One of the most politically pressing discussions I’ve had in class this semester was about a fourth-century saint: Augustine of Hippo. In his book “City of God,” Augustine writes that Roman society, what he calls the Earthly City, is governed by civic religion. The nation’s many gods give the citizens an overwhelming sense of the public good and a desire to sacrifice themselves for their country. The Eternal City on the other hand, the City of God, is private. Its followers care for their private conscience and for the purity of their relationship with God. Augustine believed in heavenly ends and thus thought that civic religion paled in comparison to the one true faith. If you’re skeptical of eternal life, though, earthly ends seem a lot more appealing. There’s still value in embracing humility and meekness as means to that end. But in an age of isolation, addiction and loneliness, might it be worth encouraging citizenship, patriotism and sacrifice?

We live in a country that has lost its civic religion. America has always been very different things to very different people. There was famously a civil war about that. But in the past 150 years, I’m not sure that there’s been more confusion and uncertainty about our national identity than there is now. The country is locked in a struggle over what the word America means. 

One side of that struggle has, if not a civic religion, a particular idea about what this nation has been and what it should be. It’s an illiberal, Old World, blood-and-soil vision for America, replete with mass deportations and an end to birthright citizenship. With Donald Trump’s reascension to the imperial presidency, that’s the country we could become. 

But I think there’s a hollowness at the center of that story of America. I don’t think it’s the most persuasive story, and I don’t think that’s the story most people want to accept. There is a story to tell about our country that is neither pessimistic nor triumphalist and that speaks to the legitimate uncertainties of American life. This narrative evokes the great collective projects of our country’s history. It tells the story of America from the revolution itself through Jacksonian democracy, the Civil War, the New Deal, World War II and the fight against segregation. It also speaks to the future of our national commitments. In this respect, Trump’s Quantum Leap plan to build ten new cities on federal land and restore the America of “big dreams and daring projects” is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing. National service requirements for high school or college graduates is another option. The goal is to help people develop a sense of collective purpose, a sense that they live in a community that cares about them and that they have a responsibility to.

America has long tended towards the Eternal City. There is an important Christian tradition in this country, from the Puritans of early New England to the modern Evangelical movement. Nor does the American obsession with the individual and with the sanctity of private life lend itself to public religion. This almost anti-political drive for purity is apparent on both sides of our great divide. On the left, there’s the activist wing of the Democratic Party that repudiates America — and compromise — entirely. Kamala Harris’s campaign avoided the anti-political style this cycle, but some part of her loss comes down to the Democrats’ association with the excesses of the left. This school of thought is about as old as the country itself. William Lloyd Garrison famously denounced the American project from the heights of the Eternal City. It was other abolitionists, like Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglass, whose earthly politics were ultimately vindicated by the events leading up to the Civil War. 

The right is also afflicted — or maybe blessed? — with devotees to the City of God. The Tea Party movement was evidence enough of that. Marjorie Taylor Greene certainly wouldn’t have won Augustine’s praise, but she is adamant about preserving her own purity over earthly political victories. Her church is just the House Freedom Caucus, and its first commandment is “Thou shalt not RINO.”

These distinctively American strands of purity politics and veneration of the private are the biggest obstacles to civic religion in the United States. Our nation’s fiery impatience, only fanned by the 24-hour news cycle and social media’s instant updates, is another barrier. Reviving a country’s collective spirit is furthermore not something that will reverse the depressingly addictive trend towards gambling and drugs and doomscrolling. But I do think that it could have near-immediate electoral effects. The national mood is every four years altered by several million people in swing states who aren’t really sure what they want. Averting an illiberal future for our country means convincing a few extra people in Pennsylvania with a bigger and more persuasive vision of America. 

America is an idea — but it’s an idea you can see all around you. A month before we read “City of God” in class, we read the Funeral Oration from Thucydides’s “History of the Peloponnesian War.” In it, Pericles demands that his fellow Athenians lovingly gaze upon the “greatness” of their democratic city. There’s a national religion that could shift the long-term window of American possibility. Abraham Lincoln originally proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to both “heal the wounds of the nation” and rejoice in our “fruitful fields and healthful skies.” Let this Thursday serve as a rededication to those collective blessings.

TEDDY WITT is a first year in Berkeley College. He can be reached at teddy.witt@yale.edu.