Jamin Bradley

Like all Americans, I grew up looking at a flag with my hand over my heart as I pledged my life to it at schools, sports, and even church. It had the word “God” in it, so I figured I was on the right track, but as I grew up, I started to note too many disconnects.

My allegiance was supposed to be with Jesus, not somewhere else. If Jesus asked me to do or say something counter to what Babylon asked me to do or say, I was supposed to choose Jesus. As I grew up, I started to notice that Babylon was often not on the same page as Jesus, and that I had to decide where my real allegiance would be.

Furthermore, what god was I under in the pledge of allegiance? I assumed it was the Christian one, but America is famously known as a melting pot. Many Americans adhered to other religions, or no religion at all. And America’s values and decisions often didn’t look like the Christian God, so was it really that one?

And finally, the more socially conscious and spiritually convicted I became, the more I realized that America does not have liberty and justice for all (nor does it truthfully desire it). The only way to become “indivisible” in such a scenario is to silence those who haven’t yet found equality and freedom. A peace that is no peace can be maintained through the right blend of oppression, mocking, and destruction.

As tomorrow approaches, I see the contrast between Heaven and Babylon even more starkly. As America gears up to celebrate its 250th birthday with a UFC fight on the capital lawn, I can’t help but feel like we’ve been thrown back in time. Rather than hide our true colors, we’ve set up a mini coliseum that we might enjoy some blood and violence as entertainment for the emperor’s birthday party.

The more I stand back and look at the whole thing, the more grateful I am to have parted from the pledge of allegiance and taken on the Lord’s Prayer. It’s there in Jesus’s prayer that I ask God’s Kingdom of Heaven to come rather than Babylon’s kingdom. It’s there that I find forgiveness instead of violence. It’s there that I find deliverance from evil and freedom from temptation. It’s there that I pledge my allegiance to God’s actual will, unfiltered by Babylon’s rewrites.

If you want to follow Jesus, you need to disentangle your heart, soul, and mind from the state. A new creation of Heaven cannot be fully realized in you while the old creation of this world lives on in you. This is not a call to be left or right—this is a call to be like the person of Jesus. Make your allegiance to him.