Christianity, Patriotism, and America – Part 1

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In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke observed, “Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.” What he meant is there is a type of person who is a proud, grumpy snob who looks down his nose at his own kind. While often expressing concern for human rights or justice in the abstract, such people may have little time for their flesh-and-blood neighbor, and they tend to view patriotism as a malicious hobby for those they regard as ignorant bigots.

Thankfully, many Americans do not fit the description of Burke’s turbulent, discontented men, because many Americans show an appropriate, natural reverence for one’s relations. In contrast to Burke’s malcontents, these people know that Americans — including American Christians — ought to show gratitude to those to whom one is morally indebted. In a word, one might say that a Christian ought to be patriotic.

This is the first essay of a two-part series on what it means for the American Christian to be a patriot. In this first part, I argue that patriotism, rightly understood, is a virtue the Christian should possess. In the second, we will look at what patriotism means in the American context. I will argue that patriotism means dedication primarily to the American constitutional order.

What is Patriotism?

The root of “patriotism,” patria, means one’s homeland or, more precisely, fatherland. The Latin phrase signifying patriotism is amor patriae — love of fatherland. The original Latin referred, naturally, to love of Rome or, more precisely, love of the Roman republic. In the modern world, the word acquired additional connotations as well, as political theorists such as Walter Berns and Steven Smith have explained ably.

The Latin cognate pater also teaches us something important. Just as it is natural, in most cases, to have affection and honor for one’s father (and mother), who brings forth and nourishes — and to whom one is therefore morally indebted — it is natural to love one’s own country. Contempt for one’s own and ingratitude for one’s own country, is the unnatural course. What’s more, it is from learning to honor and to love those nearest to you — your father and mother, your extended kin, your local community, all groups, which Burke called the “little platoon[s]” of society — that one learns to extend his or her affection outward to one’s country. The abstraction of “human rights” teaches us little about what sorts of obligations and corresponding actions are due to real, flesh-and-blood humans living with us. The training for making patriots happens in the school of human interaction, not in the abstraction of human rights.

Christianity and Patriotism

One of the things that distinguishes Christian ethics from a common ethical presupposition of the present age is our moral obligations. In fact, most of the obligations that we have arise, not from our consenting to them, but by virtue of having been created into an existence in which moral obligations exist already — regardless of our having chosen them. This is because natural law (Romans 2:14) exists, having been interwoven into the fabric of this material universe by its Maker. As a result, when we are born into the world, we acquire moral obligations — first to our Creator, then to those who care for us during our infancy and youth, and so on. 

 What the Christian heritage teaches us is that patriotism — the love of homeland — is a virtue that Christians ought to possess because we are indebted to our homeland, just as we are indebted to our parents. In particular, the moral law of God, appearing in summary form in the Decalogue, speaks of the command to “Honour thy father and thy mother…” (Exodus 20:12). While the command clearly involves an obligation to one’s parents, prominent Christian theologians have long held that patriotic obligation is included here in the Fifth Commandment. St. Thomas Aquinas insisted, for example, “Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them.” As such, “man is debtor chiefly to his parents and his country, after God.”

 It should go without saying that, for the Christian, patriotism must not mean blind allegiance in a “my country, right or wrong” sort of way. The Christian owes allegiance to God first, and the Christian ought always to be prepared prudently to rebuke one’s homeland when it errs. Still, just as we ought to honor our father and our mother, so too we ought to honor our fatherland or our motherland. In the next installment, we will consider what it means for Americans to honor their homeland.