I think any Christian willing to lay down their life in service to their fellow countrymen would also willingly lay down their life for Christ....and, there are even more Christians who might never be called to lay down their life in service to their countrymen who are still most willing to lay down their life for Christ.
Vic said:
I'll tell you want I consider borderline idolatry; Legalism.
We are set free from the Truth, not bound down by man's insistence that we live according to their suppositions of how we are to live out our Christian walk.
I agree, Vic. I can't believe how many things out there that some Christians are willing to judge others about. As Paul said, "Who are you to judge the servant of another Master?" And yet, in this thread alone we see that Christians are judged and disparaged as only "Christian" because they happen to be patriotic.
Isn't it amazing how much condemnation can be put into some simple quotation marks?
There are some good points about idolatry being raised in this thread. If we can but skip the judgmental attitudes and the disparaging ""'s perhaps we could have a profitable discussion.
I believe that there are three ways that we become idolators:
1. The worship of anyone/anything besides God. Period. Only God receives our worship...if we even think about worshiping someone/something other than God we are practicing idolatry.
However, most Christians would balk at worshiping someone/something other than God. But, we can still be in danger of idolatry.
2. If we love someone/something more than God we are also practicing idolatry. Love and worship naturally aren't the same thing and we are commanded to love both our neighbors and our enemies so we are to be characterized by our love. However, if we love anyone or anything more than God...as Jethro put it, someone or thing that has more value or importance to us than God even leading us to sin in order to keep it in our lives...that becomes idolatry as well.
For a Christian who would die before worshiping anyone/anything besides God, this can become a pitfall. I was talking to a Christian about my church. Admittedly, my church is very old-fashioned when it comes to music. Not only are the hymns played slowly, they tend to be translated from German and are sort of ponderous. Don't get me wrong, they are steeped in solid doctrine and proclaim the Gospel and the holiness of God...they are just light years behind the music played in a lot of churches today. The person I was chatting with about this said, "If I had to go to a church like that, I'd just quit going to church, period." I said, "Really? What about communion, what about the coming together with other Christians, what about the reading and learning of God's word?" She said, "Nope. If a church doesn't have contemporary music, I'd refuse to go."
I don't know her heart and I'm not judging her salvation by any means, but what I'm saying is that this kind of attitude (which goes both ways) can lead to idolatry. It's one thing to choose to go to a church based upon whether or not it has a contemporary or a traditional worship service...but to refuse to follow God's commandments regarding corporate worship just because one can't "pick and choose"...dangerously close to making a worship style an idol.
By far though I think that that WIP stated the 3rd type of idolatry best: "anything one places his/her trust and/or faith in
more than God."
This is the one that I think most Christians, including myself, can fall into. I know I had to repent of it when I started worrying about how we were going to pay for our medical bills when Steve had to be hospitalized, because his insurance isn't all that great. But, I can't place my trust/faith in my husband's insurance company, nor in his job. Christians cannot place their trust/faith in their nation to take care of them, or to protect them, we cannot place our trust/faith in employers, in the police, in the fire departments, in education, in social programs, even in good neighbors, in anything, anything at all more than we do God Himself. We can have all these things and you know what, God can take them all from us in the blink of an eye, if He chooses to do so, and He just might if He finds His beloved children trusting in them more than Him.
