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Rodeo Patriot

by Christian Huebner 

Last week, I watched four special ops soldiers rappel hundreds of feet down from the rafters of an NFL arena, unfurling a giant American flag as they descended. The stadium shook with cheering.

The setting was the annual Houston Rodeo, a three-week extravaganza that descends upon the city each year in March.

The Rodeo is an amalgam of everything Texan. It’s huge, prosperous and unapologetically western. Livestock, rides, competitions and expositions sprawl around a state-of-the-art complex of arenas and stadiums. Untold tens of thousands pass through the gates every day. Many bring a prize sheep or pig or barbeque recipe in hopes of a ribbon. Many more bring bundles of cash to disgorge on rollercoasters, concerts, and fried moon pies on a stick.  Almost everyone – I discovered too late – wears boots and a wide-brimmed hat.

The Rodeo, like Texas, is also patriotic. I visited the festivities on military appreciation day. Uniformed soldiers, sailors and airmen were everywhere. That evening, inside of Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, just prior to the headline Rascal Flatts concert, the Rodeo paid special tribute.

While the stage was being readied, three Medal of Honor winners from the Vietnam War strode out into the ring. Fifty thousand people stood and cheered. A voice over the loudspeakers identified each man, his rank and how he earned his medal as though introducing the starting lineup in an All-Star game.

Just at that moment, the ropes fell and the flag appeared. The aching swell of patriotic pride was at fever pitch.

The display took me back to my days growing up in a large, stadium-style Bible church in Nebraska. Every year on the Sunday before the Fourth of July, we would put aside praise songs and a patriotic hymn like “America the Beautiful” while a similarly (though not quite-so) giant flag descended from the rafters above the stage where our pastor preached.

As a child, I remember having mixed feelings about this. I was thoroughly convinced that America was the greatest nation on earth and I was lucky to have been born there. But I never quite understood why nationalism belonged in church. If our citizenship was in heaven, why such a display?

On the other hand, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to meet people who shunned patriotism altogether. European friends, for instance, would often regard patriotism as a slightly embarrassing and outdated artifact – like a red-faced aristocrat who made politically incorrect comments. Post-colonial guilt had wiped away national pride. Nor is that experience restricted to Europe; America has plenty of its own internal detractors, and fashionable ones at that.

Patriotism can certainly become idolatrous. There’s a good reason why my German friends were cautious on the subject. And there is good reason, too, why students of America’s less-than-finest hours might also be wary about the dangers of our own over-exuberance.

For a Christian, the danger of idolatry can seem especially prominent. But patriotism is also a distinctly Christian virtue. The scriptures teach us to be subject to ruling authorities, because all authority ultimately derives from God. More than mere submission, though, we have a duty to work for the common good within the community where our Lord places us.

Somewhere between idolatry and neglect lies the true form of Christian patriotism. The key, I believe, is in one of the most frequently recurring images in the Christian story: the sojourner. From the expulsion from Eden, to Abraham’s wandering, to the Exodus years, to the Babylonian exile, to the Son of Man without a place to lay his head, the people of God have been aliens. 

And yet, they remain in the world. They build families, nations and the visible Church.  Sometimes they even rule foreign territory, like Joseph, Daniel or Esther. 

One very early description of the Church put it beautifully:

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.

At the rodeo last week I stood and cheered for the flag like everyone else – it felt right. It was only after the fact that I reflected on what patriotism must mean for a Christian. It’s a harder, higher form of patriotism. It means loving your homeland or adopted land not because it is the be all and end all of history, but in spite of the fact that it is not. Next time the flag comes down at the rodeo, I’ll be ready for it.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)