Patriotism stems from the
desire to express pride in highest ideals of truth, beauty and
goodness which are embody the national life of a nation.
Patriotism at its best is an expression of devotion and loyalty
to all that is good, just, and decent about a country.
When the citizens of a nation have a tradition of loving and
honoring God and the role of morality and spirituality in
society, there is no limit to their inner sense of pride toward
their country. This kind of pride comes from God.
Unlike patriotism,
nationalism, is easily subject to the pitfalls of human
selfishness. This happens because people forget or are
ignorant of the fact that as children of God, all humanity is
meant to be one world family under God. Selfishness on the
individual level is the tendency to always put one's own
interests ahead of others. This is seen on the family
level whenever a family is concerned only about the welfare of
each other while ignoring the needs of other families who may be
less fortunate.
Nationalism is the ideology of
always putting one's nation first, often at the expense of other
nations. This is most obvious when seen in its extreme
forms such as ethnic cleansing, slavery and colonialism.
All too often, powerful wealthy nations take advantage of poorer
developing nations. This is done through exploiting labor
when basic human rights are ignored, by stripping natural
resources from a country without any concern for the environment
or the fair market value of the raw materials and by
collaborating with corrupt governments which brazenly pillage
and steal from their own countrymen. In today's world
multi-national corporations are often instruments of
institutionalized nationalism being primarily concerned for
providing ever-increasing value to their stockholders at the
expense of other nations. This gives capitalism a very bad
name leading to anti-capitalism protests and often violent
demonstrations at world trade conferences.
It is not necessary to be a
wealthy and powerful nation to carry out nationalistic policies
and practices. Governments and corporations of every
stripe engage in nationalistic practices in the name of
patriotism. National media and political parties
manipulate patriotic good will to forward self-centered agendas
for personal gain. Nationalism is best overcome by the
practice of loving one's neighbor and through loving one's
enemy. This is done by be willing to serve others and
treat others as you would wish to be treated. This is
essentially the golden rule taught by Jesus Christ.
Because so many Christian
industrialized nations used their position of having received
favor from God to subjugate other nations, it is high time that
Christian nations practice what they preach by sharing their
resources and technological know-how with developing nations and
stop the practice of exploiting the weak in the name of
increasing the growth-rate of corporate profits.
If wealthy first-world nations
do not transcend their insatiable desire for greed and power
there will be a high price to pay when God allows those who have
been exploited to seek justice. When God allows for social
justice no amount of personal fortune will be able to prevent it
from taking place whether it be in this generation or in the
generation of our descendants.
