Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'patriotism'

September 30, 2025

The Virtue of Patriotism

As an American who grew up amid the Cold War, patriotism had an obvious attraction. Who wouldn’t prefer the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, free markets, belief in God, and rock and roll over the gray, atheistic, materialistic totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2023

Top Gun: Maverick: Our America Is Back

The surprise hit of 2022 was Top Gun: Maverick, a man and machine heroic picture, sentimental and nostalgic, the sort of thing Hollywood just doesn’t do anymore. At first glance it seemed way too old-fashioned, yet it made more than $700 million in America and just a bit more than that in the rest of the world, without even opening in China. Continue Reading...
July 11, 2019

Is there such a thing as ‘good nationalism’?

In the world of Brexit, Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán and all the rest, “nationalism” has become all too frequent a topic. In the 20th century the term became associated with fascism (the word “Nazi” comes from “national,” after all), but the story of nationalism goes back much farther than Nazism and isn’t nearly so one-sided a concept as it’s often made out to be. Continue Reading...
October 20, 2010

More on American Exceptionalism: The Podcast

Acton podcast host Marc Vander Maas was joined by John Pinheiro, Jordan Ballor, and myself to discuss the issue of American Exceptionalism. Click on the link below to listen: [audio: http://bonhoeffer.acton.org/acton_media/mp3/APC-0010.mp3] Continue Reading...
July 02, 2010

The Birth of Freedom Comes to PBS for Independence Day

Acton’s The Birth of Freedom comes to six PBS stations this Independence Day weekend, and AEI’s Enterprise blog has a good post about the Christian foundations of American freedom and The Birth of Freedom: “It’s a good place to start if you’re interested in recalling, learning, or helping others to learn about the deep roots of the freedom we celebrate every Fourth of July. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2008

Andrew Klavan on Hollywood’s anti-Americanism

One of my biggest disappointments in seminary was learning that there were some members of the faculty and student body who saw little redeeming value in the American experience. Patriotism was seen as somehow anti-Christian or fervent nationalism by some, and love of country was supposed to be understood as idolatry. Continue Reading...