29/01/2006

• Christ, Nationalism, and Loyalty

  
  

  This stems from the British-Irish situation that has existed for 500+ years, but it applies to any loyalty, nationalism, or "national pride".  My confronting UK Loyalist Protestants (and Irish Republican Christians) recently brings to mind Christ and nationalism relative to our loyalities.  A Loyalist Protestant in the UK has a three-fold loyalty to Christ, Protestant Christianity, and His Majesty the King.   A sterotypical Irish Republican is one who supports Ireland as a Republic (hence "Republican", not the same as American Republicanism) and also supports a united Ireland free of British occupation.  Most Republicans are Catholic since the Republic of Ireland is 90% Catholic; however, there have been historical and modern Irish Republicans that have been Protestant.

  
  

  Our first loyalty is to Christ.  Any loyalty to a State or a world cause is secondary, subordinate, and subservient to Christ.  It both angers and saddens me to see certain Christians compromise their loyalty to and profession of Christ for the sake of nationalism by their unScriptural actions (e.g, one UK Loyalist Protestant I saw calling Irish Catholics "damn Papists" when God through Christ and Paul commanded us in clear terms to love, pray for, bless, and not curse our enemies and persecutors OR certain Catholic and Protestant Irish Republicans I've seen calling Loyalist Christians names and curses and maintaining, unScripturally, that an armed struggle in necessary).   Such loyalty to a State or a world cause is extreme and idolatrous.  Why compromise something eternal (Christ and His Kingdom) for something temporal (a State and the related "national pride") and effectively elevate the temporal to a level equal to or greater than the eternal Christ?!!  Compromising actions, in private and especially in public, undermine and negate our profession of Christ.

  
  

  The British were welcome guests when Ireland invited them in the 1000's, but the British have overstayed their welcome for 900+ years.  The UK can have Ireland, but not until His Majesty the King and his successors rule justly and uphold the Covenants: the National Covenant of Scotland and the Solemn League & Covenant (and their later renovations).  Charles I, Charles II, the English and Scottish Parliaments, and the highest Irish legislative body ratified the Covenants and, before God and human witnesses, promised in oath and writing to uphold them.  Both the UK and Ireland (and their current and former colonies) are still bound to uphold those Scriptural Covenants, which cannot be annuled by any man, ecclesiastical body, Revolution, attainment of State independence, or legislative body.  Charles II, his successors, England, Scotland, Ireland, and their current and former colonies have broken the Covenants and opened the door to religious pluralism/anarchy, the heretically Erastian Government of the UK, the re-introduction of (quasi-)Catholic worship innovations (and therefore the undermining of the Reformation), Cromwell's merciless and bloody campaign in Ireland, political and legal tolerance and immunity for heretics (and heretical diplomats), the extreme extent of Church-State separation in the US, and the current spiritual apathy and coldness in the aforementioned States and colonies.  (Catholicism is also a reason for the spiritual apathy and coldness in Ireland.)  From Elizabeth I onward, His Majesty has oppressed Ireland through the Protestant Settlements, Oliver Cromwell's campaign, and Victoria's (and her Prime Minister Disraeli) Laissez Faire handling of the Great Famine.  (However, thanks be to God for Disraeli's successor William Gladstone, albeit a liberal, who championed Irish Home Rule, which opened the later to door to independence from the British heretical government and its oppression of the Irish.)

  
  

  My personal loyalties are in this order, from greatest to least:

  
  

  1. Christ and His eternal Kingdom

  
  

  2.  Covenanted Presbyterian Christianity

  
  

  3.  Covenant Life Church

  
  

  4.  The Church Universal

  
  

  5.  Family and Friends

  
  

  6.  Work (currently linked with 7 by my Oath of Office)

  
  

  7.  The United States of America and her President

  
  

  8.  The Cause of the Confederate States of America (except her unScriptural institution of slavery)

  
  

  9a.  Ireland

  
  

  9b. The Cause for a united Ireland free of British occupation (conditioned upon 10b)

  
  

  10a.  United Kingdom

  
  

  10b.  His Majesty the King (on the condition that he and his Parliament upholds & enforces the aforementioned Covenants)

  
  

  11. España

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