Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
History and Religion
Nationalism, Patriotism, and the Fourth of July

Nationalism, Patriotism, and the Fourth of July

Last updated on: July 5, 2025 at 11:09 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

Nationalism, Patriotism, and the Fourth of July 2025-07-05T23:09:39-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The basic principles of The Other Side Academy, at least as they appeared when I last spoke up there.

I’m pleased to call your attention to a new entry on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation. It’s entitled “For Misfit Members and Those Who Love Them: Reflections on Oneness from a Village for the Homeless,” and it was written by my energetic and visionary friend Joseph Grenny. I commend it to your notice. (The same essay also appeared a few days ago, in a very slightly different form, in Meridian Magazine.)

A celebratory display of fireworks! (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I didn’t do very much yesterday to celebrate Independence Day. For one thing, I contracted a bad and very persistent cold at the end of our filming expedition to western Missouri a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t been feeling well. I think I’m finally beginning to come out of it, but I still feel substandard even today. For another, we didn’t have any little children around — one portion of my descendants is down in Peru for the rest of the month; another is located across the continent — and fireworks aren’t remotely as fun without kids shrieking with astonished delight, running around with sparklers, and enjoying unhealthy holiday food.

But I found myself thinking yesterday. (I like to think at least once per month — if nothing else, just to avoid atrophy in the relevant muscle.) I was thinking about the difference, as I see it, between nationalism and patriotism.

At least as I use the terms, nationalism has a tribal element to it. My tribe must prosper. In a competition, my tribe must prevail. Because it’s my nation, my tribe. It has little to do with principle or ideas. Rather, it’s something like choosing to cheer for the Dodgers or the Trailblazers or the Broncos or (horrible thought!) the San Francisco Giants or the New York Yankees. Objectively, none of these teams stands for any particular ideal or idea. None of them really represents truth or virtue or anything else, except the place where they play their home games. (Certainly the Yankees and the Giants don’t.) And, for what it’s worth, during the offseason many of their players may not even live in the same state as their supportive fans do.

Many evils have been done in the name of nationalism, many of them as part of tribal or ethnic violence (e.g., in the Balkans, in Rwanda, and in much of Europe during the 1930s and 1940s).

Of course, nationalism isn’t always wrong or toxic. And there is a strong element of nationalism, of sheer national pride, in our celebrations of the Fourth of July. We’re justly proud of our country’s history, its military victories and heroes, its natural beauties and scientific accomplishments.

However, in my mind patriotism tends on the whole to be a rather more gentle and more principled thing than nationalism — though the line between the two is often unclear.

Here’s one way, perhaps, of seeing the difference: In April 1816, after he had successfully completed his assigned mission of achieving a peace treaty on behalf of the United States with Algeria, Commodore Stephan Decatur returned home a hero. Famously, he was honored at a banquet at which he raised his glass for a toast and said:

“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!”

He’s often cited, a bit less accurately, as saying “My country, right or wrong.” And, as such, it’s a usefully concise expression of nationalism.

Now, of course, it’s very rare, even for the most enthusiastic citizens of the very best countries, to be equally enthusiastic or equally positive about every one of their government’s policies, to agree with every position of every leader. And yet no reasonable person would suggest withholding allegiance over relatively slight disagreements.

Surely, though, there must be lines that morally serious persons cannot cross. If your government begins to engage in genocide or to put people in labor camps or even extermination camps, or to launch an unproved war of conquest against another country, nationalism might suggest supporting such things on the principle of “My country, right or wrong.”

Patriotism, however, might well counsel opposition, refusal to participate, even (in extreme cases) rebellion. In 1790, the great Anglo-Irish member of the British Parliament Edmund Burke — often regarded by British and American conservative thinkers as one of the founders of the conservative political tradition in the English-speaking world — published a famous little book titled Reflections on the Revolution in France that, among many other things, said,

“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”

To love America patriotically is to love it for what it stands for. It is the first nation to have been founded on the basis of shared ideas rather than on ethnicity, or common history, or merely geographical contiguity. We should love it for its brilliant scheme of representative democracy and the balance of separated powers, for its Constitution, for that Constitution’s Bill of Rights. We should love it for its record of magnanimity in treating defeated adversaries (e.g., during Reconstruction and via the Marshall Plan and General Douglas MacArthur’s administration of postwar Japan).

Charles K. Djou, who currently serves as secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), beautifully expressed this sentiment: “We send our young Americans to go fight for . . . freedom, liberty and democracy,” and “The only thing America asks for in exchange for that sacrifice are a few small plots of land to bury our dead.”

Obviously, America isn’t and hasn’t been perfect. At times, indeed, we’ve been very far from perfect. Slavery, for example, remains a terrible blot on our history. Our treatment of native Americans has often been abominable. But, on the whole, it’s been a remarkably good history. Certainly it has been so by world-historical standards. And, in our country, the 1853 declaration of the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker — later popularized by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — has proven true:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

The Rexburg Idaho Temple stands directly adjacent to Brigham Young University’s Idaho campus. We passed by them both today. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image.)

We drove up through parts of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana today, enroute to joining up with a portion of my posterity in Alberta starting tomorrow night (if all goes according to plan). Some of the vast landscapes through which we passed were genuinely glorious. Green. With big skies, wonderful clouds, and clear air. Frequently wooded. Mountainous. Potent medicine for the soul.

My admirers at the Peterson Obsession Board will no doubt regard this trip — or, at least, pretend to regard it — as yet another shameful junket funded by naïve and abused donors to the Interpreter Foundation, but no Interpreter money has gone toward this expedition (just as no animals have been harmed while carrying it out). As a matter of fact, I’m informed by people whom I trust that other parents and grandparents besides me sometimes travel to spend time with their offspring and that, viewed in that light, this trip isn’t completely without precedent. (Somebody here please correct me if I’m mistaken on that point.) For my critics, though — and, of course, for anybody who might at some point be in or near Butte, Montana — I would like to mention that I enjoyed a pretty good Philly Cheese Steak sandwich at the Homestake Pub this evening.

Posted from Butte, Montana

History and Religion

Travel and Religion

Previous Post

July 4, 2025

The Book of Mormon, the Qur’an, and "Inimitability"

Next Post

July 6, 2025 On paving paradise with gold, or even with crystal

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"DP: “But Mr. Sutherland worries about the fact that our time, when we can communicate ..."

Theodore Brandley

Learning more about a region of ..."

"Another class of memories are of individuals who previously lived. Some of these remembered individuals ..."

PlasmaMiasma

Accounts of Premortality?

"Sutherland's lecture sounds interesting. He seems to restate the Washington consensus that trade brings peace ..."

B. Wilson

Learning more about a region of ..."

"In a meeting today, I learned another important reason why accurate (or at least as ..."

the PROBLEM

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who led the Israelites into battle against Jericho?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Moses Gideon Joshua David