Love This Country?

Author: Andrew Comiskey
July 11, 2016
My pastor recently implored us to love this country (or whichever one is ours); he argued, ‘we only seek to save what we love. What we hate we want to destroy or at least be rid of.’

I agree. I work hard to save what I love. I rally around people whom I want to reclaim for God’s Kingdom—my kids, spiritual kids, people whose divided lives and marriages need healing. I hate deceitful attitudes and mindsets designed to bar people from God’s Kingdom; I want to expose what blocks genuine mercy.

But my country? I feel divided toward her, neither hateful nor impassioned with love for her well-being. I am at best detached from her, due in part to Obama’s treachery in courting American voters in 2008 with a pro (real) marriage ticket then revealing his hand in a series of gender-bending power plays over 8 long years. Hillary will quicken the slide into inhumanity (at least she’s honest about it), unless she is Trumped. I muse at the absurdity of choosing either candidate—the wall-building bully or the ‘empowered’ woman who uses her strength to close the womb or kill its fruit.

But I remember America’s goodness too: her beauty, her generosity, how her citizens have fueled Kingdom efforts throughout the globe. I am grateful, and realize that no amount of bad politics can snuff out the simple power of the Gospel that her citizens have extended with clarity and ingenuity.

I confess I don’t know how to love America, any more than I know how to vote in November. But I will seek to love her by fighting for the law written in every American’s heart (Rom. 2:15), raw treasure that Jesus still seeks to provoke and fulfill. I will fight to save what is good and true and just about my country.


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