Dear People Whom God Loves,
We now turn to Nationalism as a substitute for Religion. Nationalism is good. It is the bonding together of the people of a country for the common good of the people. A group is able to accomplish things that an individual cannot by himself. We are social beings. We can only flourish fully as humans when we are in relationship with others. It is a part of being human that we cooperate with others. Of course, it is also part of being human that we accomplish things by ourselves.
As a country then, we have two purposes. One is the fostering of conditions which enable individuals to reach their individual potentials. The most basic means of accomplishing this purpose is protecting individual rights. To the degree that a nation does not do this, it is failing. Since we easily have narrow viewpoints, we must meet the challenge of extending these rights to people who are not like us. For example: when we do not protect the rights of people because of race, religion, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicaps, economic status, and others I can’t think of at this moment.
The second purpose is to do things together that we could not do or do not do as well on our own. For example, education, health care, police and fire protection, defense, justice system, and so on. Some of this is done better at lower levels and some is done better at higher levels.
What is the dark side of Nationalism? I am not talking about the good things that we omit or do imperfectly.
Whenever there is group bonding, one of the dangers is that we will confine ourselves to the good of our group. Those outside our group can easily be seen as unimportant or even enemies. It becomes them and us. In various degrees, we will dehumanize those outside our group. This means that we are inclined to neglect them or even hurt them. Groups within a nation do this; and as a nation, we fall into the same trap concerning other nations.
Religion—when authentic—reminds us that under God we are all equal. There are no outsiders. When nationalism is strong, we are inclined to stop at our national borders. Nationalism then has become a substitute for religion even though we may loudly proclaim that we are religious. Patriotism, while good, has the capacity to become terribly destructive.
All of our human endeavors have a dark side. Religion also easily fails in this way. We will look at that next time.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
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