Kosovo, Independence and the place of patriotism

I was so excited when Ukraine achieved a unique identity through it’s “Orange” revolution a few years ago and today, when Kosovo declared itself independent I was equally thrilled. These are two countries where more than 10 years ago my team at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association held Children’s Evangelistic Rallies (CER’s) and distributed gifts brought over on huge Antonov 320 Cargo planes (the largest in the world) loaded by Samaritan’s Purse (over 500,000 gifts in Kosovo alone).

I pictured those young people as some of the recipients of those boxes and the messages they contained that Jesus could indeed be their forever friend. I can only hope.

Then I read today from Anne Applebaum (who wrote the brilliant pulitzer prize winning Gulag: A History) in The New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com) about a fantastic new movie Katyn by Andrzej Wajda. It depicts in vivid detail the deaths of 20,000 officers in the Polish Army and Reserves (the best, brightest and future leadership of the country–imagine the emptying of all our Ivy league colleges!) in the Katyn woods. Andrzej said, he wanted to tell the story again for young people—but not just any young people. Wajda said he wanted to reach “those moviegoers for whom it matters that we are a society, and not just an accidental crowd.”

Christians are not “just an accidental crowd” but part of a society that is defined by Jesus Christ and animated by him. We are a peculiar people and in a sense our patriotism lies beyond what we experience right now. Anne says that patriotism can also lead to the ill effects of identity that excludes even as it includes. Our Christian faith does both. Keep those inside connected in a thing we’ve been asked to call the “church” while at the same time keeping our “borders porous” and open! Messy isn’t it!