Observe July 4th in Church?

Bob Kauflin with a helpful post on this topic. He writes:

In brief, since God’s kingdom is not of this world (Jn. 18:36), we don’t feel any obligation to draw attention to, highlight, or celebrate civil holidays as part of our Sunday gatherings. There are a number of reasons. Our country doesn’t set the agenda and priorities for the meetings of the church – God’s Word does. Also, one country’s celebration may confront another country’s values. For instance you won’t find many Christians in Britain excited about Independence Day. Finally, we gather on Sundays to remember the covenant God has made with us, celebrate the redemption He has provided through His Son, and to encourage one another to live lives worthy of the Gospel. The values celebrated by a particular public holiday may not always line up with those goals.

However, that doesn’t mean we need to completely ignore civil holidays. I asked our resident theologian and my good friend Jeff Purswell for his thoughts, and he wrote:

“If [civil holidays] loom large in the mind of my congregation, I don’t want to draw more attention to it by ignoring it—rather, such occasions become opportunities to help people think Biblically about them and to place them in their proper theological context (e.g., on July 4th: “We’re most grateful for the freedom we have as a nation this day. We’re completely undeserving, and most in the world don’t experience this common grace. However, it should remind us of a greater freedom we have. . .”).”

Jeff comments at the end of the post:

“[Civil holidays] can be real expressions of common grace that enable us to rest, celebrate, and even to do so with a common frame of reference with non-believers. Therefore, I don’t want to be a dour, angry, graceless, ungrateful spiritual snob (e.g., “The 4th of July means NOTHING!!!! This country is under God’s judgment!!! The secular humanists have stolen this nation from the Christian vision of our founding fathers!!!!”).”

Read the whole thing.