What does that mean to love one's country?

If the powers that be ordained by God, does that mean we shouldn't criticize them?

What about expressions of patriotism in our church worship using religious language and celebrating national holidays.

Is civil religion a bad thing or unbalance a good thing?

We'll be interesting these questions and more with our guest Dr. Rich Mao and his book

How to be a patriotic Christian. I'm your

host Scott Ray and I'm your co-host Sean McDow. This is Think

Biblicali a podcast from Talbot School of Theology here at Biola

University. Rich thanks so much for being with us.

Loved your book.

Your subtitle is Love of Country as Love of Neighbor.

Tell us a little bit more about how you connect those two things explicitly.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Well, I, you know, there's a sense in which our country is full of neighbors and show that it's the idea of neighbor love and what it means to love our neighbor

I think certainly applies to the our neighbor in its collectivity and it's as a nation for

example and I do think that we would to love our country. My sense is that the Bible calls us to

nurture those relationships in which the Lord has placed us.

And so obviously I'm going to love the United States

more than I love Bolivia or Nicaragua,

because it's my country just as,

I actually use a little bit of this at the beginning of the book just as I'm going to feel about my family differently than I feel like all the other families of the earth, you know?

Sure. So there's a very special relationship that each

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