Where is your citizenship?

I am happy to have a U.S. passport. It allows me to travel internationally and is a valuable piece of identification. I also have a valid Florida driver’s license with the proper identifier on it. My citizenship is in Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA. 

I have recently seen the use of the word “citizenship” tied to the word “biblical.”  In fact, two churches that I know of in our area are offering courses on “biblical citizenship” starting soon. The promotional materials say that our freedoms are under attack and we need to learn how to defend our liberty. The material promises to deliver content from biblical scholars, experts in the U.S. Constitution and champions of religious liberty.

The course title puzzles me. What is a biblical citizen? I think of myself as a Christian first, then as an American, who happened to earn her living as a church professional. I blame my dad for this. He was not a jeweler first. He made it known he was a Christian who happened to be a jeweler. Semantics? Maybe. How we define ourselves shows to everyone else.

In the long arc of history covered by the Bible, the people of Israel were nomads, slaves, fugitives and displaced persons who were governed by one empire or another. Long after writings that became the Christian scriptures were written, in 312 CE, when Constantine was Roman emperor, he allowed Christianity to become an official religion. The emperor did no favors to the institution of the church. It has suffered from confusion around the separation of church and state ever since. Christianity has experienced various mishaps, persecutions, crusades and purges. Manifest destiny was an economic strategy cloaked in religious justification that did irreparable harm. Gee thanks, Emperor Constantine.

From what I remember of the early history of this country, it was founded by people fleeing a monarchy and religious persecution. They were not looking to create another one. Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, was fleeing religious oppression for his Baptist beliefs in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Unfortunately, the tendency to religiously oppress others followed settlers across the ocean. It was people like Roger Williams and others who influenced the founders to be sure that separation of church and state was a hallmark of the emerging democracy.

The materials being used for this course are designed and written by the Patriot Academy. There are several short videos on their biblical citizenship page that will give you more information on the purpose of this course.

This organization was founded by Rick Green, who is a former state representative in Texas. He calls himself “America’s Constitutional Coach.” One of the purposes of the material is to teach people, using the founding documents, that the founders intended this country to be a Christian nation. In order to fight current cultural wars and to defend freedom, citizens need a biblical worldview. A worldview is a framework for understanding. If the intent is to make biblical citizens with a biblical worldview, one has to look at and question whose framework or lens one is viewing the world through. 

Speaking of worldview, this past Sunday, Kristen DuMez, a noted speaker and author, said her pastor, Rev. Andrew Mead, pastor of Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cautioned about blindly opposing DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) becoming CEI, (conformity, exclusion and inequity). Listen to his whole sermon here.

Mark Wingfield, an author and executive director of Baptist News Global wrote in his July 21, 2025 opinion piece that the worldview of those who write the materials like those in this course pick and choose biblical texts and single out their favorite issues for focus. For instance, why is it that the 10 Commandments are being posted in classrooms but not Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7 in which Jesus preaches love, forgiveness and humility?

Here are Rev. Wingfield’s suggestions for creating a more accurately biblical worldview.

• Read the whole Bible.
• Understand the cultural context of Scripture and discern what was relevant for a certain time and what is an eternal truth.
• Learn the difference between poetry and prose.
• Understand the limits of the biblical text and its claims about itself.
• Prioritize the red letters, the words of Jesus. “Christ-ians” follow Christ, so what he says matters most.
• Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, realizing the biblical text is not God’s final revelation to us. God still speaks.

This week, take out your driver’s license or your passport and look at it. What do they tell you about your citizenship? What is the first thing you want others to know about you, your beliefs and worldview? May you be encouraged to examine the lenses through which you view yourself and the world and to consider the sources of information on which you base your conclusions.