Posted by 
I should make it clear from the outset that this post is not about “white nationalism” nor any of the other forms of identity that roils our politics today. What it is about is the historic tendency to raise patriotism to a level that is god-like, a god who demands no other gods before it. Even though patriotism is a positive quality, an idea that often requires self-sacrifice, it should never be put above God when the two are in conflict.
One of my favorite scenes in Chariots of Fire is the scene where Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner, tells Lord Birkenhead that he cannot run on Sunday, saying “God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way.” Birkenhead responds, “In my day, it was King before God.” And there’s the rub.
Having seen how the religion of nationalism brought death and destruction in the 20th century, how can we follow its siren call? How can “Our country, may she always be in the right, but our country!” be our watchword? We must distinguish between patriotism and jingoism. We must put our love of our country in its proper place, firmly behind love of God.
When I was an undergraduate, I took a course from a political scientist named Hans Kohn, a Jewish émigré from Austria and a prominent Zionist. In 1944 he wrote his seminal work, The Idea of Nationalism, which is a comprehensive study of nationalism from Ancient Greece to Zionism. In the 1960’s when I took his course, the world was gripped by the Cold War, and almost all of us thought that the driver of conflict was ideology. Kohn thought otherwise and believed that the driver of state behavior was “the idea of nationalism.” With the breakup of the Soviet Union, he was proven right.
What is nationalism? A reasonable definition is “devotion, especially excessive or undiscriminating devotion, to the interests or culture of a particular nation-state. [It is] the belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.” A critical element is the congruence of the nation with the state, where nation is defined as “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.” Kohn felt that the secularization of Europe following the Enlightenment resulted in the weakening of international institutions such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Church of Rome, and led to the birth of the nation-state.
It wasn’t until after the French Revolution that European states began to become nation-states. In the 19th century French became the dominant language spoken in France, and most of Germany and later Italy were unified. The breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the end of WWI led to the creation of more nation-states: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and others, a process that was only completed with the Balkan Wars at the end of the twentieth century. Nationalism was largely responsible for the two great wars that convulsed the world in the twentieth century.
For many in Europe and beyond, this national identity, especially with the decline in religious faith, became the psychological basis of self-worth. As one blogger put it, “Most anthropologists would argue that ethnic and national identity is either part of or closely connected to family identity…Problems occur in our identity in two ways. The first is when we make something other than who we are in Christ the core of our identity – this is actually what the Bible calls idolatry…Secondly, we have a problem when we upset the right order of the layers [of our identity]…This was one of the great insights of Saint Augustine – sin is not just doing bad things, but sin is disordered desires.”
Evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Christianity and Patriotism are synonymous terms, and hell and traitors are synonymous.” Mark van Bebber commented on Sunday’s quote, “Thus, one of America’s most effective evangelists fell into the trap of confusing the Christian faith with the religion of American patriotism.” We would do well to remember where our citizenship lies. Paul said in Philippians 3:20, “our citizenship is in heaven.” As Eric Liddell said, “God makes kings.” And as God himself said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2-3).
