive (a politically liberal term in our political lexicon) because their being subverts the assumptions, attitudes, actions, and practices inscribed into decaying, passing away world by Sin, Death, and Evil. And counter-revolutionary (a conservative term in our political lexicon) in that its way of being counters the patterns, systems, and institutions of a fallen creation. This eclectic community doesn’t fit easily on our right-left spectrum. Its way of being political is

-kenotic: a pouring itself out on behalf of others, especially those others denied recognition, voice, or agency in their lives.

-anarchic: having no agenda to propose/impose on others, rather it “helps and serves them to solve their own problems, not dominating and leading” them (Bonhoeffer).

-eccentric: it lives de-centered from itself in an eschatological center that is the future of humanity and the world as God’s new creation dawning among us in Christ and growing in small, unobtrusive, and often unrecognized ways to its (surprising) fullness when Christ returns.

This SCRM is the culmination of God’s way of being in and with his world. What began with Abraham and Sarah in Gen.12 is God’s way of engaging his creation run amok. It is also what his creation saturated with Shalom will look like. God’s SCRM exists in the dynamic and creative tension of living the way things will be in the midst of the way things are.

And the way things will be is distinctly non-patriotic and non-nationalistic. Thus God’s people will always be “perverted patriots” because of that exclusive allegiance to Apocalyptic Jesus. We could call this living as if the 1^st Commandment matters.

It seems clear one can make a difference in our world by hedging our faith enough to include patriotism or nationalism. It is less clear the difference in the world simply being different as God’s people makes. That difference is in part small and inconspicuous (like a mustard seed) and in part eschatological (to be revealed at the end). Difficult though this difference is to pin down, careful description can help us gain some traction on it (as we will see along the way).

For now, it is crucial for us to keep loyal to Apocalyptic Jesus and the new world of reality he opens up for us. As we learn to see and internalize that reality I believe we can begin to glimpse a version of patriotism/nationalism, “perverted” to be sure (from their usual senses) but truer than we ever imagined from Apocalyptic Jesus!