Is Patriotism Virtuous?

on July 31, 2015

A recent conversation hosted by the British podcast “Things Unseen” examined the legitimacy of the nation-state and questioned whether Christians should be loyal and love their country in light of the immigrant situation in Europe. Dr. Stephen Backhouse, lecturer in Social and Political Theology at St. Mellitus College, argued against Christian loyalty to and love of the nation-state. Dr. Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Christ Church Oxford, defended Christian loyalty to the nation-state as a matter of love and gratitude. Professor Sajjad Rizvi, Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, provided insight from the Qurʾan and the Islamic tradition regarding national loyalty and the call to assist the needy.

Dr. Backhouse affirmed the existence of the state as necessary to order and justice, but argued that Jesus and the Apostles would be very surprised by the idea of Christians having a patriotic love of country. He attempted a strict distinction between the term “nation” which refers – according to him – to a collection of ideas like tribe, language, and traditions and “state” which refers to law and government. Regarding the nation and the nation-state, Blackhouse urged “Don’t give it your love. It doesn’t deserve your love or killing or dying for.” He argued that our “imaginations have been colonized and they’re ascribing to their nationality more importance than it deserves. [Patriotic people] are investing their identity in something that it doesn’t actually provide for them.”

Dr. Biggar disagreed entirely. He argued,

To take that position is to fail in love. Because you are the beneficiary of all sorts of social institutions, some of which are national, from which you benefit. But you don’t love it back. In other words, you benefit but you show no gratitude, no sense of your responsibility to make sure that other people and future generations benefit in the way you have – which is a form of love. You want just to be indifferent to these institutions from which we all benefit.

Backhouse then attempted to create a dichotomy between the Christian duty to love one’s neighbor and the good of the nation-state. He argued that a nation-state must shore up its borders in order to be the best it can be.

You can definitely make the case that to keep the nation-state as good as it can be you need to enforce border control for tribal reasons. We’re only going to give benefits to people who look like us and sound like us as much as possible. That is precisely what I, as a Christian, am not allowed to do. Therefore I’m not allowed to be patriotic.

He argued that gratitude to one’s nation-state was senseless because one deserves to be treated well.

There is a sort of a sense of gratitude that is fine, but if I’m then turned around and asked ‘Now that we’ve given you these things – since that’s what we’re supposed to do as a country, if we’ve allowed our citizens some sort of freedom and basic safety, now what we need in return is your loyalty and your love.’ I’d say that is more than what is owed. Servant’s don’t get a reward just for doing their job.

Again, Biggar countered with the facts: there are no ethnically pure nation-states; national borders are not closed; receiving immigrants can be very beneficial to a nation-state; large-scale immigration and self-segregation can lead to all sorts of social problems. Professor Rizvi closed suggesting that, according to the Islamic tradition, one’s primary obligations are local rather than global and that every person is called to reflect on his own personal choices and the effects they may have on the world.

What Dr. Backhouse and others who despise patriotism and national ties conveniently ignore is the connection that “tribes and traditions” have to the success of a state. European nation-states like Germany, France, Great Britain and nations like the United States are not successful simply by chance. Traditions and practices – aided most by Christianity itself – have developed people and institutions capable of freedom and industry. Dr. Backhouse seems to think he is owed good government and economic success; a simple glance around the world or even a cursory look at the history of human civilization should show him that such things cannot be taken for granted.

Patriotism then, seems a duty akin to gratitude. Patriotism looks at the history of a nation with the eyes of gratitude and sees the countless sacrifices made and responsibilities fulfilled that enable a nation and its citizens to be successful. Christian or not, one must love one country much as one loves one’s parents; neither are perfect, but without them one’s identity would not be the same. Dr. Backhouse suggests one should not invest one’s identity in the nation-state; he fails to see that the nation-state – its institutions, law, public morality, and culture – are indelibly part of one’s identify – the nation-state is the investor. He takes for granted that he was taught to be law abiding and to care for his neighbor and to be concerned about immigrants. Such an upbringing is undoubtedly due to the sentiments of a free and liberal society stamped indelibly with the Christian ideals of charity and mercy. But Dr. Backhouse is not grateful.

Those opposed to open – rather than legal and managed – immigration are usually concerned that the immigrants do not share the values and traditions that make a nation successful (coming, as they often do, from failed nations). This may often be an unfair assessment; a glance at the Islamic immigrant communities in France, Germany, and Great Britain, however, demonstrates that the concern is valid. The question becomes whether the immigrants are attracted to the free institutions and traditions that create liberty and economic success, or whether they are interested only in exploiting that liberty and economic success. Dr. Backhouse’s error is the assumption that the liberty and economic success of the great Western nation-states can endure without the cultural sensibilities, institutions, and traditions that created them. He does not love these things, and he is not grateful for them. Will the new populations of mass immigration be any different?

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