Published June 13, 2026
In less than a month, America is turning 250. We should mark the occasion with an attempt to land on an answer to a particular question engulfing the American right: What does it mean to be an American? A timeless question, for sure, but one that needs to be answered time and time again.
Currently plaguing the American right’s ranks is an internecine dispute between those who believe America is predominantly a people (an assemblage of persons formed by the crucible of story, lineage, borders, a shared language, cultural perpetuity, and a dominant religion) and those who believe America is largely based in a particular set of propositional ideals (a commitment to the rule of procedural law, pluralism, civil liberties, equality of opportunity, liberty), and that no single organizing vision can reasonably hope to unite all Americans.
Before offering my own attempt to resolve this dilemma, let me say up front that this is indeed a healthy debate. Just as it is wrong and shortsighted to cast all those in the “people” camp as exclusionary nativists, so it is an exaggeration to lambaste all propositionalists as thinned-out proceduralists with no concern for assimilation and cultural identity.
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Andrew T. Walker, Ph.D., is a Fellow in the Evangelicals and Civic Life Program at The Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is also the Dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and the founding Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. He co-hosts The Bully Pulpit, a weekly podcast exploring faith, culture, and politics from a conservative Christian perspective.
