A Virtuous Love of Country
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
America's Christian roots should be the catalyst of our respect and the inspiration to want better.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. |
| 0:05.7 | For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. |
| 0:09.3 | Should Christians love their country? |
| 0:11.3 | That's always been a controversial question. |
| 0:13.2 | But as America celebrates its 250th birthday, in the middle of intense political division and a decline in reported pride of country, |
| 0:21.5 | a proper understanding of patriotism from a Christian worldview has never been more relevant. |
| 0:27.8 | In his book, in defense of Christian patriotism, Dan Darling defined patriotism as, quote, |
| 0:33.6 | love of country as manifested in loyalty service and giving honor to one's country. |
| 0:38.4 | Church father, St. Augustine, gave Christians a good way to prioritize loves in his orto amorous, |
| 0:45.7 | or order of loves, which can be a good way to think about love of country. |
| 0:49.8 | Here's St. Augustine, quote, living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an |
| 0:55.3 | objective and impartial evaluation of things, to love things, that is to say in the right |
| 1:00.6 | order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, |
| 1:06.1 | or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved lesser more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved less or an equal love for things that should be loved |
| 1:11.4 | lesser more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. It may sound |
| 1:17.2 | complicated, but it's really helpful. As Darling has pointed out, Christians often create this |
| 1:22.0 | false binary between the love of country and the love of God, but that framework contrasts |
| 1:27.3 | with both what Augustine and the Bible of God. But that framework contrasts with both what Augustine |
| 1:28.7 | and the Bible itself says. As Darling has pointed out, Christians often create a false binary between |
| 1:34.2 | love of country and love of God. But that contradicts both Augustine and the Bible. The Apostle Peter wrote |
| 1:39.8 | that we are to honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. See, there's an order |
| 1:45.6 | here. We're to fear God and honor the government, not the other way around. And we honor the government, |
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