Oxonian Anecdotes: I Answer to Jesus

It was a late night in London. So late, in fact, that my legs ached and my eyes drooped as three of us Vines residents made our way to the bus stop by the Marble Arch, bidding farewell to the city, and remembering how well it had treated us during that long day of sight-seeing. Before we reached our destination, our surroundings began to change, not the landscape, but the people. There was an increasing number of them and soon we were forced to become alert if we were to avoid an embarrassing and possibly painful collision with oncoming pedestrians. The situation became more curious as I noticed that all of the members of the mob that overtook us were dressed in an unusually patriotic fashion. There were Union Jack t-shirts and flags; faces streaked red, white, and blue; and a variety of glowing and blinking objects of the same colors. “What is going on?” I thought, wondering what would ever possess people to express patriotism in such flamboyant ways. The only thing in my memory to which the sight could be compared was walking in Boston anywhere near Fenway Park after a Red Sox game had ended, pennants waving above a sea of jerseys. I could understand such expression for the Red Sox, but for my country?

“I would never paint an American flag on my face, or anywhere else on my body,” was my smug judgment, but I was suddenly shocked at my own train of thought. Was I ashamed of my country? When had I jumped on the hipster bandwagon, so popular with my generation across the world, wielding an anti-America bumper sticker? It was not that I had offended myself by lacking patriotism; I was bothered by the fact that I had no idea from where these strong feelings of disgust had grown. Had I been brainwashed without consent? The only thing left for me to do was decide what I thought about patriotism right then and there. I knew how I felt at that moment, but I hadn’t made that choice – it was not an educated selection of personal philosophy, but a passive absorption of popular media. What I sought was rightness of thought. How should I feel about patriotism?

“I am an American,” I thought, as I climbed the steps and handed the bus driver my ticket. I was born in America and there was nothing I could do about that, regardless of what I decided. I was, on the other hand, a Christian first and a Christian by choice. How, then, should Christianity inform my relationship with America? Jesus told me to submit to earthly authority, pay taxes, and obey laws. I was lucky enough that the laws of my country did not directly interfere with my faith. Beyond those concessions, I decided, I owe the United States nothing. I must love and respect my leaders, of course, as I must love and respect all people, but it would be a grave mistake to believe that my sensibility was somehow bound to the America dream, be it at home or abroad. I answer to Jesus.

By the time I was beginning to find peace in this decision, the bus was slowing near our stop. I gently patted the sleeping head on my shoulder and we disembarked. The walk from the bus stop to The Vines was a short one, but quiet and long enough to reflect on what was happening to me. I heard, before making the move across the pond, that living in a different country challenges feelings of loyalty to one’s own. Tonight I had found that to be true. Political conversations with British people had peppered my experience up until then and that night, being able to view patriotism in the context of someone else’s country, I felt the grip of my homeland loosen. I knew that no matter how my nationality had shaped me, that shape could be changed. I could be a citizen of the world, rather than simply an American, but what did that look like? Something told me that learning how to live at peace with humanity would take longer than a bus ride from London to Oxford, but I felt better already.