Patriotism?

Happy Fourth of July weekend! Always nice to have four days off, unless you happen to be an Oracle employee... poor people. Check out MSNBC.com's special section on "What does it mean to be an American?" Try taking their citizenship quiz to see if you know the answers to some of the questions that would be on the naturalization test. I got 90%, missing questions number: (mouse-over) 8 and 16, which qualifies me for citizenship! Yay!

Patriotism has become an interesting topic to me over the last few years, particularly when observing America, the Evangelical Christian culture (while it might not seem like it in the Bay Area, there are quite a few Evangelicals in this country), and how a "religion" with so many adherents can heavily influence areas ranging from politics, to public policy, to entertainment, to the environment, and so on. Many Christians tie nationalism/patriotism in with their religion and consider America to be a "Christian nation."

I'll try to post more thoughts on this topic in future posts, but for now, as we sit down to our fireworks and barbeque and appreciate the history behind the struggle for freedom in this nation of ours, I would like to invite at least the readers who would call themselves Christians to check out this thought-provoking post and read the discussion afterward, and think about the question - Is my primary pledge of allegiance to a nation? Or is it to a King and a Kingdom?