Can Propositional Nations Work?

“American nationalism, no less than German, was born out of a core ethnic and religious identity. Over the next 225 years, that identity has been called into question, modified, and expanded but never entirely lost. It has framed the current struggle over what it means to be an American.

The creation of the American identity began even before the revolution. There was a sense of common ancestry and belief that underlay the difficult transition from colonial Britain to revolutionary America and to the ‘we the people’ of the Constitution. In his plea for a United States, John Jay described this basis for the new nation;

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.”

John Jay
Federalist no. 2

In 1790, when the first census occurred, about 90% of white American settlers were British in origin – 82% were English. An even higher percentage of them were Protestants. Not all settlers had sided with the revolutionaries against the British, but the revolutionary victory in 1783 had consolidated the understanding of settlers as ‘Americans’ as distinct from ‘Britons’ or ‘English.’ While the framers of the Constitution would resist the term ‘nation’ – they preferred ‘union’ – what came into being after the Revolution was, however fractured into states, a new American nation where most of the inhabitants felt a sense of kinship.”

John B. Judis
The Nationalist Revival – p. 48-49

Pat Buchanan notes something similar as Judis notes above when he wrote;

Should America lose her ethnic-cultural core and become a nation of nations, America will not survive. For nowhere on this earth can one find a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nation that is not at risk. Democracy is not enough. Equality is not enough. Free markets are not enough–to hold a people together. Without patriotism, a love of country and countrymen not for what they believe or profess but for who they are, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Pat Buchanan
State of Emergency

Right now, all across the West, the attempt has been made and is being made to deny the need for a common ancestry as definitional of what a nation is. Our “leaders” have and continue to insist that a nation can be constructed along the lines of the citizenry having only in common a commitment to a shared set of propositions. This program fails because propositions are only as good as the people who are interpreting those propositions. For example, one needed proposition to be an American, it is reported, is the affirmation that “all men are created equal.” I can affirm that but when I affirm that I do not affirm that the same way somebody else might. Someone else might affirm that equality means the need to make sure, by way of legislation, that all people have the same starting point. Yet another person might affirm that equality means that all people have an equality of outcomes and that such a program should be pursued by way of legislation (equity). I, however, take the phrase that “all men are created equal” to mean only that all men are equal before the law and that all men are equally held to be sinners before God. I hold that “all men are created equal” was a statement that in its original context merely meant that all Englishmen were created equal with one another in terms of political rights. This is but one example how various men can all affirm the same proposition while that phrase has radically different meanings. Propositional nations will never do because they cannot work because men — especially from different races, cultures, and faiths, — will always fill those propositions with different meaning.

And so, a nation can only succeed when it is comprised of a citizenry with a shared blood and a shared faith. Out of those two realities will then arise a shared culture, heritage, and history. Not even differing languages will by itself divide a nation that has a shared blood and a shared faith though it will make matters more complex.

If the West does not realize this simple truth the West is going to go into the abyss because as Buchanan notes above;

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane