When most people hear the word Pilgrim (at least in the States), all sorts of images of Plymouth, Indians, Turkey dinner (for the historically impaired), Puritans and New England come to mind. 
The word is divest of its historical, national and even more importantly, its Ecclesiastical meaning and lost into a sea of pop-historical narrative. Quaint images of a table where Indians and Englishmen sat around with no real thought if this had actually happened, or even the significance of the name “Pilgrim”.
One of the major errors made in American history is the essential condensation of early American New England history into one block, usually summarized by the de-contextualized quote from John Winthrop about a shining city on the hill. This was an application of a biblical metaphor for the Eklessia to a new community settling in the New World. There it was forgotten that the Puritan identity of the New World was both radically similar and different to the world imagined by the conservative historical romanticists of our day.
When Reagan made the same allusion, they evoked the idea that America was somehow to be the “light of the world”. The Puritans also believed this and were much more pronounced, their community was to be the New Israel. Puritans took up naming conventions by taking Israelite names and giving them English form. There was even a practice of opening up the Scripture and the first word their eyes fell on they named their child. In that you end up with names like “Increase” or “Bountiful”. The Puritans even tried to revive the Hebrew language (hundreds of years before Zionists successfully did the same thing) and made it a requirement at their universities.
The Puritans believed they had a mission to “evangelize” the world. In that one begins to see the creeping undertones of the gospel of western civilization, not something so pronounced on the Continent. Though “Christendom” (read Roman||Constantinian Protestant Europe) had its clash with the Turks and Arabs, it was not perceived in the same way. The idea ended up with blood baths like the Pequot War and King Phillip’s War. The same idea is what drove Cromwell to do what he did and the ring of that executioners axe rang through English history and left an indelible mark on English identity which was picked up in the American Revolution. The American cause has taken on religious dimensions from the beginning. To the “theosis” of Washington and the idols of America (who is that standing in the harbor?), to the religiosity of preserving the Union (or the Revolution if you were a Confederate), to the White Man’s (read Anglo) Imperial burden to civilized the dirty colored people of the world, to the missio democratiae of the US from WW1 to the present War on Terror. No one (credible) says openly that America is the New Israel, but it an idea battered about implicitly that America has some special role; given a divine calling.
A lot of conservative Americans cheer when drawing up the memories of their Puritan fore-bearers, however most ignorantly assess that they would approve of what American government looks like. No I’m not talking about the prevalence of this-or-that favored vice to attack. The Puritans would’ve sneered at the Constitution, they would’ve sneered at the democratic functions of the country and most certainly they would’ve sneered at the so-called “Separation of Church and State”. The Puritans were heavily theocratic, the council of the State and the elders of the Church acted hand in hand. If one was banished from the Church, one was cut off from society and driven out. It was the same impulse in Roman Europe. If one was excommunicated by the hierarchy, one lost the ability to function in the community. Church and Culture became one. Now, a quick aside, that doesn’t mean that Christians don’t exhibit their own “culture” but it is other-worldly. We live in a different “city”, but I’ll get back to this.
Anyway, what’s the point of talking about Puritans if I was mentioning the Pilgrims. Weren’t the two generally the same? Yes and no. The Puritans and Pilgrims were both Reformed and both left England because of the persecution that the State was dealing onto them. To both of them the New World was a place to be the Church, but what that meant was worlds apart. The Puritans had no problem with the mission, traditionally conceived, by the Church of England to be the architect, guardian and chief of the English realm. They just wanted to “purify” it and get rid of the “popery”. Cromwell was their man in this struggle, though he ultimately lost with his ineffectual progeny. The Pilgrims instead wanted to just be left alone, and free to worship without harassment. They were “non-conformists”, operating outside of the framework of “christendom” in England.
However, once the Puritans began to arrive on the shores of New England, they quickly folded into the larger waves that came over from the motherland. It is not terribly well documented, and amalgamation is usually not. I can guess it was the allure of both a coherent vision of community and the difficulty to stand out from those of your own kin who seem so similar.
Imagine: You live in a small New England village under constant threat of disease, crop failure and natural disaster. Your kin who worship in the same way and speak the same way are only a stones throw up the coast. They have a glorious (in somber Puritan terms) vision of society. Maybe that doesn’t interest you, but you don’t have to agree with every element to get by. Why not combine forces, especially with unknown tribes living in unexplored woods.
It doesn’t take more than one or two generations for the distinctions to be erased.
Why am I talking about English Pilgrims and Puritans? It all has to do with the identity of Pilgrim.
Those non-conformists didn’t take this title flippantly, it came with the identity they saw in belonging to Christ’s Kingdom. Being a Christ-Follower, being baptized into His death, burial and resurrection, is gaining the citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven and leaving behind your worldly affiliation. Sometimes this same language is used to take the “pie in the sky, bye and bye”; but I mean nothing of the like. I am still an American, culturally and socially, and I am still a citizen of the Empire. Yet, I’ve renounced that citizenship and count it rubbish; I belong to the Heavenly Jerusalem along with all other Jesus people. Our allegiance is pledged not to a democratic-republic (or if I wanted to be polemical, a corporate owned hegemony), but to an absolute monarchy. Jesus is Lord alone.
This does not mean that I take up arms to overthrow the kingdoms of this world, that is a very worldly method. It doesn’t mean I go into disobedience (though when it conflicts with the commands of God, I certainly will). I still pay my taxes, obey the laws and honor the President and the congress. Yet not because they are intrinsically of any worth or have any authority over the life of a Christian. The Church does so because it is a better witness. The heathen and bestial governments of the world still have a providential bit in their mouth, they’re ordered by the Lord as a means for this current age. It is all grounds for the Good News to be proclaimed; Good News that proclaims that the same powers are at an end and their rule is broken by a rod of iron wielded by King Jesus. We live subversively by subordinating ourselves, we live by dying, we conquer by loving and are made strong in weakness. It is the paradox of walking as Jesus did.
The Lamb is at the center of the throne and wields the scepter of history. The Kingdom of God will come, following its King on that day and the foundations of the Earth will be shook by the blast of a trumpet. Until that day, our Kingdom is yet coming and we are receiving it and in our congregations we manifest its very being. The Church is a colony of that Kingdom and every congregation is a “political” meeting of a radical community. Jacques Ellul calls us Holy Troublemakers.
The culture of this city is not the worldly means that are typically understood. That is the major problem. Whether it be in Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox cultural unity (which usually devolves into blood; e.g. look at the Irish, Polish, Russians, Serbians, Italians, Greek) or the gaudy and cheap American consumer attempt, both are the Puritan allure of those trying to live as faithful Pilgrims. It is forgetting that the world will know us (the Ekklessia) by our love. We don’t speak a different language, we don’t wear different clothing or eat different food. From a visual level, two Americans (one a citizen of Heaven and the other a citizen of the American city) look the same. However, the marks of the Kingdom-person is the reflection of Christ in him/her, the work of the Spirit, and the love of God that comes through him/her. I’m not saying its a perfect reflection or it is obvious, but the Spirit indwells the disciple.
The Puritan however, will not be content and try to grasp more signs. On making a christianized culture of the world. Call it Medieval Christendom, British Imperialism, Western civilization, the Amish or the pop-christianese ghetto culture of T-Shirts, Bumper stickers, Hillsong United and WWJD bracelets; it’s all the same impulse.
Some are more viral than others, but they both lose the tension of being IN the World but not being OF the World. They try to Purify by running or by attacking, it’s the natural fight or flight impulse applied to Kingdom-dynamics. However, both are wrong. Cross-bearing requires the Kingdom to be in the midst of the World but never conforming; always speaking but never taking a seat at the table.
This is all about being a Pilgrim, a Sojourner, a Traveler, a Stranger, an Alien. It is not an easy life. Like the Jews in Babylon, the Church is to pray for the peace of the city and do good, all the while remembering that the Heavenly Jerusalem is our only citizenship. We dress like Babylonians, speak like them and all around appear as them but we do not worship their gods. We are known by our love. That will always frustrate the engineers of the future; regardless if they are conservatives, liberals, communists, libertarians, socialists, anarchists, monarchists, etc.
The history of the Church has been one littered with compromise, with the bowing to the forces and cities of the world, of becoming a whore of Babylon riding its beast. There has always been a faithful remnant both within and without the currents of the times. The threat of Apostasy is always on the horizon and as it was then, it is now. Much of the Church is sold out to the Imperial demands of Americana or to attempts to conquer and remake Americana into something else. Here I’m speaking strictly of the States, other movements and threats are at work all around the world trying the faithful. The Accuser makes the same offer: to bow at his feet for the prize of dominion.
We must answer as our King did: “Get behind me Satan! For it is written: You shall Worship the LORD your God and Him only shall you serve”
Let us pray to be faithful to Lord Jesus in these days and remain a Pilgrim people. Now and always until the day He returns.
