My family was once very powerful in Ireland and England (I also love genealogies by the way). Nicholas Snow was one of the few people able to say that they were on the voyage across the pond with the Mayflower in establishing these United States as a territory of England.
It's amazing to think of the history that is the foundation of this place! Some have families who have recently come to America while others have been here for centuries. Some came of their own free will and some came as a product of slavery and mistreatment on the part of their fellow man. Some came from Europe where the culture is somewhat like ours, others from distant lands which are very different from the culture that is extant here in the United States.
I absolutely love it! However, being an American, I fail to see the point in hyphenated patriotism.
I know, some of us are proud of our roots and family history, I am too. But living in a world of political correctness, we’ve become jaded. No longer are we Americans but Irish-Americans, African-Americans, Iranian-Americans and so on!
Why? I’m not going to get into the political repercussions of a ideology such as this, but I believe it is because we have failed to give ourselves fully to our country.
Woodrow Wilson once said,
“Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.”
Now, what does that say about hyphenated-Christianity? The exact same thing.
The reason why some hold to Baptist-Christianity, Catholic-Christianity, Methodist-Christianity or any other hyphenated form of Christianity is because they have failed to give themselves completely to the Lord.
Instead of living for Christ and being a sacrifice for Him (Romans 12:1-2), they have created a hybrid form of Jesus and man-made thoughts, opinions and doctrines. Instead of giving their lives for faithfulness to the Lord (Revelation 2:10), they have given their lives over to following some sort of modern day usurper of the deity of Christ.
It’s all about self and none about salvation. They’ve failed to see God and have substituted His will of unity in Christ (John 17:21, Ephesians 4:4-6, 1 Corinthians 1:10ff) for a man-made concept of unity in which all of these different hyphenated-Christianities are pleasing to God, then they in fact are not.
So, how do we stop this? It’s rather easy. All it would take to destroy the epidemic hyphenated-Christianity is to give ourselves completely to Christ and simply follow His word. - No more catechisms, no more manuals or declarations of faith. Just the Bible and Jesus’ authority (cf. Matthew 28:18).
While that is harder than it looks, it’s possible. After all, the first century Christians were able to do so and if they can do it, so can we.