Love of country, patriotism, unity, the desire for religious liberty, and the hopes to see the world evangelized ought to mark Christians. Yet, these qualities exist alongside the realities of a fallen world, marred by sin.

Formal religious adherence is declining, but America’s longtime religious self-identity as a lodestar of democratic responsibility in the world continues unabashed.

An incarnational nationhood deepens and overcomes the weaknesses of both the nation-as-idea and nation-as-ethnicity visions.

While there is enormous merit to Michael Doran’s binary and overall thesis in his First Things essay, there are some complicating factors that obscure the “wondrous chasm” between Jacksonianism and Progressivism.