 |
| A 2023 USA naturalization ceremony. Source. |
It is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which at this time I am a subject or citizen.
I am, and have been during all of the periods required by law, a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.
—Extracts from the naturalization petition form used at the time my parents became U.S. citizens.
Last week I wrote about the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, and how postwar migrations and displacements brought my parents to the USA, where they met as university students. About five years after their arrivals as students, they became U.S. citizens.
I've been thinking again about the theme of patriotism, which has fascinated me both as a patriot (at least to my mind!) and as a Christian political scientist and pacifist. I noted the language in the naturalization petitions submitted by both of my parents, renouncing all other allegiances and claiming to be "attached to the principles of the Constitution" and "well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States."
As a legal standard that would-be U.S. citizens must meet, these promises seem to me to form a defensible definition of patriotism. Note that there is no requirement to agree that the USA is a better, superior, grander, more perfect country than any other on the planet.
 |
| 1953 Chevy. Screenshot from source. |
General Motors begged to differ, in an advertising jingle I remember from childhood:
See the USA in your Chevrolet.
America is asking you to call.
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA.
America's the greatest land of all.
Of course the USA is not the only country in the world whose citizens, or at least some of them, believe they live in "the greatest land of all." And, they might even be able to explain why they believe this. In the case of the USA, my idealistic preferred explanation to justify claims of the USA's greatness is John Gunther's famous line that the USA is "a country deliberately founded on a good idea"—an idea whose most succinct expression might be the first three words of the U.S. Constitution: "We the people...."
As an aspiration it is powerful, and it's part of our notorious American exceptionalism, but in these fractious times, are "we" still "we"? And as for "the people," is our government still, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "of the people, by the people, for the people"?
One thing seems clear to me about American patriotism. If it becomes detached from that "good idea," then it degrades into cultish compulsory slogans, chiefly useful for attacking one's political enemies.
Back in 2012, while I was reading Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands, I wrote a blog post with this question: What can Christians do to inoculate our nations against murderous and cultish forms of patriotism?
To me, the only healthy patriotism is functional, not mythological or tribal or cultic or anything involving ultimate loyalties that only God can claim. Functional patriotism treasures the mutual obligations of a nation's citizens, and gives us an investment in each other's success—not our own private aggrandizement. Functional patriotism promotes intelligent statecraft on the international stage, and the building up of institutions that promote trade and communication and prevent war. Functional patriotism encourages young people and newcomers to cherish the languages and cultures that we have the honor to host within our borders. Functional patriotism asks leaders to be as patriotic in deeds and sacrifice as those leaders want the rest of us to be. And functional patriotism understand that nations and empires come and go; they learn to recognize the limits that sustainability imposes so that the good things we stand for can last, and so the planet will flourish under our stewardship, not shrug us off on account of our abuse.
I'd love to think that we Christians can counter the blasphemies of cultic patriotism with the ethics of biblical discipleship and a style of participation that proclaims God's grace rather than our demands for privilege.
Here are some of my other blog posts on these themes.
On the roots of the USA's "City on a Hill" exceptionalism, and John Winthrop's "biblical modesty": Exceptional pride.
On being a "grateful immigrant": An immigrant/patriot revisits January 6.
On safety ... for whom? Safety and "the nature of the world in which we live."
The last chapter of Clarence White's new book, I Changed My Mind About..., has a thoughtful chapter on what Christians' relationship to their country should be. Excerpt (with Clarence's permission):
Most people in this country who attend a church never struggle with the question of what the relation of a Christian to their country should be. This is a rich area to think about, and has its own constellation of tributary issues.
For most of my young life I did not question this either, until I went to seminary. As I learned to think theologically, my understanding of what is involved in this issue began to profoundly change. That change has made me an outlier among even my friends. Even people who respect me personally and theologically have trouble with my thinking in this area.
The shift in my thinking is connected to the change in my thinking about war, as I outlined in chapter 5 of this book. When I had the life-changing experience of having my eves opened about Christian non-violence as I sat in a Mexican restaurant with Professor Wil Cooper, it was probably a natural development from that experience that my thinking about how a Christian should relate to his or her nation would also evolve.
To me, the issue is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When Wil Cooper told me our job is not to calculate contingencies of what may happen if we do or do not use force, but rather our task is to simply do what Jesus said to do in the Sermon on the Mount, I knew immediately in a profound way that Wil was right. As I have written, that shook me like nothing ever had in my life up to that point, and the vision of that has never waned in the subsequent 42 years. I was tremendously shaken, and 42 years later I have been completely unable to shake myself loose from the impact of this imperative.
For the rest of the chapter, see Clarence's blog, Ramblings of a Retired Theologian. The full book will be published June 1; the Kindle version is already available.
Director Robin Truesdale has made her excellent film Sweet Home Monteverde (my review here) available on YouTube:
The Russian Federation's "root causes" for the invasion of Ukraine.
For Putin and his regime, Ukraine’s democracy, its aspirations for EU and NATO membership, and its cultural independence represent an existential threat to the authoritarian model they have constructed. Ukraine’s success would demonstrate to Russians that a different, more democratic future is also possible for them, a prospect the Kremlin finds intolerable.
Two recent posts from the Daily Quaker Message: Ukrainian Quakers React to the War and Conscientious Objectors in Japan.
A useful overview of Friends Peace Teams, prepared for the annual meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Europe and Middle East Section. (I serve on the Europe and Middle East team of Friends Peace Teams.)
Nathan Perrin on community and legacy vs isolation and chaos.
One of the valuable lessons we can take from both Mennonites and Sámi is that legacies that go on are the ones that are communal in nature. The communities that survive are the ones that dare to remember and, even more surprising, dare to celebrate. They have both lived through centuries of persecution through intentional love and service.
U.S. democracy continues to decompose daily before our eyes. Heather Cox Richardson. The Contrarian.
Wess Daniels on empires, good shepherds, refugees, and the Gospel of John, chapter ten.
Has the "Global Aid Industry," for better or worse, come to an end?
Nancy Thomas and a harvest of poems from Psalm 119.
“Open my eyes that I may see….” Psalm 119:18, GIMEL
Open my eyes, Lord,
when the Bible gets boring.
When familiarity stiffens my brain cells
and my heart feels paralyzed;
when legality repulses
and the light grows dim,
open my eyes, Lord.
I am a stranger on earth,
an alien among ordinary people,
an imposter in church—
unsanctified, blind
and mostly silent.
How will your commands bind my wounds?
Will they bring me
to the place where I can say,
Your statutes are my delight!?
A great place to be: Nathan James and the late James Harman at the Blues City Deli.
No comments:
Post a Comment