In 2026, the term patriotism appears to have taken on a decidedly negative connotation in Christian discourse, particularly among evangelicals. Where Christian scholars are engaging the topic of Christian political engagement, patriotism appears to be synonymous with naivete and jingoism at best, and in opposition to the universality of the Christian gospel at worst. The specter of Christian nationalism stalks the pages and podcasts of troubled evangelical thought leaders. Why are Christian scholars struggling to make an affirmative case for mere patriotism in America?
In part, this may be due to the fact that the old categories of American political culture have been severely disrupted by a historic electoral realignment punctuated by a marked rise in leftwing political violence that has specifically targeted Christian institutions and figures, most vividly demonstrated in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In the wake of Kirk’s death, many Christians feel the need to be more politically involved but want to do so faithfully and in good conscience. Too often, however, they are being let down by hand-wringing influencers who counsel political disengagement or, conversely, advocate some militant form of nationalism. Both approaches appear Christian in their rhetoric, but lack biblical substance. Is there an affirmative case to be made for a love of one’s country that is biblically justified, rooted in the historic Christian tradition, and accessible to America’s Christian laity?
Daniel Darling achieves this hat trick with In Defense of Christian Patriotism, illuminating a path to a more robust political apologetic for Christians generally, and guidance-starved evangelicals in particular.
Darling divides this very readable volume into two parts. The first provides the apologetic for an affirmative Christian patriotism. Darling’s focus is on the American context, but his framework can easily be used as the basis for discussions about love of one’s country in other contexts as well. The reason for that is because Darling grounds his work in the expansive, centuries-long discourse in Christian thought on citizenship and civic engagement. Augustine, Lewis, and Chesterton make their appearances alongside popes and the American Founders as Darling succinctly and persuasively makes the case for an embodied and engaged Christian politics. More contemporary figures in American politics are also brought forward and placed in conversation with the voices of the past to demonstrate that the current moment of Christian distaste for politics and patriotism is actually an anomaly, and an unhealthy one at that. From Tocqueville to King, Darling argues, such a sense of biblically justified disavowal of one’s polity was not the norm in Christianity generally, and American Christianity specifically.
From a scholarly but accessible survey of the historic discourse, Darling demonstrates pastoral wisdom in pivoting to application in the second part of the book. He recognizes that decades of ambivalence and hostility to expressions of patriotism among Christians in some churches and regions is not going to be undone overnight, and it certainly isn’t going to be undone from the Oval Office. Rather, a healthy alternative starts at the local level with believers engaged and contributing to their local churches, building up the nuclear family, and reclaiming educational institutions (run for those school boards, people!). “Saving America from our backyard” as Darling puts it in the final chapter of the book. Darling rightly understands with C.S. Lewis that a rightly ordered patriotism starts at the most local of levels with an appreciation and affection for one’s family and friends, the locality and places they inhabit, and the values and traditions those places preserve and pass on. American patriotism is indeed national in scope, but it’s realized and expressed locally, and Darling articulates this fundamental truth in a way our very online and very national politics desperately needs.
In Defense of Christian Patriotism is one of many recent books discussing Christian political engagement in America, but it’s one of the few to make the affirmative case for a biblically grounded patriotism and robust Christian civic engagement. Darling is unapologetic in defending the moral good of patriotism as the means through which Christians can most practically and concretely follow the commandment to love their neighbor. In this, Darling concurs with the approach Richard Mouw takes in How to be a Patriotic Christian. However, unlike Mouw, Darling doesn’t feel the need to dwell on America’s historical failings and ongoing struggles or make acknowledging those failings a prerequisite for a proper patriotism. Rather, Darling argues for gratitude rather than embarrassment as being the starting point for Christian patriotism. Indeed, in anticipating the cries of “Christian nationalism” from his critics, Darling points out that American Christians are in greater danger of surrendering the public square entirely out of a misplaced sense of shame than they are of developing some idolatrously elevated view of America.
The greater problem, Darling persuasively argues, is a lack of Christian public engagement as a result of a general distaste for American politics and a lack of appreciation for America’s accomplishments after decades of anti-American educational and cultural programming. Darling may have missed an opportunity here to more roundly critique the dearth of helpful material for Christian laity in outlining a vision for Christian conservatism, but his project seems to be focused more on encouraging engagement and pastorally affirming patriotism rather than throwing gasoline on a somewhat polarizing topic that is unhelpfully dominated by those so ashamed of their nation they can’t be grateful for it and those so proud of their nation they can’t reckon with its failings.
Darling’s book comes at a critical moment in the intra-Christian discourse on civic engagement and patriotism. As America enters its 250th year, the debate over a rightly ordered love of one’s country will only intensify. Christian leaders and laity alike are looking for guidance on how, or if, they should participate in the national celebration. Unfortunately, even well-intentioned attempts over the last half decade by Christian scholars haven’t provided much practical, pastoral guidance on politics and patriotism to the people in the pews. Books that have stridently made the case for something more than mere patriotism like Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism have been too narrow in their doctrinal frame and too sweeping in their application. Other books like Mouw’s How to Be a Patriotic Christian are too personal and theoretical. Daniel Bennett’s Uneasy Citizenship is too contemporary and problem-focused to offer much practical guidance on how a congregation could proceed. Covington, McGraw, and Watson’s Hopeful Realism succeeds in meaningfully engaging Christian thought and applying it to contemporary evangelical politics, but it does so at an academic level and focuses too much of its application at the level of national politics.
This national-level focus is a particularly thorny problem for all these efforts, contributing to a tendency to restrict the discussion of Christian political engagement to national politics as though local and state level politics don’t really matter. True, referencing national politics may be more accessible for a mass market audience, but it fails to really help people apply their faith in their localities. Perhaps the authors cited above are relying on pastors in local congregations to do that work, but Darling understands that the pastors may be struggling with localizing application as much as their congregations.
Interweaving the pastoral, the political, and the practical is what Darling does best in this book, which comes from his experience in local and national politics as well as in pastoral ministry. He brings a familiarity and affection for both worlds to this book that is refreshing and hopeful. In Defense of Christian Patriotism is not some Christian nationalist blueprint for an eventual theocracy in America, but an affirmation and hopeful exhortation to believers of Christianity’s once and future role in making America exceptional. Imagine a country whose greatness is built on a mosaic of local, political cultures that takes the greatest commandments seriously. Darling argues this hope is the essence of Christian patriotism, and pursuing this hope is the endeavor that has fostered American exceptionalism. We need not apologize for that.
Image Credit: John Lewis Krimmel, Election Day in Philadelphia (1815)
