So if you’ll allow me to honest with you, I have to admit that as a follower of Jesus, I’m often a little uncomfortable during the Fourth of July. The celebration of military might with fighter jet flyovers, red white and blue everything, lots of t-shirts that loudly declare, “Back to Back World War Champs.” But then there’s also just too much cheap beer mixed with explosives. That also makes me feel uncomfortable. Either way, as a Christian, something for a long time has just not felt right for me.

It may also be an equally uncomfortable time to bring it up, but I feel there is no better time than the Fourth of July for Christians to reassess the relationship between patriotism and our faith. Are good Christians equally good patriots? Many of us would assume yes, but has this always been the case within Christian thought, and what does the Bible have to say on this?

It’s interesting to note that, within America, patriotism has only been synonymous with Protestant Christianity since the founding of the nation. But until the acceptance of Protestantism as a defining element in national loyalty, few branches of Christianity were rarely, if ever, looked upon as a loyal demographic in the state. Prior to the inception of the United States, Christians were viewed with suspicion by more secular elites and rulers. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, critical of what he considered their political duplicity, said Christianity gave its followers “two legislative orders, two rulers, two homelands, and put them under two contradictory obligations.” Even the more open-minded John Locke felt no government should tolerate Christians who “deliver themselves up to the Protection and Service of another Prince.”

Yet the atheists like Rousseau who argued that “the Christian’s country is not of this world” weren’t making stuff up. They were really just reading the words of early Christians. Saint Augustine, writing in response to the first sacking of Rome, declared that Christians need not worry, for their real citizenship was that of a City of God. It was a city that called “out citizens from all nations and so collected a society of aliens.” Yet Augustine’s sermon in the 4th was not new doctrine. Jesus said in John 16, “I have given them [God’s] word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” Following that spirit, the Apostle Paul continued the reluctance of pledging allegiance to anything other than God by writing in Philippians 3:20, that the Christian’s “citizenship is in Heaven.” Why? Because Christ is subjecting all things to himself, he is the true Kings of Kings.

We can conjecture about what Paul meant politically by that, but early Christians apparently took such teaching quite literally. Christians called Jesus the Son God, which for us today is a theological phrase. However, in the first century there already was a son of god – and his name was Caesar. The most basic creed of the first Christians was, “Jesus is Lord.” Yet that creed was also already in use – it was “Caesar is Lord.” Can you imagine if Christians today went around saying, “Barak Obama is not president. Jesus is president!” Some Republican primary candidates recently said as much. Or what if Christians went around declaring, “Nikki Haley is not governor. Jesus is governor!” Now all the Democrats can rejoice. You see though, this isn’t a question of Republican or Democratic politics. For at least the first few hundred years of Christianity, the followers of Jesus refused to participate in almost any politics.

The Church even went so far as to reject receiving the Roman legal status of cultus privatus , which would have essentially legalized Christianity and allowed Christians to practice their beliefs with significant freedom. All Christians would have had to do was pledge allegiance to Rome. Yet the Church would not do it. It was this resistance to pledge allegiance to Rome that would for next three centuries draw the ire of the Roman rulers and be the legal grounds for intermittent persecution by Roman authorities. But why go through all that unnecessary trouble, and the kind of trouble that gets one fed to the lions, when religious freedom was only a few imperial ring stamps away? It is because the Church saw itself as so set apart from Rome that it refused any sort of arrangement that would have placed Christians in even a symbolically subservient relationship with the state.

This of course all changed with Christianity becoming the state religion soon after the conversion of Emperor Constantine. However, the Christian state in time gave way to the nation-state, which once again attempted to make religion underneath to the power of the state. And with the rise of Protestantism and nationalism, the nation-state has been gaining control ever since. Religion at best has been allowed a separation from control of the state, but American Christianity has been especially reluctant to give up what it perceives is not as a subservient, but rather a power-sharing status.

But is this in line with the way of Jesus? Is the kind of patriotism practiced in America able to mix with Christianity? For generations now, it seemed to have been the perfect fit. Christianity and America saved the world from Hitler’s neo-pagan Reich. During the Cold War, Christianity and America was made synonymous with fighting atheistic communism. Even since 9/11, Christianity was invoked in the War on Terror, perhaps because we view a new conflict with radical Islam. However it has happened, love of a nation and love of God have been theologically wedded—and given the history of this nation fighting for freedom—quite understandably. But why did an alliance between the Church and America for the sake of the common good become a marriage of so-called “Christian” and “American” values? Is not the Church pledged as the bride of Christ? The Church, unfortunately, has not been the most faithful fiancé.

So can a Christian be a patriot? To be fair, Christians after Constantine would often find themselves split on this question. However, hardly any Christians in the first 300 years of Christianity would have been able to justify pledging allegiance to Christ and to the flag of a nation. Even when Jesus talked about government, it was always to contrast the failure of human government and the beauty of his unfolding heavenly government. Yet, if you really want to know if your kind of patriotism crosses the line into idolatry, simply ask yourself, “Do I ever find myself celebrating America more than I celebrate Jesus Christ?” Then remind yourself that your citizenship is in Heaven.