There is, and always has been, a level of tension between loyalty to a set of ideas and loyalty to one’s neighbor. That tension, for instance, is immediately apparent when considering Russell Kirk and Murray Rothbard. The former grounds his notion of conservatism in local peoples, the former in an abstract set of ideals that is libertarianism. Kirk’s vision is idyllic, Rothbard’s idealistic. Kirk would likely identify with his literal neighbor, Rothbard his ideological neighbor.
Christians feel that tension in part because we have dual citizenship. We are citizens of whichever nation we were born in and citizens of that nation we were reborn in. The United States is defined by both its geographic boundaries and its founding principles. The latter explains why it is a nation of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants, because people have come here from all over the planet who yearned to be free.
Some professing Christians have argued that because God established the nations as described in Genesis 10 that intermingling is at best pushing against His providence, at worst a sin, violating His law. As a reaction against those whose ideology would decimate the many in pursuit of the one, those seeking one world government, one world culture, one world religion, such is understandable. It is, however, still wrong. Our choices are not binary, between the one and the many. Rather we can have both. We don’t have to choose between a melting pot that turns diversity into a colorless sludge and strict separation of the children of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
The tension between loyalty to a set of ideas and to ones neighbor is nothing new. Ruth felt it. God did not judge Naomi for emigrating to Moab. Nor did He judge Ruth for immigrating from Moab. In the end the two were united in a common faith, and a common family. The Moabites didn’t displace God’s people. Neither was Ruth turned back at the border. A person’s national identity does not need to be set in stone. I am loyal to my birthplace, the greatest city on earth, Pittsburgh. I am loyal to my country, these United States. I am loyal to my ancestral home of Ireland. I am loyal to my ancestors’ ancestral home of Scotland. All of which is not worthy to be compared with my loyalty to my home in heaven.
Paul felt the same. At one and the same time, right in the Holy Spirit inspired words of the Bible, Paul wished damnation on himself if it would mean the redemption of his Jewish kinsmen (Romans 9:5), affirmed that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28), and considered his ethnic identity to be mere dung (Philippians 3: 4-8). We ought to have the same perspective. We are called to love our neighbor. We are called to love our brother. We are called, in walking out the Great Commission, to labor to see that our neighbor would be made our brother.
Every single one of us are both descendants of Noah, and his descendants who were judged at Babel for their refusal to disperse. And every single one of us are descendants of ancestors from across the globe. We’re all nuts if we don’t know we’re all mutts. And all those who have been bought by the blood, we are one in Him.