There are many reasons why I love living in Canada. Near the top of the list is that Canada is the adopted home of many nations from around the world. The multi-ethnic character of our country has spilled over into the local church that I pastor. Devonwood Community Church of the Nazarene is a multi-ethnic and multi-racial community with people from many different countries. Our congregation includes people from South Korea, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago, Colombia, El Salvador, Germany, United States, China, Netherlands, Iraq and of course Canada. Our congregational life has been enriched in every way from such a diverse make-up of Christian worshipers.

With so much conflict around the world today, it is important to be reminded that every nation is a gift from God. Your national identity is a part of who you are. It’s a part of who God has made you. We are to avoid the extremes of idolizing our own national and racial group, on one hand, and demonizing those groups that are differnt from us.

There is a healthy patriotism and an unhealthy patriotism. C.S. Lewis served in the British Army during World War 1. He was wounded in battle and lost friends in the War. He felt pride and love for his country. In his book “The Four Loves”, he discusses how a healthy love for your country can easily become distorted when “love of country” becomes your god. It can quickly turn into something demonic like it did with Nazism. Your national and racial identity ceases to be a divine gift and blessing when you inordinately love it and trust it in the place of God. You begin lording your group over others and dehumanizing those of other ethnic and racial identities.

Lewis says that, in response to the atroctities perpetrated on the world by overblown nationalism,“some begin to expect that (love of country) is never anything but a demon.” Tim Keller makes the comment that this is the case in Western culture: “On many college and university campuses virtually any expression of national pride is seen as fascist and/or racist.” But Lewis would reject this kind of anti-patriotism as another expression of extremism.

I agree. It is not uncommon for university professors in the faculties of humanities, to completely denigrate the histories of Canada and the United States. Yes, we shouldn’t airbrush the sins of our forefathers. We are to admit them and make things right when appropriate. But we are not to demonize our forefathers either. They were sinners, just like the forefathers of other nations. But they were also created in God’s image and did a lot of good things, as well.

My mother and father came from a war-torn country to Canada in the late 1950s. They met in Toronto and settled down roots in Canada. They were not discriminated against because of their beliefs or Slavic identity. Both of my grandfathers were killed at the end of WW 2. My mother’s dad was lined up by the communists and shot………..buried in a mass grave. No one knows for sure what happened to my dad’s dad. He was apprehended by the Nazis and probably perished in a concentration camp, just because he belonged to the “inferior” Slavic people group. I am so grateful that I was born a Slovene-Canadian. I am appreciative for this great and flawed country I was born into.

Followers of Christ are those who have been immersed in the grace of God. And as Tim Keller teaches so wonderfully in his book on Jonah, “The Prodigal Prophet”, Christians are to be marked by “compassion and love, not contempt, for people who aren’t like them.” Our social “media bubbles” make it easy for us to become like Jonah who preached to the Ninevehites without tears and love. “The book of Jonah is a shot across the bow. God asks, how can we look at anyone – even those with deeply opposing beliefs and practices – with no compassion?” (Keller)