Nationalism and Patriotism

The Christmas story doesn’t tell us how to reconcile the virtues and the vices of universal cosmopolitanism and local loyalty. But it suggests that we can somehow try to be true to both ideals: to be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and at the same time to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

In this episode, Mark Tooley and Marc LiVecche speak about recent content on Providence, including Tooley’s article about Christian nationalism, Debra Erickson’s piece on Christian realism and partisanship, and a 75-year-old op-ed about Christmas.

Most critiques of Christian nationalism seem sweepingly to deride all reference to God relating to country.

In this Advent Special of the Foreign Policy ProvCast, Mark Melton speaks with Walter Russell Mead about his annual Yule Blog series, which begins on Christmas Eve and runs through Epiphany on January 6.

A national conservative foreign policy welcomes institutions for international cooperation, so long as they remain voluntary pacts between the participating nations, and do not morph into efforts at establishing supranational governance.

Renewed debates over history reveal the narratives that conservatives and progressives employ to justify or decry American history. One narrative insists on lionizing historical figures, the other on demonizing them—yet both distract from the ongoing pursuit of the American ideals of justice, liberty, and equality.

A couple of months ago, Providence contributor Paul D. Miller complained on Twitter about people confusing liberalism and progressivism. In…

Why is the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict still considered “frozen”? Simply put, the conflict’s continuation is in Russia’s interests.

Seventy-five years ago, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote this article reflecting on the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.