Den tidiga Pingströrelsens antinationalism

Jag har redan skrivit om att de första pingstvännerna var pacifister, något inte så många vet om. Som en följd av detta var de också antinationalister. Följande är hämtat från rapporten Historical and Contemporary Pentecostal Critiques of Nationalism av Paul Alexander (ordförande för Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace and Justice):

Grant Wacker recognizes rightly that the majority of early pentecostals believed the “Christians’ fundamental allegiance should never be lodged with the state since the state was an earthly fabrication. Like the Tower of Babel, the state signaled human presumption at best, the enthronement of godlessness, immorality, greed, and violence at worst.”17 The early pentecostals themselves said this with even more fire.

William Burton McCafferty preached that “Our citizenship is not of this world, our citizenship is in heaven. Phil. 3:20. We belong to the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world are not allied. . . .”18 The FBI charged that C.H. Mason “openly advised against registration [for the draft] and made treasonable and seditious remarks against the United States government.”19 They believed that Mason could be convicted of treason, obstructing the draft, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Both the FBI and the War Department opened files on Mason and the Church of God in Christ, and Mason interviewed with multiple agents. The Vicksburg Post ran an article claiming that Mason’s preaching to resist the draft had led to the state adjutant general to declare that it was virtually impossible to get blacks in Lexington to respond. Mason professed loyalty to the United States but would not let it override his kingdom citizenship.

Frank Bartleman condemned specific sins of every nation, from England and America to Germany, Russia, Italy, France, and Japan, declaring that “We speak without fear or favor. . . . We favor no country.”20 His Christian citizenship provided the distance needed to tell the truth about the sins of all nations. Lest anyone question his lack of loyalty to the government of the United States, he provided his attitude toward national fidelity. “Patriotism has been fanned into a flame. The religious passion has been invoked, and the national gods called upon for defence in each case. What blasphemy!”21

He continued his tirade against nationalism, defended the outcasts, and added a call to repentance: ”It is not worth while for Christians to wax warm in patriotism over this world’s situation. . . . American capitalists, leaders and manufacturers are as deep in the mud as the others. . . . [Germans] are in the wrong sometimes also, and they are likely to stand by their country, right or wrong. England will do that also. America will do the same thing. There is not principle enough in any of these countries to overcome that.” 22

Bartleman believed that “there is no righteous nation in the earth today” and blamed “nominal Christianity” (the opposite of radical pentecostal Christianity) for the disastrous atrocities America had participated in. ”We have killed off about all of our American Indians. What we have not killed outright we have starved. . . . Will not God deal in judgment with such a nation as this? Most assuredly! We have stolen the land from the North American Indians. . . . Our wrong to the black people was avenged in blood. What will the next be?” 23

Stanley Frodsham believed that “when one comes into that higher kingdom and becomes a citizen of that ‘holy nation’ (1 Peter 2:9), the things that pertain to earth should forever lose their hold, even that natural love for the nation where one happened to be born, and loyalty to the new King should swallow up all other loyalties.”24

Charles Parham criticized American Christians for bowing to the “Moloch God, Patriotism” and mocked the United States for its fine churches and “180,000 licensed saloons.” He believed the nation was not worth fighting for and that it would “end with a dictator and a final fall . . . in which the government, the rich and the churches will be on one side and the masses on the other.”25 Some pentecostals saw the slavery, genocide, and greed of the American experiment quite clearly and attempted to speak prophetically about it.

Frank Bartleman even declared that America should pluck the stars from its flag and replace them with dollar signs. These pentecostals were not, as in chess, the bishops allied with the kings, using the peasants on the front lines to advance the empire.

Wacker notes that pentecostals often argued that “the United States did not deserve Christians’ allegiance” and that “no state, including the United states, had ever been Christian.”26 They preached that the greatest spiritual evil of the age was “immoderate patriotism” that led to “national sectarianism,”27 and that Fourth of July celebrations were wastes of God’s money.28 Pentecostals also bravely questioned democracy, viewing it as a political scheme by which humans could accomplish their prideful goals. They called democracy the political system condemned in Daniel, “rule of the people with God left out,” control by “popular passion,” and concluded that “Democracy will not save the world, Republicanism will not bring the Millennium.”29

Charles Parham taught that pentecostals should not vote and that “fighting by sword or ballot arouses all the carnal there is in people.”30 A.J. Tomlinson vowed never to vote for anyone except Jesus.31 Pentecostals did sometimes put ecclesiology above nationalism and voted with their lives for Jesus Christ as King. They used the body politics of Christian community rather than relying on the government.

Did critiques of nationalism correspond to the interracial impulse in early pentecostalism? Frodsham linked it explicitly, “National pride, like every other form of pride, is abomination in the sight of God. And pride of race must be one of the all things that pass away when one becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus.”32

Notes:

17Grant Wacker, Heaven Below (Cambridge: Harvard, 2001), 217. He employs “state” to represent political and governmental structures, “land” to represent the cultural and emotional symbols associated with place, and “nation” to embrace both. He also presents what I think is a false dichotomy between political purity and political realism, it seems that it is possible to be both “pure” and “realistic” if for no other reason than Jesus was both and we are to imitate him. Of course, it depends on how one defines both pure and realistic.

18Burt McCafferty, “Should Christians Go To War?” The Christian Evangel, 16 January 1915, 1.

19Agent M.M. Schaumburger to Bureau of Investigation, September 24, 1917, Old German case file 144128, Record Group 65, Investigation Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation, National Archives.

20Frank Bartleman, “The European War,” The Weekly Evangel, 10 July 1915, 3.

21Ibid.

22Frank Bartleman, “What Will the Harvest Be?” The Weekly Evangel, 7 August 1915, 1.

23Ibid., 2.

24Stanley H. Frodsham, “Our Heavenly Citizenship,” The Weekly Evangel, 11 September 1915, 3.

25Charles Fox Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham: Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement, compiled by His Wife [Sarah Parham] (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985, original 1930), 274. Quoted in Wacker, 218.

26Wacker, Heaven Below, 218.

27H. Musgrave Reade, in Trust, November 1917, 13. Quoted in Wacker, 218.

28Levi Lupton, in News Acts, July 4, 1906, 8. Quoted in Wacker, 219.

29Wacker, 219.

30Charles Parham, Apostolic Faith, March 1912, 2. Quoted in Wacker, 222.

31A.J. Tomlinson, Answering the Call of God, 10. Quoted in Wacker, 222.

32Ibid.