Tension

I feel that tension too. I touched on this in one of my posts earlier this week. The way I generally deal with it is to frame the conflict in pragmatic terms. The conflict between Islam and the West isn't a confict of Good vs. Evil, it's a conflict of Us vs. Them. They want me dead, so it's okay to defend myself. As They operate outside the boundaries of civilized law, they do not deserve the protections of the same, so pre-emption is justified.

Things get sticker when we start to talk about the conflict between Islam and the Church. This is an unambiguous battle of Good vs. Evil. It happens that the enemies of the Church also happen to be the enemies of America. Thus we can applaud America for killing our enemies, even while we condemn America for her many problems. America is an accidental hero in the larger conflict, and can be honored as such without assigning her unbridled moral goodness.

I tend to think that the tension you describe is exactly where we should be. We're resident-aliens. That means that life here is messy and confusing. Really, I tend to like your two beliefs. I think your freedom to hold the first follows from the second.

Because of your view of the church, you can sort of "stand back" and cheer on the nations that seem to be approximating justice, using the sword against the right people, etc. But because we know life is messy, we don't freak out when we discover that the nation we're cheering on does bad things too.

I don't know. Maybe we just need to be more at peace with tension. I tend to think we _should_ feel ill at ease this side of the new creation - good people on both sides of issues, etc.

But then again, maybe I'm missing your point.

I might not fully understand your tension, and maybe I should just wait for the full version, but in a knee-jerk, initial-feedback way:

You are a citizen of America. You are also a citizen of the Kingdom of God. You know that these are not the same entities, nor do they overlap, but you are part of both.

As a citizen of America, you have an opinion on America's foreign policy. You think America is doing the right things to defend herself from other political entities.

As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, you recognize that the Kindgom of God has nothing to do with defending itself militarily, allying with political powers, etc., but has a mission and a war that, at this point, is purely spiritual. The enemies are spiritual forces which, granted, may move through more tangible means.

I don't think these are contradictory (although maybe tension is appropriate) as long as you keep your categories straight, i.e. the Kingdom of God transcends and, in a sense, opposes and subverts all earthly political structures. You also happen to belong to one of those earthly political structures, and unless you move to Antarctica, you always will.

I think the epistemic minefield comes in when these two "spheres of allegiance" become conflated or misprioritized. I, for example, am much more of a brother to an Iraqi Christian than I am to a non-Christian American soldier, however much I might care about the fate of our soldiers and feel some kind of sense of identity with them.

I think I've just restated what you and everyone else has said so far. I sure hope the "Phil" that you were referring to in your post weighs in, too.

I think you are awfully cute, and I appreciate your sentiment. But I have to say, you never lie awake for more than 5 or 10 minutes once your head hits the pillow. I know, because I always resent how quickly you can drift off :)

I love you!! LOL.