Citizens and Exiles - The Art of Non-Participation [Ryan Ashley]

Daniel 3

It is an all too familiar a scenario to which history repeatedly testifies: An attempt to harness religion in the interest of the totalitarian state by making the state an object of worship.

Oxford Professor, John Lennox

“The myth of America as a Christian nation with the church as its guardian has been and continues to be damaging both to the church and to the advancement of God’s kingdom. Among other things, this nationalistic myth blinds us to the way in which our basic and most cherished cultural assumptions are diametrically opposed to the kingdom way of life taught by Jesus and his disciples instead of living out the radically, counter-cultural mandate of the kingdom of God. This myth has induced us to ‘Christianize’ many pagan aspects of our culture. Instead of providing the culture with a radical alternative way of life, we largely present it with a religious version of what it already has.”

Greg Boyd

“We need to remind ourselves that no modern nation, whether America, England, Korea or whatever, is in a situation like Israel. America is not a Christian nation, there is no such thing as a Christian nation. America is more like Babylon in Daniels day or Rome in Jesus’ day than Israel.”

Tremper Longman

“We have learned of the frightening scenes which took place three weeks ago in Paris, where the French police, on orders of the occupying power, arrested in their homes all the Jewish families to hold them in the Vel d’Hiv. We are afraid that the measures of deportation of the Jews will soon be applied in the Southern Zone. We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews But we make no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. It is contrary to the gospel teaching. If our comrades, whose only fault is to be born in another religion, received the order to let themselves be deported, or even examined, they would disobey the order received, and we would try to hide them as best we could. We have Jews, you’re not getting them.”
Andre Trocme