“There’s lots of different ways that you can frame patriotic liturgy, but ultimately, we just can’t argue with the fact that we’re supposed to make much of Jesus. When we gather he’s the goal, he’s the end. And so I think we have to be very, very careful there.”
“The flag is such a strong symbol…But also we have to remember that the symbols just mean different things to different people.”
“We can’t necessarily say we’re a Christian country when we’ve aborted 60 million babies…just because we can love and appreciate and find good things about our country, we also need to be able to speak truthfully about where we are as a country.”
“Let’s just be honest, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to be a Christian for my kids or my grandchildren than it is today. And so we’re trying to prepare them now and say, “There’s going to be a day where it’s going to really cost you to be both a Christian and an American.”
“Rome didn’t care for Christians…they weren’t treating them well. Yet the Bible still says, pray for them, submit, and honor.”
“Right now, where we are seeing this disgust, it’s not really necessarily an issue of patriotism. It’s an issue of politics. And so I tried my best to make my book about the topic of patriotism without dealing with politics.”
“When you’re looking at this at the local church level, patriotism is becoming a junk drawer term. But because the politics are so divided, pastors are in this weird stage where you are afraid to say anything.”
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“My question internally is: Is our definition of what’s idolatrous in this moment changing because of the culture or is it changing because of Scripture?”
