Patriotism

Should Christians promote nation-states in all places at all times? No.

Works by C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller can help us understand the outlines of a healthy Christian patriotism—a righteous love of one’s imperfect country and home, including the people there and much more.

Imagine, if you will, a world full of completely unselfish people, of people who always thought of others first and not themselves; people who always sacrificed their own interests and looked for someone else to help. Paradise, right? Wrong.

Many millennial American Christians hold apathetic views toward patriotism, and even worse, they advocate for a perspective that sees the US as an empire.

Would those Catholics promoting integralism instead of liberalism support a nationalist-isolationist foreign policy, or empire?

Cosmopolitanism can be a particularly pernicious temptation because it invites us to love the idealized reality of humanity above our actual flesh and blood neighbors who live next door.

Despite his errors and overstatements, Cavanaugh is helpful for thinking through the perils of nations and nationalism in an era when both seem to be enjoying a renaissance. He is best read as a theologian, not a historian, and a polemical theologian whose strident claims are best met with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Serious praise of America by prominent Christian thinkers was hard to find this Independence Day, but we should be willing to appreciate and defend her.

This provocative article written by Donald H. Stewart in the heat of World War II calls on the American Church to guide America toward a responsible patriotism which jettisons hatred and self-righteous aggrandizement while remembering “judgment belongeth unto God.”