With all the social upheaval going on these days, I hear a lot from all sides about fighting for America. What that actually looks like means different things to different people, but a core talking point on both sides of the aisle is one of taking back the U.S. 

When I was younger, I was easily moved by these arguments — the idea that America needed to hold true to its lofty ideals of freedom and equality made a lot of sense to me. When things look bleak, as they do right now, it’s easy to believe that this is a corruption, the dimming of a once glorious light that has now fallen into times of shadow. The U.S. was created as a beacon of acceptance and hope — wasn’t it? That’s certainly what they tell us in school. 

Education has changed a lot for me, though, over the years. No longer is there a simple presentation of good triumphing over evil; of progress steadily marching forward. Now we have to ask bigger questions — harder questions. 

In the class on Christian nationalism that I took last fall, we talked a lot about what it means to have both a public life and a public faith. Even if it doesn’t feel like something we want, it is something that we have. 

When most Christians today talk about combatting Christian nationalism, they discuss how it is both bad for the church as well as responsible for corrupting those same lofty ideas of freedom — that America is a fundamentally noble project that needs to be saved from forces that seek to harm it. 

The thing is, I’m not so sure that I am convinced by this anymore. When I read other pieces on similar topics, I find that this is the moment where writers usually assure you that, ‘Obviously I’m not saying I don’t love my country, there are just a few things that we need to change.’ 

For me, I’m tired of pulling punches with phrases like that. I don’t love my country. I don’t love my country with its imperialist tendencies, its overreliance on military might or its systems of oppression that are baked into the very founding documents that we idolize. 

Now that being said, I do still recognize all within this land that matters to me. I love the people who inhabit it; past, present and future. There is not a lot I believe in more than ensuring that all of us are treated with dignity and deserving of rights. 

I love the diverse tapestry of cultures and languages that has been built in spite of what the founders may have wanted or what the current powers that be would prefer. 

So I don’t love America, I’m not really a patriot but I will use every ounce of influence that I possess to ensure that no one who resides in America is treated as anything less than fully human.