{"id":66900,"date":"2025-03-31T10:43:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=66900"},"modified":"2025-04-01T18:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T23:24:11","slug":"this-is-not-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/this-is-not-america\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is Not America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The 1985 film <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0087231\/\">The Falcon and the Snowman<\/a> tells the (true) story of two young men, once Roman Catholic altar boys, who became disillusioned with the United States in the 1970s when they gained knowledge about CIA activities in Australia.\u00a0 The young men pass secrets along to the Soviet Union, are charged with espionage, and imprisoned.\u00a0 As the closing credits roll, the soundtrack features the song <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MJRF8xGzvj4\">&#8220;This Is Not America&#8221;<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2025, as the current US administration executes deportations on questionable legal grounds, slashes budgets for domestic and international aid organizations, and makes imperial noises about the territorial integrity of Canada, Panama, and Denmark, \u201cThis Is Not America\u201d has continuing relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also of continuing relevance is the <em>Epistle to Diognetus<\/em>, dated roughly to the second century.&nbsp; This document states, in part, that<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.<sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Christians, it says, are foreigners in their home countries.\u00a0 Note that the text does not add qualifiers here.\u00a0 It does not say that Christians are foreigners in their home countries when those countries pass laws that allow or prohibit certain forms of conduct.\u00a0 It says nothing about whether tax policies are just or unjust.\u00a0 It says nothing about criminal justice systems or the presence \/ absence of political corruption.\u00a0 It is silent about deportations and imperialism. Christians are foreigners in their homelands no matter the government of those lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In each age and in each context, no government is ever the Kingdom of God on earth.&nbsp; To think otherwise is to entertain idolatry.&nbsp; Love for country should characterize all Christians, but this love is to be rightly ordered, subject at all times to the <em>latreia<\/em> owed to God alone.&nbsp; Christian worship is a matter of that <em>latreia<\/em>.&nbsp; It may involve speaking well of state policies.&nbsp; It may involve condemnation of state policies.&nbsp; At all times, the Gospel is the standard by which policies are judged and the Gospel is never captured fully in any policy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup>1<\/sup>Source: <em>Epistle to Diognetus<\/em> 6 at &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/0101.htm\">https:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/0101.htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TIMOTHY BRUNK &#8212; Every land of their birth [is] as a land of strangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":66902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,3053,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liturgical-spirituality","category-liturgy-and-virtue","category-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>This Is Not America - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/this-is-not-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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