Joan's claim that God had France in HIs care because France was sacred to him may not be merely a medieval trope, embarrassingly old-fashioned language that today we must expunge from our vocabularies. To claim that France is sacred does not imply that only France is sacred. Throughout history, men and women have arisen everywhere who testify to the sacredness of nations. Perhaps today more than ever, we are aware that the identity and integrity of nations are supremely significant for the human race - that the facile invasion of a sovereign state and genocide are abbhorent. In this regard, the entire Jewish-Chrisian faith tradition is based on the belief that God once summoned ordinary people and through them worked extraordinary eeds for HIs own purpose, which is to bring all peoples to Himself. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and the prophets were but a few of thsoe called to establish and save the nation of Israel. But Israel was brought into existence and alter triumphed over its enimies not only for its own sake. This is made clear throughout the Hebrew scriptures: God saved the nation so that all nations might be emraced. Israel was to be "a light to the gentiles," as both Old and New Testaments reiterate. God chose the ISraelites not to dominate or control but rather to serve others. The Christian Scriptures make the point more specific: the gentiles are not excluded from God's embrace, for the light of ISrael shines on the gentiles and shows the way into that embrace. All the peoples of the world are to be brought into the capacious light of the knowledge of God's friendship.Nowhere is it implied that Israel, or any other nation, should cease to exist. Because no single person or roup represents what it means to be human, its the variety of people within a nation that gives it an irreplaceable character - its national personality. As with individuals, so with nations: it is the diversity of peoples that furthers the process of the world. Although many nations have tried, none may set itself up as the only or the predominant nation, forcing its culture, ideology, religion or political agenda on any other nation. For Joan of Arc, this was precisely what England was trying to do through its nobels, armies and war machinery. France deserved its identity and, as a symbol of its people, the king.

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