Nationalism: Pro and Con

By Douglas Groothuis

In American politics, slogans often replace reasoned analysis and talking points replace historical knowledge, especially in popular media. As the election season cranks up, we hear both secular and religious commentators condemn “Christian nationalism” for various reasons, usually without carefully defining terms or thinking of the alternatives politically. To explore this issue, we need to explore the American Creed, American exceptionalism, and the meaning of both patriotism and nationalism.

The American Creed

America is as much a set of principles as it is a place. We will thus speak of the American Creed. Americans are not catechized into this creed in the formal manner done by a church. However, America has a creed of a certain kind. It has been put in several ways and has not been formalized, but that Creed states:

1.      America is a republic affirming that government is only legitimately constituted upon “the consent of the governed.”

2.      America affirms and promotes religious and political freedom, equality, and opportunity.

3.      America allows for and encourages upward mobility through individual initiative—the “rags to riches” story or attaining “the American dream”—not through state action.

4.      America is a beacon for the nations or a “city set on a hill,” as Cotton Mather said in a famous sermon. We are a sacred trust between God and “we the people.”

5.      America endeavors to honor and hold true to its founding documents. Thus, calling something “unconstitutional” is a reproach.

6.      America is a place where moral and political reform is possible without violence and within the founding ideals.

7.      America is a land that welcomes immigrants who want to become Americans and find a better life.

The Creed is shaped by our founding documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—as well as by salient aspects of our history, such as the Revolutionary War (freedom from England), the Civil War (freedom for African-Americans), and World War II (the victory over fascism), and the Cold War (the victory over Communism).

While America is not a Christian nation by official creed, it has been a God-fearing nation that has been informed by, at its best, a Christian conscience. The American form of civil government is unlike other forms of civil government because it is essentially covenantal in its origin and constitution. A covenant, in the theological sense, is more than a contract. A covenant is made with a sense of honor and obligation before a transcendent reality. It stipulates a binding moral relationship among the people of the covenant, who consent to it. A contract, by comparison, is a contingent arrangement made between parties for mutual financial benefit. It is a business transaction, not a matter of sacred trust and responsibility. 

The Founders articulated a covenant by declaring the United States’s moral right, under God, to separate from England and to begin a new nation, which would secure God-given rights through government. It is a Republic in that its government is directed by the will of the people according to set principles and procedures as opposed to any one person or one class of elites controlling the nation. The Declaration rejected not only the king’s right over his colony, but rejected the divine right of kings in favor of a republican government. Consider the majestic preamble to the Constitution, which is made by “we the people,” not by any sovereign.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

When Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin what the Constitutional Congress (1787) had given America, he replied to this politically savvy and influential woman, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” George Washington spoke of “the American experiment.” It was a well-conceived, though imperfect, experiment, and one that could be improved upon, or that could fail entirely.

Abraham Lincoln reflected on the meaning of America in light of his reading of a book about George Washington and the Revolutionary War.

I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.^[1]

 Lincoln captured it in this lapidary phrase—"his almost chosen people.” America is not the new Israel, but it was a new nation with a self-reflective creed, which began with a Declaration. American seems exceptional.

American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is, in one important sense, a demonstrable fact historically, given the uniqueness of America’s origin.^[2] Other nations were quick to deem America exceptional in its origin and nature.

The United States government was formulated by men well versed in the philosophy and history of civil government. That is exceptional, and a famous Englishman agreed. After the celebrated writer, G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), visited America, he said in his 1922 book, What I Saw in America, that it was “a nation with the soul of a church.”^[3] Concerning the Declaration, he wrote:

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived.^[4]

While other nations have emerged through conflict, amalgamation, and diverse economic, political, military, and cultural factors, America began with a statement of purpose, a poetic mission statement. It is as if the Declaration announced to the world, “We are going to exist, and for these reasons, and in this way. We said it. Hold us to it.”

America is exceptional in that it was the first political system to advance a particular “set of philosophical ideas about the nature of human beings.” The Declaration bears that witness. The Founders believed that deprived “of the use of force (a crucial caveat), human beings acting in their private capacity tend to be resourceful and benign. Human beings acting in the political realm tend to be resourceful and dangerous.”^[5]

The Founders’ understanding of human nature inspired the Constitution’s system of checks and balances—especially evident in the three counterbalancing branches of government—and the Bill of Rights constraints on the government’s temptation to overreach into the lives of individuals.^[6]

Although the Founders were optimistic about the possibilities of civil society under the rule of law, they realized the absolute limits on human nature. As James Madison sagaciously wrote in Federalist 51:

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.^[7]

This balanced view of human nature in relation to civil government is one distinguishing mark of American exceptionalism. It should be recognized, celebrated, and preserved.

But what is left of this exceptional nation? That is a question too difficult to answer in detail, but two comments suffice. First, Critical Race Theory (CRT) philosophers, activists, fellow travelers, and sympathizers renounce the philosophy of the American founding and would hasten its demise, burn it down. The movement is neither small nor insignificant. Second, however much the founding vision of the United States has been corrupted or perfected, we live in a constitutional republic with a representative government and considerable free speech. The First Amendment has not been overturned, although CRT disputes it. There is hope. Shelby Steele concludes his brilliant book, Shame, with these words: “The contortions of our hyperbolic politics can be depressing. But America’s essential truth—the deepest theme of our identity—is still freedom. Freedom is still our mother tongue.”^[8]

Given this exceptionalism, what is the proper stance of a citizen to her country? Should we give up on America as a distinct and significant nation for the sake of globalism, an ideology that deems all nations equal and requires that they submit to some global governing body, such as The United Nations or The World Health Organization?

American Patriotism

A qualified patriotism is in order for the common good given the good of the American Creed and in the providence of God. The Lord placed us where we are for a reason as actors who shape history. As Paul affirmed in Athens:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:26-27).

We live in nations, but the nation is a poor excuse for the church, since it alone has received the promise of Jesus Christ that “the gates of hell will not prevail against” it (Matthew 16:18). No nation is eternally secure before a holy God (Isaiah 40:15-17), but seeking the welfare of one’s country and appreciating its unique benefits—while being mindful of its detriments—is the measure of wisdom (Jeremiah 29:1-7; Matthew 5:16-18). That is what I mean by “qualified patriotism.”

The notion of “My country, right or wrong” is wrong. A patriot in this sense thinks their nation has a messianic role in world history. On June 21, 2021, Lauren Boebert, then a freshman Republican Congresswoman from Colorado, tweeted: “There have been two nations created for God’s glory, Israel and the United States of America.” This puts America on a providential par with the nation God chose as his vehicle of redemption for the world through the coming of the Messiah. We can make no such claim for America, since, unlike ancient Israel, it did not receive a specific divine covenant from God and is not named in the Bible. Article VI of the Constitution wisely specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” 

However, to recognize that America has a unique and salutary role in the world, given its natural resources, beauty, history, and Creed, need not be idolatrous. The American system lays a strong foundation for preserving liberty, ensuring basic rights, and allowing for constructive change in national life. Appreciation for America as a nation and a commitment to American ideals is commendable.

How ought we view the relationship of the church and state if a qualified patriotism is correct? We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. As Francis Schaeffer wrote: “We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag.”^[9] Christianity is far broader than its American manifestation, and no nation is identical to the Kingdom of God. God has worked through America and beyond it and will do so in the future (Ephesians 1:11). Yet the fastest and most extensive growth in the Christian movement in the last several decades has been outside America and the West in general, and found in “the global south.”^[10] The Almighty might turn against America (and things look bad as I write), since God is the judge of all nations both in history and at the Eschaton and will do what is right in the end (Genesis 18:25).

American Nationalism

Love of country becomes noxious, unbiblical, and even un-American when it exalts America above the moral law, when it ignores, excuses, or glosses over America’s faults, and when it exempts America from the scrutiny of “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” If nationalism becomes an instinctive and unreflective nativism, it becomes noxious. Nativism is usually associated with anti-Catholic sentiment and politics in the 1920s in America when Catholic immigrants (usually Italian) were unwelcomed by native Americans (not Indians). Nativism in this sense means hostility to immigrants based on the native’s ethnicity or religion. The early Italian immigrants, being of darker skin and a different ethnicity than those from northern Europe, were not considered “white” for several decades.^[11]

Nationalism’s toxicity increases when it deems any political leader as the apotheosis of America (or Americanism) and, thereby, exempt from any moral scrutiny and above the law. God did not except the kings of Israel from his standards (Deuteronomy 17:14-20), and neither should we exempt our leaders, none of whom are messiahs. Or, as the Psalmist asks, “Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute?” (Psalm 94:20). When Jeremiah prophesied against the ancient Jewish nation, some invoked the Temple as their safeguard from judgment, to which he responded. “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!’” (Jeremiah 7:4).

Nationalism: Pro and Con

It is too easy to dismiss a qualified patriotism (which is biblical) as a narrow nationalism (which it is not). God places people in various nations to serve him, to love our neighbor, and to seek justice. Americans have been blessed by Providence with an American Creed that is worth conserving. These defining principles are not shared by all nations and are not conserved by any globalist ideology on offer. Therefore, while Christians should reject any nationalist ideology that becomes a nativist idolatry, American citizens have much to celebrate, given their history and the prospects of living up to their best ideals in the fear of the Almighty.[12]

Notes

[1] Address to the New Jersey State Senate: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/trenton1.htm. Emphasis added.

[2] Murray, Charles. American Exceptionalism (Values and Capitalism) (p. 6). AEI Press. Kindle Edition. Italics in the original.

[3] Chesterton, G. K.. The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books] (p. 539). Catholic Way Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[4] Chesterton, G. K.. The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books] (p. 535). Catholic Way Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[5] Murray, Charles. American Exceptionalism (Values and Capitalism) (p. 14). AEI Press. Kindle Edition.

[6] Murray, Charles. American Exceptionalism (Values and Capitalism) (pp. 14-15). AEI Press. Kindle Edition.

[7] James Madison (Publius), Federalist 51, Bill of Rights Institute. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-51

[8] Shelby Steele, Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 198.

[9] Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1981), 121.

[10] Phillip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 3^rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

[11] Brent Staples, “How Italians Became ‘White’,” New York Times (October 12, 2019): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/columbus-day-italian-american-racism.html.

[12] This essay is adapted from Douglas Groothuis, Fire in the Streets (Washington, DC: Salem Books, 2022), which is about Critical Race Theory or wokeness.

— Douglas Groothuis is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and is the author of twenty books, including, most recently, Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal (InterVarsity-Academic, 2024) and Christian Apologetics, 2^nd ed. (InterVarsity-Academic, 2022).

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