By U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) | July 8, 2024 | National Conservatism
This week, Senator Hawley (R-Mo.) delivered a keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference on The Christian Nationalism We Need. Read Senator Hawley’s full remarks as prepared here.
Speech excerpts as prepared for delivery:
I want to speak to you tonight about the future. About the future of the conservative movement and of this nation. But every future is rooted in some earlier past—or as Seneca said, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
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[A]s Rome lay shattered and smoldering, a thousand miles away across the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Christian bishop of Hippo—a man named Augustine—took up his pen to describe a new age. His vision would inspire the West for millennia to come and help define the destiny of this country. He called his work “The City of God.”
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[W]hile Augustine said all nations are constituted by what they love, his philosophizing actually described an entirely new idea of the nation unknown to the ancient world: a new kind of nationalism, if you like—a Christian nationalism organized around Christian ideals. A nationalism driven not by conquest but by common purpose; united not by fear but by common love; a nation made not for the rich or for the strong, but for the “poor in spirit,” the common man.
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We are a nation forged from Augustine’s vision. A nation defined by the dignity of the common man, as given to us in the Christian religion; a nation held together by the homely affections articulated in the Christian faith—love for God, love for family, love for neighbor, home, and country.
And some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. Is there any other kind worth having?
The nationalism of Rome led to blood-thirst and conquest; the old pagan tribalisms led to ethnic hatred. The empires of the East crushed the individual, and the blood-and-soil nativism of Europe in the last two centuries led to savagery and genocide.
By contrast, Augustine’s Christian nationalism has been the boast of the West. It has been our moral center and supplied our most cherished ideals. Just think: Those stern Puritans, disciples of Augustine, gave us limited government and liberty of conscience and popular sovereignty.
Because of our Christian heritage, we protect the liberty of all to worship according to conscience. Because of our Christian tradition, we welcome people of all races and ethnic backgrounds to join a nation constituted by common loves.
The truth is, Christian nationalism is not a threat to American democracy. Christian nationalism founded American democracy. And it is the best form of democracy yet devised by man: the most just, the most free, the most humane and praiseworthy.
And my claim to you tonight is that we must recover the principles of our Christian political tradition now for the sake of our future. This is true whether you are a Christian or not, a person of a different faith or none at all. The Christian political tradition is our tradition; it is the American tradition; it is the greatest source of energy and ideas in our politics—and always has been. It has inspired conservatives and liberals, reformers and activists, and moralists and trade unionists down our history. And now we need this grand tradition again.
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God, work, neighborhood, home. The great affections of the West. They are dissolving before our eyes.
And why? Not by happenstance. The modern Left wants to destroy our common loves and replace them with others, to destroy our common bonds and replace them with another faith, to dissolve the nation as we know it, and remake it in their image. This has been their project for 50 years and more.
But it is the Right that is failing this country most acutely.
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In this hour of chaos and crisis, conservatives’ only hope, and the hope of the nation, is to recover the Christian tradition on which this nation subsists.
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For the future, to save this country, this must be our mission: defend the loves that unite our country; defend the loves that make us a country—defend the common man’s work, the common man’s home, and the common man’s religion.
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These are the things we love together. That sustain our common life together. That make us a nation—and provide the ground of our unity.
And this is what Christian nationalism means, in the truest and deepest sense. Not every citizen of America is a Christian, obviously, and never will be. But every citizen is heir to the liberties, to the justice, to the common purpose our biblical and Christian tradition gives us.
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And those great loves on which our nation was founded have not failed. They are as compelling today as they were when Augustine first wrote of them. They are as vibrant now as when the Puritans first set sail for these shores.
We need only recommit ourselves to defending them, to strengthening them—to reviving our devotion. And when we do, we will save the nation.
Read Senator Hawley’s full remarks as prepared here. Watch Senator Hawley’s keynote address here.
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