From “Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies” by David P. Gushee
Finally, let’s focus on the terms “patriotism,” “nationalism,” and “ultranationalism.” If we define patriotism in basic terms as a feeling of attachment, loyalty, pride, and devotion to one’s country, then nationalism is patriotism taken up a notch or two. It is an intensification of patriotism, adding negative judgments on the value or worth of other nations/peoples, lack of concern about the well-being of those in other lands, and perhaps an expansionist vision of one’s own nation’s proper role in the world vis-a-vis other countries. Ultranationalism might be described as extreme, manic, dangerous nationalism, accentuating both the puffed-up sense of the value of one’s own nation and the xenophobic, even dehumanizing view of others. When patriotism becomes nationalism, and especially when nationalism becomes ultranationalism, trouble is surely on its way, as love of country becomes a monstrous, soul-eating force prepared to violate moral boundaries and target perceived national enemies with violence.
If the “nation,” as Stanley suggests parenthetically above, is identified with a particular ethnic, religious, or cultural group within it, then nationalism and ultranationalism also pose a threat to the interests and rights of groups within a country – and not just outside it – that are perceived as not fully belonging to the nation. Anti-Jewish ultranationalists in Nazi Germany, for example, defined Germans “Jews” in a particular way, locating this group as non-citizens, then as non-humans, then as worthy of death. Jews have often been targeted by this kind of dangerous, exclusivist nationalism, as have Blacks, immigrants, and other perceived outsiders in many lands. Thus, nationalism and ultranationalism are threats not just to those outside the host nation but to those within as well.
The special concern of this book is the role of Christians and Christianity in relation to all these negative trends. The claim here is that the slide away from democracy and toward right-wing authoritarianism in nations including Russia, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, and the United States today, and other nations in the past, is connected to and exacerbated by the historic and contemporary attitudes of a substantial part of the Christian populations of these lands. There are “Christian” versions of populism, fascism, authoritarianism, and nationalism. There is also a “Christian” history and politics that is acutely relevant to the antidemocratic tendencies that concern so many of us today.