Hi tutorman,
This thread is for those that think we should hate our own country. I know a lot of you go by the Bible alone so if you would kindly show me the chapter and verse where we are told to hate our country. I do not desire your interpretation but the exact book, chapter, and verse please. Thank you
I also would question your use of the word 'hate' for describing how some believers feel about patriotism to their country. As other posters have pointed out, for the born again believer, the Scriptures describe us as being without a home here on the earth. We are referred to as 'sojourning'. Another poster pointed out that the Scriptures do tell us that we are to be respectful and abiding of the earthly authorities as they were instituted by God, but...
I think one needs to consider that when those words were written in the Scriptures, the United States of America didn't exist. So those words must refer to all nations and that's my position. What I don't like about the general attitude of Americans is that we seem to project this attitude that we're better than everyone else. That our nation is better, our government is better, our people are better. We're just all around better people because we were blessed to be born in the U.S. I didn't have anything to do with where I was born, and neither do most other babies. Cuban parents have children in Cuba and the are, therefore, Cuban citizens. Mexican parents have Mexican babies and are Mexican citizens. British parents have children in Great Britain and they are then British citizens, etc., etc.
Americans are blessed to have been born for the most party in America because America is a nation that does, in some ways better than other nations, respect the individual rights of its people. But there are other nations that do the same thing for their citizens. Canadians aren't particularly repressed by their government. French citizens aren't particularly repressed by their government. There are a lot of nations that are good places to live and as believers we should appreciate that, as the Scriptures declare, be respectful of whatever governing body our particular nation provides to oversee our general well being.
I enjoy the freedoms and liberties that the governance of the U.S. allows me, but I neither love nor hate America. I am blessed to have been born here rather than in some despot totalitarian government such as North Korea, but that doesn't make America better than everywhere or everyone else in my book.
Sadly, I'm not in agreement with our current leadership that is doing its best to support and promote this 'America is better than everywhere else' attitude. We're just a nation of people living upon the earth just as there are many other nations doing the exact same thing. We need to learn to get along and live side by side and hand in hand with the other nations of the world. Promoting governments that allow for personal freedoms, but not then lording it over everyone that we're the best.
It's really ok if we buy more chinese goods from China than they buy from us. We have more disposable income and so it would seem only logical to me that there would be a trade imbalance. China has a lot of people, but not the kind of disposable income that we have so they produce more than we do. They make pretty good products at less cost than we do and so Americans buy their products. It's really pretty simple economics and, as yet, no one's really shown any harm that such a relationship is doing to us, other than we don't get to say that we're the greatest. Our unemployment has been down to pretty good levels for years. Our people are generally making pretty decent incomes. After all, we don't seem to be having any trouble, as a nation of people, buying 2,3,4,5 hundred thousand dollar homes. So it would seem that a lot of Americans are making pretty decent incomes.
Now, that's not to say that everyone is getting to enjoy the American dream and we can certainly work on that, but the biggest reason that the average American may not get to enjoy the American dream has little to do with products made overseas, but that we don't more equitably distribute income.
In many, many ways we are not the best example of how people should live. We have drug and sin problems that are, in many cases, worse than other nations. We have crime and murder rates that make a whole lot of other nations safer places to live. America is a good place to live in most cases, but it is just that, a good place to live.
President Trump is regularly decrying the fact that we spend lots of money protecting other nations, but that's the government that we have built. It has always been more important to us to have the strongest military and we have put ourselves out there as the 'protector' of the world. We don't have to be.
So, I don't hate America, but neither am I so patriotic that I think we have to put everyone else in their place to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] and crow about our greatness.
God bless,
In Christ, ted
