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From Nationalism to Patriotism: Restoring the American Creed

Forrest Church • January, 2003

(From Spiritual Perspectives on America’s Role as a Superpower, Sky Light Paths Press, 2003)

In the 1890s, when the national ship of state lifted anchor to claim islands in two of the seven seas, the religious response at home to America’s emergence abroad as a budding superpower might best be described as a rousing "Amen." Today, little more than a century later, an ecumenical coalition as broad as that which earlier had blessed such forays greets America’s latest international adventures with wholesale condemnation. In both instances, the spiritual response to America’s global status springs from deep moral conviction. Initially the hope was that America– by becoming a superpower–would save the world. Today the fear is that America–having become a superpower–will destroy it.

Both fear and hope are exaggerated, but there is ample reason for each. On the one hand, as long as American Empire follows the pulse of American nationalism ("America first"), one can legitimately fear that others in the world will ultimately suffer from American hegemony. On the other, to whatever extent our policies are inspired by the patriotic ideals of the nation’s founders ("liberty and justice for all"), one can dare to hope that America will yet fulfill a noble global mission.

The concept of American Empire first emerged in the 1890s. Manifest Destiny was its watchword, its staging areas mostly islands and archipelagos from Cuba to the Philippines. Though its architects, principle among them Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Albert Beveridge, were not conspicuously pious men, American Empire had an evangelical subtext from the very beginning. American internationalism commenced, in fact, with American Missions. The gun came quickly to hand, but Manifest Destiny led with a prayer book. A band of Christian evangelists set the tempo for America’s march into world history.

Josiah Strong, a young Congregationalist pastor and evangelist, wrote the first manifesto for American internationalism in 1885. An instant best-seller, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis set the moral tone for American expansion. Its popularity led to Strong’s appointment as general secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, a leading vehicle for social reform and Christian mission. Strong believed that American Protestantism–ecumenical in spirit and practice–was the perfect catalyst to redeem a divided world. Dedicated to the social gospel, he called for an international crusade to nurture the spirit of liberty and equality, foster peace, and enhance security, all in preparation for the establishment of God’s Kingdom. Wedding biblical religion to republican faith, Strong rallied his countrymen to accomplish "the evangelization of the world."

Both as an evangelical Christian and as a social liberal, Strong viewed American expansionism as a spiritual not a business imperative. He celebrated the extension of free markets as conduits for Christian and American ideals. Yet, as subsequent American internationalists have also often been, Strong was remarkably parochial. To him, American empire would signal the triumph of Anglo-Saxon values and culture. The net result was white bread Christian American jingoism. "We are the chosen people," Strong proclaimed. "We cannot afford to wait. The plans of God will not wait. Those plans seem to have brought us to one of the closing stages in the world’s career, in which we can no long drift with safety to our destiny."

Strong’s call was answered in two ways: first, by the establishment and rapid growth of an ecumenically sponsored missionary movement; and, second, by the extension of military might beyond the nation’s borders. Protestant Christianity and American democracy were exported in the same package. The union of faith and freedom we had established at home would be promulgated abroad. To accomplish this, if need be, American values would be supported by American arms.

In retrospect, America’s first adventures as a superpower were more than a little ham-fisted. To begin with, the level of ignorance in the White House and State Department about this world we were setting out to redeem was nothing short of remarkable. President William McKinley’s only stated justification for going to war with Spain in 1898 was "to Christianize the Philippines," which happened already to be Christian. Nonetheless, by the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson had codified an explicit religious mission for the nation’s international agenda. "I, for one, believe more profoundly than in anything else human in the destiny of the United States," he said. "I believe that she has a spiritual energy in her which no other nation can contribute to the liberation of mankind."

Sailing across the Atlantic to take part in the peace conference after the war, Wilson was even more explicit about our newfound mission as a superpower. "We are to be an instrument in the hands of God to see that liberty is made secure for mankind," he said. In this conviction, Wilson was not alone. Many Christian ministers including Lyman Abbott, known for his commitment to the social gospel, viewed what turned out to be the First World War as a "twentieth century crusade." That any religious meaning could be wrung out of that conflict demonstrates how quick Americans are to invest their national endeavors with religious portent.

We can learn a lesson from the early collusion of religion in the nation’s international agenda. As American Empire extended its circle of influence, religious leaders, at the risk of their own integrity, were increasingly tempted to subjugate their theological principles to the interests of American foreign policy. Shortly after the first war ended, to attract converts the Christian Scientists ran a full-page ad in The New York Times proclaiming the credo of its founder, Mary Baker Eddy. The ordering of her beliefs is telling: "I believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God."

Americans have long rationalized national and international policies by religious and moral argument. Whenever they do so, as both Strong’s and Wilson’s rhetoric suggests, one longs for a dose of Abraham Lincoln’s dour theological realism. Lincoln never accepted the proposition that God was on our side. He strove instead to ensure that our actions would place us on the side of God.

Nonetheless, that American policy should be charged with religious mission does not, in and of itself, constitute a betrayal of either national or religious ideals. Implicit in the overarching faith sponsored by pluralistic democracy is an evangelical charge. If all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, "all people" represents more than merely the people of the United States. American patriotism demands a high level of moral engagement. In this respect, American isolationism is an oxymoron. Today, as the world’s only superpower, how we express our ideals internationally is of utmost importance to people throughout the world.

Conversely, American nationalism is insufficient to the moral requirements inherent to our fulfillment of this solemn responsibility. There is nothing unique about American nationalism. As with every expression of nationalism, it is grounded in the first law of nature, self-protection. Other countries may benefit from a super-power’s nationalistic policies, but their own interests remain secondary. Even the most enlightened nationalism therefore breeds resentment. President George W. Bush may be absolutely right about the pressing need to disarm Saddam Hussein, but by offering this as an American imperative he must not be surprised that the world feels bullied.

Unlike American nationalism, American patriotism is unique. The United States of America is "the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed . . . set forth with almost dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence," wrote a British observer, G.K. Chesterton. Expanding the compass of natural law, the founders extended the people’s inalienable rights from safety alone to liberty and equality. As summed up in the nation’s motto, E pluribus unum ("out of many, one") this creed is universal, not parochial. It does not read, "All Americans are created equal." To the extent that the United States betrays it own ideals, American patriotism holds the nation under judgment.

It has done so from the beginning. When established as national writ, "All men are created equal" excluded both women and slaves. The first feminist manifesto (written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848) invoked the Declaration of Independence to point out the gap between deed and creed. In condemning the curse of slavery, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln did the same. Expressing his dream, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looked "forward to the day that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." From the outset of our history, American patriots have challenged the nation to tune its actions to the key of its ideals. In his study of American racism, the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal described American history as "the gradual realization of the American Creed."

Today we fulfill or betray our national destiny most dramatically on the international stage. Abraham Lincoln recognized that the Declaration of Independence "gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time." On a shrinking globe where discrete backyards no longer exist, the American ideal of E pluribus unum has become an international mandate. Our greatest leaders recognized this half a century ago. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt applied his "Four Freedoms" (freedom from want and fear, freedom of faith and speech) "everywhere in the world." As chair of the Human Rights Commission of a new United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt co-authored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a global restatement of America’s principles of liberty and justice for all.

As adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly echoes Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence. All people are equally "endowed with reason and conscience." The preamble declares that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." By affirming and expanding the founders’ vision of "out of many, one," the United Nations is itself the greatest monument to American patriotism.

Terrorism is not an American problem, it is a world problem. The battle against terror–not a clash of civilizations but a clash between civilization and anarchy–demands an international front, not a self-appointed savior. American arrogance can only fan the flames American policy is designed to extinguish. One only sets a backfire to control a burning forest when the winds are favorable. Otherwise the backfire spreads the very flames that it was intended to quench. Beyond going against the logic of enlightened self-interest, policies that impose an American agenda (simply because American power is sufficient to implement American desire) take a high spiritual toll on the nation itself. From a religious perspective, arrogance expresses pride, and pride is rightly considered the number one sin.

The impulse of American nationalism isolates the United States and turns others against us. It also rescinds the nation’s greatest gift. As the world’s leaders struggle to act together–whether to slow global warming, ban land mines, combat racism, or create an International Criminal Court–the president of the United States is conspicuously absent. We have isolated ourselves from the very councils we are charged, by both power and principle, to lead. At a time when E pluribus unum–however idealistic, however difficult to accomplish–is becoming the world’s motto, the United States, whose founders gave this vision as a gift to the world, increasingly stands alone.

What a lost opportunity this represents. Recognizing their own tears in American eyes, people throughout the world expressed unprecedented sympathy for our nation in the wake of 9/11. President Jacques Chirac of France proclaimed, "We are all Americans now." Today even America is divided against itself. To have squandered both the world’s affection and the united spirit of our citizenry in little more than a year represents a tragic triumph of American nationalism over American patriotism.

During the first chapter of American Empire, the mission embarked on by Josiah Strong and other Christian missionaries was well-intentioned–to ameliorate social conditions throughout the world and to spread the American faith in liberty and justice for all. Our leaders make similar moral claims today. America can and must witness to the higher principles on which this nation is founded. Yet, so long as American superpower is indistinguishable from American nationalism writ large, we betray the very moral principles to which we give self-serving lip service. By so doing, we can only add to the problems we are trying to solve.

Not alone, the most recent chapter of our history reminds us that nationalism can be as blind as love, for it is a form of love. Searching through my grandparents’ attic when I was a boy, I found a handsome wooden plaque picturing a soldier in a broad-brimmed American World War I helmet and embossed in burnished copper with the words: "My country, right or wrong." In 1816, in coining this phrase Stephan Decatur (though expressing a preference that his country would turn out to be right not wrong), proposed the ultimate toast to nationalism. Since responsible power calls itself under judgment, American patriotism refutes this sentiment by emending it more pointedly. Speaking against the extension of "Manifest Destiny" into the Philippines in 1899, Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri said, "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."

The United States is built on a foundation of belief, not on a foundation of skepticism. By our actions, not our words, this foundation of belief is either justified or betrayed. "An almost chosen people" (in Lincoln’s words), we demonstrate our greatness not by force of might or by virtue of our economic dominance, but through rigorous moral endeavor, ever striving to remake ourselves in the image of our ideals. Patriotic fidelity to the nation’s creed remains challenging, but it invests the nation with spiritual purpose and–if we honor its precepts–a moral destiny. American nationalism betrays that destiny. What we need today are a few more patriots.