Citizens of Heaven: Rethinking Patriotism in a Global Gospel, Part 4
Posted on 09/29/2025 at The Curmudgeon’s Chronicle
Breaking the Cycle with Justice and Gospel
Harvest season sweeps across America, a time when fields yield what they've been sown – abundance from faithful tending, or barrenness from neglect. But in the church, what are we reaping from the seeds of partiality and ethnic favoritism? A bitter crop of division, where rhetoric that begins with "protecting heritage" careens toward outright idolatry. Voices like Corey Mahler and Ryan Dumperth of Stone Choir aren't outliers; they're the inevitable endpoint of a slope lubricated by twisted Scripture and cultural nostalgia. Mahler's September posts – his Sept. 16 invocation of Jeremiah 18 to frame racial "kingdoms" as divinely fated for removal or rebuilding, or his Sept. 13 prophecy of a White man earning the title "Africanus" like some ethnic conqueror – aren't just inflammatory. They're theological treason, yanking God's words from repentance to racial manifest destiny. As the church hurtles toward this abyss, it's past time to shatter the cycle. Not with polite debate, but with the unyielding blade of biblical justice and the gospel's global fire. Heavenly citizenship demands no less (Philippians 3:20).
The cycle thrives on a lie: that partiality is piety. It whispers that loving your own – family, nation, ethnicity – is a biblical hierarchy, an Ordo Amoris where kin rank above strangers, and "our people" tower over all. On the surface, it nods to natural affections: love your household first, your community second. But probe deeper, and the facade crumbles. This isn't ordered love; it's favoritism forbidden by God Himself. James 2:9 thunders the verdict: "But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." Partiality isn't a preference – it's sin, a transgression that poisons the well of justice. When we rank the stranger below the "heritage American," or deem one ethnicity's preservation a divine mandate, we're not honoring creation's order. We're inverting it, turning God's impartial throne into a tribal court.
Consider the houseguest analogy so often trotted out by preservationists: your home, your rules – lock the door on outsiders to safeguard what's yours. It's a tidy defense of borders, until you remember whose house it truly is. This world, this nation, every inch of soil belongs to Jesus Christ, not us. We are slaves in His domain, bid to open wide or face His reckoning (Luke 19:27). Ethnicity doesn't dictate entry; wickedness does. We wouldn't bar a door for a man's skin or accent – we'd bolt it against the thief or the violent. Yet this slope inverts that: Mahler's Sept. 11 musing on servants of God clad in "white robes" (Revelation 7:9 twisted to ethnic symbolism) isn't subtle symbolism; it's a sleight-of-hand that paints divine favor as racial wardrobe. The crime isn't the stranger's bloodline; it's the sinner's rebellion. To partial out welcome based on heritage isn't stewardship – it's squatting in the King's house, dictating terms to the Owner.
Scripture demolishes this from every angle. The Old Testament doesn't tolerate ethnic gatekeeping; it mandates assimilation and equity. Ezekiel 47:22-23 strips away illusions: "And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you... And it shall come to pass, that the stranger that sojourneth among you shall have their inheritance with you, and with the house of Israel." Strangers don't huddle on the margins – they claim lot alongside the native-born, full heirs under one law. Exodus 12:49 seals it: "One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you." No dual tracks, no cultural litmus tests – just justice, assuming sojourners will honor the covenant and dwell in peace. Ruth the Moabite? She doesn't linger as perpetual "other," her foreign blood a footnote. She weaves into Israel's line, grandmother to David, redeemer of the messianic thread. Deuteronomy 10:19 isn't a suggestion: "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." God's people, forged in outsider fire, dare not forge chains for others.
The New Testament escalates the demolition, exploding barriers under gospel dynamite. Yes, God created nations (Acts 17:26: "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth"), but not as silos to hoard in or hierarchies to oppress under. He scattered them to seek Him, not to shun the seeker. The early church didn't cling to Jewish homogeneity; it shattered it. Peter's table-fellowship blunder in Galatians 2:11-14 – refusing to eat with Gentiles until Paul calls him out – exposes the rot: "I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." Partiality at the Lord's table? Blasphemy. Paul's mission fused Jew and Greek, slave and free, into one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). And Romans 13:4? No warrant for ethnic enforcers, but a blueprint for authorities as "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Impartial as the sword they bear – punish the wicked, regardless of hue or heritage. When Stone Choir or Mahler (his Sept. 6 claim that no "White man" escapes divine opportunity, implying others might) leap from creation's diversity to mandated separation, they don't wield Scripture. They weaponize it, ignoring Revelation 7:9's throne-room reality: "a great multitude... of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues." That's no monochrome revival – it's a redeemed riot of color, united not by blood but by the Lamb.
America's mirror reflects the absurdity. The 2020 American Community Survey lays bare a nation never meant for ethnic monopoly: 60% non-Hispanic white, yes, but laced with 18% Hispanic, 13% Black, 6% Asian – and that's after centuries of Irish, Italian, Mexican, and beyond blending the pot. How "pure" is pure enough? Mixed lineages? Assimilated Black patriots like Clarence Thomas, out-earning some self-proclaimed guardians in fidelity? It's not preservation; it's prejudice, a right-wing echo of the left's obsession with externals. 1 Samuel 16:7 cuts to the marrow: "for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." God judges deeds, not demographics. To idolize one thread of the tapestry isn't heritage – it's heresy in heritage's clothing, a betrayal of the King who reconciles "all things" through His blood (Colossians 1:20).
Justice is the shatterpoint, God's non-negotiable standard that levels every field for gospel advance. Romans 13 calls rulers to "good," not "our tribe's good." Leviticus 19:34 commands: "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Partiality here – deporting for flags waved in protest (recall LA's June cries for belonging), not for felonies committed – fuels the fire. Nations, of course, have every right to set borders and enforce laws to protect their people, as earthly kingdoms ordained under God's sovereignty (Rom. 13:1-4). But we're speaking here of the church's heavenly posture, not state policy: a gospel call to love the stranger without partiality, trusting justice to God's impartial hand. Deuteronomy 13:11 demands shuddering justice for idolatry, rounding up rioters who torch the peace. But a foreign banner pleading inclusion? That's no crime; it's a cue for the gospel, not a call to the border wall. Treat it with resentment, and you sow the cycle's next turn: strangers as suspects, nations as rivals, the church as a cultural bunker.
The gospel alone breaks it – not by cultural conquest, but by cross-won unity. Homogeneity? Absolutely, but in the elect race of 1 Peter 2:9: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." This nation isn't earthly ethnicity – it's the saints, multicolored and borderless, exploding from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. My own steps toward Japan, amid a people 99% unreached (Joshua Project, 2025), underscore it: the call isn't to export one culture, but to ignite the elect race wherever the stranger dwells. Hebrews 13:2 warns: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Obey, and the cycle fractures; ignore, and Mahler's "Africanus" fantasies become the church's fever dream.
Churches all around the world, the harvest looms – what will you reap? Audit your altars: does your feed echo Revelation 7:9's multitude or Mahler's silos? Galatians 3:28 levels the lie: "There is neither Jew nor Greek... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Some will quip, 'Well, if there's no Jew or Greek, does that mean no male or female either?' That's a category error, conflating spiritual unity in Christ – where salvation levels all hierarchies – with denying created distinctions like gender roles in family and church. The verse shatters ethnic barriers to the gospel, not God's design for manhood and womanhood (Gen. 1:27; 1 Cor. 11:3). Partiality damns; justice delivers. Reclaim it: invite the immigrant not as a project, but as Leviticus bids – family under one law. Fuel the mission: Matthew 28:19 isn't for elites; it's every tongue's command. Test the prophets: their fruit is division or the nations' ingathering? Sow justice now, or watch the slope claim more souls.
Love your land – pray its peace (Jeremiah 29:7), bow to its laws (Romans 13:1) – but grip it loosely, lest it crush the gospel. The throne awaits no fortress, only the faithful who shattered idols for the King. The cycle ends here – or it consumes us all.