Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Pick-Up Trucks With American Flags on Them

Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, July 04, 2011 8:01 am

Most people only know half of Stephen Decatur's famous toast -- "my country, right or wrong." But the whole thing was much more admirable. "My country, may she always be right. But my country, right or wrong." The abbreviated version makes it sound like national interest is the only standard that a full-tilt patriot would ever recognize. The full version recognizes that there is a standard of right and wrong that far transcends national interest. One of those transcendent standards, incidently, is what undergirds the necessity of a connected loyalty to other sinners -- the second part of the toast.

In a fallen world, such loyalties are obviously not absolute.
There are times when high rebellion against Heaven on the part of the other needs to be recognized, and it is time to walk away. But a decent respect for the opinion of mankind should, if this becomes necessary, require that you be able to give an orderly account of why you consider the bond of loyalty to be dissolved. In the meantime, "my country, may she always be right . . ."

I need to look like I am changing the subject for a moment, but I am not really. Some years ago, I realized that there was a facile tendency to set Bible knowledge over against catechism knowledge, as though they were competing, and as though every student had to choose between the two. Either you will have an organic and living knowledge of Scripture, yay, or you will have knowledge of a systematic catechism, with a bunch of dogmas pinned in a display case, like so many dead beetles in an entomologist's collection. But there are two other options -- you could be ignorant in both categories, or knowledgable in both. And I found that students who had memorized their catechism were much more likely to have a lively and working knowledge of the Bible as well.

Okay, back to my meditation about the Fourth. In my experience, those who are most ambivalent or cynical about patriotic pieties -- flags, fireworks, and fun -- are most likely to embrace the second half of Decatur's toast without qualification. They are most likely to support the abuses of statist power when the state is attempting to be some jitney god in lives of its citizens. But those who wave the flag at the parade, and eat their hot dogs afterwards, are most likely to recognize that the government has gotten itself way out of line. Take a couple big E on the eye chart issues -- homosexual marriage and abortion. Take a poll of a thousand people at a Fourth of July parade, where flags are everywhere, and then poll the same number of people who would not dream of attending such a cheesy event. Which group is most likely to support the oppressive tyranny, right or wrong, and which group is most likely, overwhelmingly, to oppose it? Right.

Say that mom has a drinking problem, and it is time for an intervention. Whom do you want leading and coordinating it? The son who calls every week and sends flowers and a card every mother's day, or the son who has been a cynical smartmouth from high school on? The son who has observed the pieties is qualified to say something about the maternal sin, and is the most likely to do it right. The other son might actually be the source of the problem and ought not to be put in charge of fixing it.

Pride is the wrong word to use, but I am extremely grateful to be an American. I really like it. I cultivate my affection for apple pie, and I own a Winchester rifle. We are going to barbeque some burgers and dogs later on, and then we are going to set off some fireworks -- not just as a fun display for the grandkids, but to commemorate an important historical event. I did my stint in the Navy, and I have seen the former Soviet Union through a periscope. I really like the sense of place and family that pervades country music. I enjoy mowing the lawn, football in the fall, and voting the bums out. I honor the flag.

For the cynic, all this "sentimentalism" amounts to compromises with the local baals. I might worship YHWH in Jerusalem, they would say, but here in our little valley, I doff my baseball cap when I walk through the local groves of the Ashtoroth.

Not a bit of it. My natural affection for my people and place -- which every Christian must cultivate in his place, for his people -- does not interfere with my ability to challenge the regnant follies, insanities, and cruelties. That natural affection, that patriotism, is actually one of my qualifications for doing so. We have plots currently afoot in Washington that George III would not have countenanced in his nightmares. And if I go to a big rally dedicated to telling the federal government to stop acting like a colony of Mordor, as I make my way through the parking area, I am willing to bet you that an awful lot of the pick-up trucks there would have American flags on them.