Daniel Strand (Postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University) lectured at Providence Magazine’s Christianity and National Security conference on Nov. 3, 2018.

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Mark, I just want to say thank you to Mark and Providence for inviting me again and for the quality of the talks. It was wonderful to come here last year, and it’s been encouraging to see new faces and to be edified by the discussions. These are really important things we’re talking about, and I hope you’re spurred on to think seriously about the questions each speaker is broaching.

If you weren’t here yesterday for the opening remarks of Walter Russell Mead, I would encourage you to go back and listen to them online. They were very moving and challenged us, especially in the context of America today. The stakes are high, and there’s a lot of foolishness out there.

I’m an academic, and I can tell you there’s a lot of foolishness. We need serious thinking on these questions, so hopefully, I provide some seriousness. Maybe you’ll think it’s foolish; we’ll see.

The title of my talk is “On the Virtues of Loving the Nation,” and the subtitle is “Or How to Stop Worrying and Love the Nation-State.” Christians of many stripes are wrestling with the status of the United States in the context of their faith. Angelicals, who have been traditionally very patriotic and supportive of the US, are having some quarters question their allegiance. A good bit of this is healthy and right, as we ought to, at times, have been too uncritical, too complacent, not willing to hold up our own cultural biases and beliefs to scrutiny but because Christians’ first allegiance is to a holy God who calls us to conformity to His holy character, we must be relentless in our self-examination. “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith,” says the Apostle. A good bit of what I’m going to say today is in response to an excellent book by Yoram Hazony called “The Virtues of Nationalism,” and I would encourage you to go read the book. It’s provocative, interesting, and serious. He’s asking some really searching questions. I’m not going to refer to the book very much, but that’s looming in the background here.

Is the challenge that he lays down in the book that nationalism in many quarters is viewed as just simply bad, wrong, immoral? And Hazony makes, I think, a pretty compelling case. It’s not a case I don’t have reservations about, but at least he’s broaching the topic. Not everything I say is going to be in response to Hazony. My argument will be, though, that nationalism can be a Christian virtue too. He comes at it from a Jewish perspective. I think the Christian position is going to be different given just Jewish theology and the way the Jews think about things. I think it’s instructive and helpful to take in their position, but I think a Christian position is going to look something different.

To love the nation can be virtuous, but we must think hard about what it means to love the nation. Let me open with a personal story. One of the most vivid images I have of nationalism and church is a Fourth of July service I attended at a large, nondenominational church many years back when I was in college. At that time, I fashioned myself a radical Christian who really held to the true gospel and thought everybody else, of course, was lukewarm and I was super radical.

So, I scoffed at all the stuff that was going on in your normal nondenominational church with the worship bands and such. But one image sticks out with me. This is a Fourth of July service. At the closing of the service, they passed out American flags and we sang patriotic — I couldn’t sing them because I was so radical. But, you know, people are waving the flags and singing songs, the patriotic songs. Maybe you’ve experienced this as well. I don’t think it’s so unusual.

But the thing that bugged me about it was the songs had very little to do with God. In a worship service where we’re waving flags and we’re singing songs about the red, white, and blue or whatever, and that bothered me then, and it still bothers me today. Why? I don’t think that sort of patriotism belongs in the church. Outside the church? Yes. At home? Absolutely. At school? For sure, right? Why not the church?

One of the things that pacifist theologian Stanley Hauerwas said over and over throughout his long career was that he wanted to take the American flag — he thinks the American flag should be taken out of the churches. I used to be a pacifist. I am no longer, but I think Hauerwas has a point here. I think both the nation and the church are diminished when we don’t make a clear distinction between the two. And I don’t think that denigrates either one of them.

I think it’s the worry of some evangelicals. The gospel, the inauguration of God’s rule through Jesus the Messiah, must stand over and against the sovereignty of the rulers of the nations. I think that’s just a basic theological point that we can all agree upon. So, this is an argument for making a clear distinction between our loyalty to God and the nation, but not for their mutual exclusivity.

Some Christians, however, would argue that nationalism per se is a sin. Hauerwas being one of them and his allies. Hazony and his allies have made a career out of calling out the idolatries of nationalism and claiming Christians stand against nations. Here, I think the radical pacifists and Christians are wrong and they overstate their case.

With the caravan approaching the southern border, denunciations of nationalism and defenses are reaching a fever pitch. And though I do not want to defend everything about this new nationalist wave we see in the U.S., Europe, and most recently Brazil electing a populist right-wing president, nevertheless, there is an important, essential point that needs and can be and I think should be defended by Christians.

Many of our political elites, newspapers, other media, academics betray this new nationalism as something vile and ugly that must be opposed as inherently immoral. If you look past some of its ugly elements, I would argue there’s a basic truth. This is terribly unfashionable and in many circles, I would be decried or shunned. I don’t think they’re inviting me to their cocktail parties anyway, so I’m not losing too much sleep. It’s viewed as backwards, boorish, immoral.

But we’re called not to take fashionable stands. And I think some nuanced thinking is in order on this topic. That says with all things nationalism, and as I’m calling it, love of nation, I prefer to call it, is fraught and beset with all sorts of dangers, temptations that we ought to consider soberly. Let’s not kid ourselves about human nature and our propensity for self-delusion and bias. We do not need to rehearse the bad stuff that has been done in the name of nations because we now hear about it endlessly.

And if you’re in academia, you hear about it hourly. Nations and collectivities, as Reinhold Niebuhr insightfully diagnosed many years ago — and I think it’s still instructive today — are prone to bigotry, callousness, and violence. Sometimes on a mass scale. Not all nations are worthy of our love and commitment. So, don’t hear me saying that. Many are worthy of condemnation. And even the nation that we love, if we truly love it, we will want to see it acknowledge its faults and make corrections when necessary.

As a father, I discipline my kids for their good and not for my own good because I want to see them grow up to be good, faithful, and decent people. I do this out of love, even if it means sometimes they will say I’m the meanest person in the world for giving one of my boys a time-out for drop-kicking one of his brothers in the head after repeated warnings to the contrary. I think this analogy holds for many other relationships, including our relationship to the nation.

There are two basic sets of reasons that I think we can embrace for why we should love the nation. The first is practical, the second is theological. On the practical level, I believe the nation-state system historically is the best form of government in human history, to put it mildly. And the American version of this form of government, while imperfect, has brought peace, justice, order, and prosperity of an order of magnitude that is really astounding when you look at it in comparison to other countries and the scope of history.

The nation-state is not necessarily responsible for all the great advances that we experience in the modern world, but it has been fertile soil for our enjoyment of relative peace and prosperity. Another practical reason why nationalism is praiseworthy is the nature of people in human communities. And just — this is an empirical observation — moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been at the forefront of trying to understand the current nationalist impulse and argues that nationalism beats out globalism because, in particular, he criticizes global urban elites, especially in their advocacy of unrestricted immigration, ignores the very need to live in a society that has a specific identity and history.

Haidt writes, “There is a human need to live in a stable and coherent moral order.” Nations provide that context for the stable and coherent moral order and have been doing so for hundreds of years in the West. As a matter of practical consideration, the push towards globalism and global community since roughly the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 has undermined, to some extent, and has some serious — (and it’s not solely the only cause but it’s one of them), a sense of stability and coherence in many Western democracies.

The second set of reasons would be principled and have theological and Biblical precedent. I used to think the defense of the nation-state could not have a theological justification, but now I think there is a modest theological defense that you could muster for the nation-state, which is that communities of loyalty, as O’Donovan uses the term “mutual loyalty”, such as the family, the city, the state, and the nation, which foster a particular attachment to a group of people, place, ethnicity, or idea, are essential to who we are and therefore ought not be derided, displaced, or superseded per se. I call my position “Augustinian nationalism”, based upon Augustine’s view that Christians, as sojourners traveling toward the heavenly city, find themselves in a resolvable tension between a God that demands nothing less than absolute and total obedience and fidelity and the fidelity to the bonds of family, community, and country.

We have an inheritance that’s been passed down to us. We find ourselves as part of a lineage with certain mores and values. We should pay homage to those mores and values and relationships in which we find ourselves that provide a coherent structured world for us to live in and enjoy. Our cultures, for better or worse, carry the echoes of the gospel. However faint, but this inheritance is not enough. Inheritance from our ancestors, traditions, nations, and culture are not enough to give us the full truth we require. God to break into our world, to reveal Himself to us which we see in Jesus Christ to reveal the truth to us and often to judge us. The most fundamental division for Augustine is not a political one but an eschatological one between the City of God and the earthly city.

This is often mistaken to be a temporal distinction or a distinction between two places, heaven and earth. In fact, it is a distinction about two destinies and the orientation of one’s heart towards those two destinies. The earthly city, this is, the earthly city is what other places in the City of God refer to as a city of demons that is, it’s a city of unmitigated self-love and contempt for God. A city ruled by envy for God’s power and blinded by pride. Its end is destruction and eternal warfare. The other city is oriented by love of God and neighbor even unto contempt for ourselves. These are two societies that are sojourning through our world, two very different ends, according to Augustine.

Our identity as citizens of the heavenly city stands in deep tension with our lesser identities as members of families, as spouses, fathers, citizens. But the tension does not erase these other identities but stands in tension with them. Until we have reached the heavenly city, our nation has a claim to our love and loyalty that should be honored. But in honoring that claim, we also acknowledge that we have higher loyalties. But it is our higher loyalty to God that actually makes our loyalty to our nation that much better and truer.

Because the nation is not an idol but a people where God has set us for this temporary and brief existence. Reinhold Niebuhr the loyalty of the leavening portion of a nation’s citizens to a value transcending national interest will save a realistic nation and he’s got that, even scare quotes he’s writing this in the middle of the Cold War, thinking about America in conflict with the Soviet Union in particular. We’ll save their commitment to this higher loyalty will save this realistic nation from defining its interest in such a narrow and short-range terms as to defeat the real interest of the nation. The opening of the Apostle Peter’s first epistle captures this tension, this eschatological tension well. Peter writes to those who are elect exiles in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood. He’s writing to these people who are elect exiles who live among the nations. They stand in tension with the place where they live knowing they have a higher loyalty.

Secondly, God does not erase particularity which in nations where we find ourselves. One of the most striking images in the Bible for me occurs in the Book of Revelation starting in chapter 4. John has a vision of God appearing on a throne in Jasper and carnelian. There’s lightning thunder. The throne is surrounded by 24 elders. This is all very symbolic. It’s encircled by torches, a sea of glass, a rainbow. I mean, it could be mistaken for a bad acid trip if you weren’t familiar with this type of stuff. The mythical creatures all have six wings are covered in eyes. They’re continually singing “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come”. The elders throw down their crowns, the symbol of power and authority before the throne, crying out “worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will, they existed and were created”.

The cosmic scene builds to a crescendo with the appearance of a lamb who appears slain, representing the Christ who’s the only one who can open the scrolls for the seven seals passed down from God from the throne. The new song is sung to the lamb, “now worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth”. Through the sacrifice of the lamb, all people of the nations are drawn together. Christians, it would seem, have a strong Biblical basis for opposing the idea of the nation-state and the current immigration debates.

I’ve heard this vision of this passage quoted as a text that supports a relativized view of the nation and the idea that we are part of a universal body of Christ, not bound by nation or tribal affiliation. There’s some truth to this claim. Our ultimate destination and citizenship, as the Apostle Paul tells us, is in heaven. Or, in Augustine’s phrase, we are citizens of the heavenly city on soldiering through this life. If you are a Christian, you are part of a universal Christian community of believers that stretches back from the very beginning of time and that will stretch forward to the final human beings that inhabit this world. There’s no slave or free Greek or barbarian male or female but brothers and sisters apart of one body of Christ.

This is a true statement and it cannot be denied without deviating into heresy. However, if we pay attention more carefully to this text, we get another message. Yes, there’s a strong message for Christian universalism, but the advocates of the universal body of Christ are wrong then to apply this against a commitment to the nation. In fact, I would rather assert that this vision from Revelation actually gives us a robust defense of nations. I would rather assert that this vision from Revelation holds in tension what will finally be consummated at the end of history in the throne of God. Notice that as these redeemed people from around the world approach the Lamb, they do so as people from various tribes, languages, and nations. They remain particular.

Culture and language are not erased. Nation is not erased either because it is through our particular families, languages, cultures, and nations that we are able to have community and thrive as humans. They are good, though capable of becoming idolatrous and wicked. God works through these cultures and nations, does not erase them. At the end of history, we shall come before the throne of God as sons and daughters of particular parents, spouses, as parents, as members of various communities, and as citizens of certain nations. Lastly, Augustine argues for what he calls the order of love. Augustine’s notion of how he judges the rightness and wrongness of certain actions, we all implicitly have an ordering of love. Augustine says in his truisms, Augustine says shorthand, you are what you love.

That’s the way he sees the human state. We need to get this order right or we end up loving things more than we should and others not enough. God must be the primary object of our love. But the order of love can accommodate love of nation, and I think, would, in fact, encourage it to a certain extent. Love of nation is not in competition with love of God and love of neighbor, at least if we understand them rightly. The order of love can accommodate mutual loyalty forged in family, ethnicity, local city, and state without lapsing into idolatry and callousness towards others outside our circles of loyalty. In fact, the Augustinian vision establishes and enhances both, I would argue, making all of these relationships subject to the love of God, who is the only one for Christians who is to be worshipped, adored, and enjoyed in Himself.

Nations are important, but not ultimate, just as families are important, but not ultimate. The family is a natural community designed for the birth, rearing, and education of children and while the Bible affirms the creating goodness of families of male and female union and covenant and marital bond, we also see how Jesus and the arrival of the new covenant supersedes the bonds of natural community, but it does not erase them. Our faith helps us to understand the importance of these lesser loves and communities. We know that it is idolatrous to love and worship anything in the place that is reserved for God and God alone. These lesser communities are

Important though and we cannot just dismiss them as some Christians tend to do. In my opinion, very responsibly, nations can be a great good not only for citizens but also for other nations. I could say more on this topic but these are just a few of my thoughts. I’ll end there if people have any questions. [Applause]

All right, thanks so much for the talk. I had a quick question about your definitions and some distinctions. So, how do you distinguish between country and nation, and also patriotism and nationalism? And if you do make distinctions, could you give an example of a country that is not a nation-state?

I don’t make a distinction between the two. I know some people do, and some people will make the distinction between patriotism and nationalism. I don’t think that it’s a distinction without a difference. It’s, I think, people like the term patriotism better; nationalism has a bad reputation. So, I think it’s, you know, just patriotism is nice and nationalism is mean. But, your… Yeah. So, I did—what was the second part of your question? Yeah. Well, would you add—I guess I don’t—you know, I don’t… I just think of, I think, Zoni provides a nice definition which is just mutual loyalty, and it’s an accident of history. This is not an eternal form that comes down from heaven, right? The nation-states, it’s a wonderful just accident. But I think it’s, at least on empirical case, it’s good. The thing I worry about, at least with his own ease definition, is that he really, he wants to say that, Nate, that nation should be formed on the basis of mutual loyalty. But if we were to give sanction to people to form, in some ways it invites—and, I, he’s coming from a conservative perspective, he wants to make this conservative argument, but in some ways it’s actually quite radical because there’s a lot of countries that are held together not out of mutual loyalty. In fact, a lot of countries are held together that are, that are plural, that have large minority populations. And I think that could, that could create a lot of danger if people began thinking, “Oh, it’s time for me and my tribe to break off.” So, I think there was a sort of tribal worry.

Robert, thanks, Dan, for that. That was great. I think I agree with most of it. I just have a question about this: the love of nation and its inverse. So, among other things, in Carl Schmitt’s book “Concept of the Political,” yeah, is this idea of nations and particularly national politics operating on this in/out distinction, friend/enemy, and you could take it to mean that nations need enemies, nations need others to kind of make the nation… For hearing, yeah, there’s lots of criticism not least of all that it helped give rise to Nazism, right? But I think when there is a Christian critique of nationalism, it really is about this fear of it, you know, jumping the shark, of crossing that line, right? Of seeing enemies everywhere and demonizing everybody who’s not inside the nation. So, right, even as you speak of love of nation, I’m wondering if you have any answer to the question of what are the safeguards that prevent love of nation from turning into hatred of non-nation?

Yeah, what are, what are the ideas? I think I can probably guess some of them and then to take it a little bit further, in a society where not everyone is Christian, yeah, how do you… What’s the transmission bail between the Christian safeguards and the regular ones? I should say, Chris, yeah. So, your first question, I think the really obvious answer would just be the Gospel. But I really say that seriously. I think having a higher loyalty, this is the point that Niebuhr makes, I think it’s a really important one, is that your devotion to having a higher loyalty, having a higher loyalty actually helps you to be a better citizen to your country and to your neighbors. Realizing that we live in a fallen world, you have borders that need to be defended, that people are bad, people are gonna do bad things. But I really do think this is just the importance of being part of a robust community that helps you to continually realize that your identity as an American. Wow, I mean, I’m proud to be an American. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. But it is a relative identity and we need, I think you should need to hear that from each other and from the pulpit over and over again to have that.

In terms of the second part of your question, I mean, this would maybe sound overly simplistic. I think liberal democracies as a whole have done a pretty good job, especially in their concern for protecting individual rights. I think, and as some people noted yesterday, this is sort of Christian anthropological point that the founders definitely understood and sort of balancing powers and restraining power, diffusing power. So, I think liberal democracies are actually quite good at protecting minorities. We’re not perfect. We’ve got a long way to go still. But if you look at the rest of the world, liberal democracies are really designed to protect individuals and minority groups, I mean, almost to a fault in ways that it can sometimes undermine any sense of unity, which is maybe one of the problems we’re having now. So, I think we live in a system right now that does pretty good. We can always improve on it and be sensitive to our neighbors and how they might feel, non-Christians or people who are part of minority communities.

Hi, my name is Christopher. I have a question regarding patriotism and nationalism. Just to clarify before I proceed, you don’t see a distinction between the two, correct? I know a lot of people make a distinction and they want to say, I may have heard a lot of different definitions and people usually think nationalism is a bad thing and patriotism is the good thing. Yeah, so without things. Yeah, with that being said, I sort of want to hone in a bit more. Do you know why there isn’t a defined distinction and how that matters? It’s specific, you know, here’s your perspective.

So, you see a distinction. I do. And tell me where you think, define that. I think patriotism is, I think they both have a love of country, but where they differ is nationalism is a love of country that disregards others, other countries, and says, “Hey, yeah, I love my country, but it’s better than yours and you better know that.” Right? And then it’s also more of an inward look. So, it’s a disregard of, yeah, you know, we’re only gonna do things that benefit my country, right? And, you know, we’re talking about Christian, Christianity, and national security and the protection of liberalism. Well then, do you see the conflict there?

Yeah, I think it’s just a matter of terminology. I would just say there’s good and bad love of country and I think what you’re describing, the sort of exclusivist love of country, I think that’s really, really problematic and I don’t think Christians can get on board with that. To the extent that they do, I think they’re wrong. They’re wrong to have an exclusive, I think. But part of the problem too is this idea of national interest. I don’t think it’s bad per se, but national interests, so it’s seeking the good of the community, if that’s what we broadly think national interest is, I think that every community should be doing that to a

certain extent. But national interest isn’t the only consideration that we ought to have. We should care about how we treat other countries. We can’t just trample weak countries for our own benefit, but to protect our country, to make sure that we are living in relative prosperity, I think those are perfectly moral considerations for any politician to make.

But I think this idea of higher loyalty is really important. Yeah, so you’re a Christian, you have a higher loyalty that you have to answer to, and it’s not wrong to seek the flourishing of your family, your community, or your nation, but there is a sort of tension that stands over and above. Thank you.

So, how are you doing, sir? My question has some elements similar to what he just mentioned right now. I just kind of wanted to, I guess, clarify specifically what I mean. So, I wanted to thank you first and foremost for how cogent and how efficient you were in explaining your stance on this. And also how you were able to eloquently kind of state your point exactly how you meant it.

But specifically, what I was wondering and what hit me the most was when you mentioned or you emphasized the fact that, yeah, we have, you know, identities are salient by nature, right? So we have multiple identities in general. Some people, at least I initially thought that I can only have one identity and that’s in Christ, right? But after you explained it, I was like, okay, that makes sense. I can have multiple smaller identities. Yeah, you know, I have my identity, my ethnicity, identity of my family, identity of nation, right?

But I think what most people, or especially critics of what we just talked about, I think what they’re most worried about is that their identity of nation, especially specifically the United States of America, yeah, this is what I’ve heard, right? Is that they’re concerned that American exceptionalism can sometimes get in to cloud their way of thinking. Yeah, so then we as Christians, and this is a question to you, right? Yeah, my question is, especially as, you know, future or current leaders in national security, military, whatever, how can we make sure that we maintain our identity in Christ without slipping into that mode of focusing our identity towards other smaller identities? Like, what’s the recommendation? What do you, you know?

I can’t give an answer to that because I think every person is going to find themselves in a different position with different temptations. I think it’s important to live in the tension. I think that’s really the challenge. If you only have the identity in Christ sort of thing going on, I think you’re not sufficiently loving your neighbor in a way. You’re not loving your nation appropriately. You’re not loving your family. You should feel a tension, I mean, that pulls you. There is a pull that you ought to feel as a Christian already, not yet that people often talk about with Christianity.

And I don’t envy politicians, I admire them. They have a bad name, but the people in government, national security, that’s a hard job, but it’s necessary. God has ordained government and so we got to encourage and support people, not just say, you know, the radical Christian that I used to be, was, “No, you know, it’s just you people are all you just don’t get just being radical.”

But what I didn’t understand or what I didn’t truly appreciate was that these other lesser loyalties are important. They’re fundamental and they’re important to being a good Christian, I think. And it’s a burden, I think, that our politicians and people in national security, a lot of them, they and you’ll never know about it. We’ll never know about the challenges that people in the CIA or who are trying to do good. And there’s a lot of them, there’s a lot of people in defense who are doing well, our armed forces. So these are people who are picking up a vocation that’s a challenge. And I think it’s a struggle, right? You have to stay faithful. You have to always remain in a higher loyalty, but asking in every situation, “What is it that how do I maintain my integrity but also by serving these people and carrying out my job?” [Applause]