Following, with added links, is what Richo says about “healthy adult patriotism.”
The ancient Romans feared the gods more than they loved them. The purpose of their religious rituals was to propitiate or petition them for intervention during crises, such as famine or war. The gods were on their side but required reverence from humans to remain so. Religion entirely supported the purposes of the empire: victory in battle, expansion of jurisdiction, prosperity, and high living for the aristocracy.
Our loyalty to religion increase exponentially when it becomes connected to a group experience that grants security and a sense of belonging. Patriotic feeling provides this within a nation. Patriotic ideals and beliefs are drilled into us in grade school. As with religion we imbibe these beliefs before we have a fully critical sense. As children we swallow beliefs whole and without question, no matter what the source of them, no matter how inaccurate, limited, or limiting they may be. We might ever after confuse religion and national loyalty, especially since patriotism offers the same comfort and sense of belonging that we find in religion. I recall in childhood at our parish church how on one side of the sanctuary was the American flag and on the other side was the [Roman] Catholic flag.
We are stirred to a form of religious feeling by patriotic anthems, especially at sports events. Anthems are devotional hymns to the state. “America the Beautiful” is not a travelogue but just such a hymn. Memorial Day, Presidents' Day, Armistice Day, and other holidays are the equivalent of religious holy days. Revelation comes to us in the Declaration of Independence and other cherished documents. The moral teachings in the Constitution and in the exemplary lives of the founding fathers. The temples are Mount Rushmore, the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, and local monuments. The rituals are the presidential oaths taken on the Bible, the anthems at sports events, the placing of the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and so forth. Thus all four elements of religion are included in patriotism. We were even encouraged to show devotion by dying for our country, as we were meant to do for our faith, should the need arise.
Our adult task is not only to form a mature religious consciousness but to learn to have a grown-up patriotism. In medieval times, people were loyal to their lords in an unquestioning way. If that is how we are patriotic now, we are not grown up in that area. Adults can choose to be loyal but not blindly obedient. They can declare that the emperor has no clothes, when necessary.
Healthy adult patriotism is fidelity to one's homeland with keen interest in and questioning of its policies. It is not tribal self-interest with a lack of concern for the welfare of other nations. The common good becomes the good of all humanity. Fair trade, social justice, the arts of peace are how it is demonstrated. Spiritually conscious adult patriotism is a pledge of allegiance to policies and practices that further justice, peace, and love, the kingdom described by the founders of most religious – not those of empires.
Conversion to such a spiritual faith is acting in accord with a moral code such as is found in the Sermon on the Mount, in Sufi mysticism, in the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness. The recommendations in those teachings go beyond the Ten Commandments and are fervently opposed to a corporate greed/war economy.
Patriots with faith refuse collaboration with the establishment and the perpetuating of its values. This means no longer supporting war, torture, retaliation, unfair laws, curtailed rights for minorities, and oppression in any form. An adult with conscientious integrity will not be attracted to a religion that simply mimics and upholds the values of a political system. He will pay attention to the prophetic voice and witness by which religion offers moral alternatives. An individual spirituality does not usually offer that voice but religion does if we listen closely enough, and we can always be the voice too.
The established congregations, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, too often do what the religions of ancient Rome did: they support the politics of the state. At the official level, for example, when there have been wars, they did not counsel their young men to refuse to go; they supported induction as a patriotic duty and thereby sanctioned the legitimacy of war. Only a few religious denominations, for example, Quaker, Mennonite, and Amish, take a firm and united conscientious enduring stand against war.
Nonetheless, it is certainly a sign of hope that within all the major congregations there are groups that speak up for nonviolence and human freedom, though usually in the minority. In these days of easy communication, their prophetic voices are not snuffed out. So far in the history of humanity, it has been only such marginal religious groups that have made a full commitment to nonviolent resistance to evil. Our evolution will not advance as long as that is the case. The only question is: Which will happen first, an embrace of nonviolence or the destruction of the world?
We can make the political system and the churches into active agents of change by empowering ordinary people and promoting new social movements, changing the assumptions of those with power and changing power itself in ways that make a better life possible for all. Such a commitment is religious since it is about moving toward the More than what is. Olivier de Fontagne, S.J., wrote: “Political involvement conceived as service to the community is a noble task . . . a way of serving others while working to establish a well-balanced church-state relationship.” In this perspective, knowledge of God is not limited to theology but in how God is love and how we can love too. In Jeremiah, we hear God referring to Shallum, son of Josiah: “He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. 'Is not this to know me?' says the Lord” (22:16).
Religion in America is often feel-good rather that life-changing. Religion, not God as love, is then the object of belief. Compare using religion to support the status quo with Ernst Renan’s description of the person of faith as “torn with discontent and possessed with a passionate thirst for the future.” That future is the real godliness.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge that not only political liberals are adult. A politically conservative person can be just as loving and generous as any liberal. In fact, liberals can be self-righteous and rigid, the opposite of inclusive. The challenge to any person of faith is to remain open to all people and to speak his conscience by example, never by judgment of those who do not see the world as he does. [In the words of Pope Pius XI] “Politics is the supreme expression of charity.”
– David Richo
Excerpted from How to Be An Adult
in Faith and Spiritualty
pp. 40-43
Excerpted from How to Be An Adult
in Faith and Spiritualty
pp. 40-43
For more writings of David Richo at The Wild Reed, see:
• In the Garden of Spirituality – David Richo
• The Sacred Heart: “Mystical Symbol of Love”
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Patriotism vs. Nationalism
• A Patriotism of Improvement
• Ibram X. Kendi: “Patriotism on the Fourth of July is Resistance”
• Sweet America
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “America the Beautiful”
• Michael Sean Winters on 2018’s Grim Fourth of July
• Queer Native Americans, Colonialism, and the Fourth of July
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