Theses on Love of Country

Both Leftwingers and Rightwingers are saying that we are in a “post-liberal” era, in which democracy, capitalism, and Constitutional rights just don’t work.

And goodness knows, we conservative Christian culture critics are always complaining about how things are in the United States.  So are progressive secularist culture critics, though we complain about different things.

So let’s think through what it means to love one’s country.  Let’s avoid the loaded terms “patriotism” and “nationalism” for now–not that there is necessarily anything wrong with them–but just to set aside all of the ideologies for a moment to zero in on what we should be feeling on this Independence Day and beyond.

I would like to propose some theses on love of country.  (I can’t think of 95 of them, but if  you can think of others, please add them in the comments.)

Theses on Love of Country

(1) Love of country is a virtue.  Just as we should love our family simply because it’s our family, we should love our country simply because it’s our country.

(2) Love of country does not mean thinking it is without faults.  We may have a family member who has gone off the rails in one way or another.  We love them anyway.  Same with our country.

(3)  Love of country means we want it to overcome its faults.  We can criticize it while still loving it.  In fact, our love for it motivates our concern. As G. K. Chesterton has said,

To one who loves his fatherland, for instance, our boasted indifference to the ethics of a national war is mere mysterious gibberism. It is like telling a man that a boy has committed murder, but that he need not mind because it is only his son. Here clearly the word ‘love’ is used unmeaningly. . . .‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ No doubt if a decent man’s mother took to drink he would share her troubles to the last; but to talk as if he would be in a state of gay indifference as to whether his mother took to drink or not is certainly not the language of men who know the great mystery.

(4)  Our country is not the same as our government.  We can dislike our government without disliking our country.  Our country has a government, which changes periodically.

(5)  Our country consists of the land, its people, their history, and their civilization.  This is not the same as “culture,” since every state and region has its own cultures and sub-cultures.  “Culture” has to do with the organic customs and folkways of a people, but “Civilization” has to do with the people’s accomplishments and contributions to the world.

(6)  Citizenship is a vocation; therefore, we should love and serve our country.  Luther said that God has ordained three “estates” for human flourishing: the family, the church, and the state.  God calls us to stations, duties, and responsibilities in each of the three.  And the purpose of all of the vocations in all of the estates is the same:  to love and serve our neighbors.  The country in which we live consists of neighbors whom we are to love and serve.

(7)  People from every country should love their country.  Love of homeland is a universal virtue, so it applies to every nation.  People from other countries love their countries too.

(8)  Love of country works against emigration, but it does not completely preclude it.  Thesis #6 and thesis #7 would indicate that, in general, people should not leave their own countries to live in a different one. But the United States is a nation of immigrants, as are other countries, so that loving America recognizes that sometimes emigration is justified, because. . .

(9)  Love of country is not the highest good.  Some things are more important than love of country, such as  love of God and love of family.  Some immigrants, including confessional Lutherans, came to America for religious reasons, out of their higher commitment to God.  Some came for economic reasons to better the condition of their family.  Some fled political oppression out of a craving for liberty.  Some came out of necessity, because they were driven out of their homes (Russian Jews), stolen from their homes (African slaves) or to escape starvation (the Irish).   Immigrants often  retain a love for their old homeland.  But insofar as they assimilate to their new homeland, they come to love their new country.