I refer back to G.K. Chesterton quite often. He is to me what I imagine Mao is to Anita Dunn. Chesterton was an amazing mind and is rightfully known as the “Apostle of Common Sense.” He is one of the most quotable writers in recent history, probably because he though and wrote about anything and everything–even the Declaration of Independence.

Whenever I come across a particularly profound quote from Chesterton, I like to dig up the original source so I can see the context, and often this yields some very interesting food for thought. One such quote comes from his book What I Saw in America and is often seen truncated to just one sentence: “America is the only nation in the world founded on a creed.” Expanding the quote reveals as succinct and profound a description of the Declaration of Independence as I’ve seen.

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism. and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.”

Reading a bit further you are rewarded with another profound and timely nugget. I recently took a class in which the instructor told us how America is no longer a melting pot, but rather a salad bar. She actually said this as if it were a good thing. I found the thought depressing, because as Chesterton says, “the melting-pot must not melt.”

Now in a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship.”

Citizenship is a dogma in the American creed. One wouldn’t seek to join a religion without first accepting all the things that religion professes to be true, but more and more, people seek citizenship and the benefits thereof without actually seeking to become Americans. This is like joining a church based on the relative comfort of its pews rather than on what the church professes to be true about God and Man. The melting pot is melting, and politicians for whom this is advantageous seek to speed up the process. Those who come to America only for the comfortable pews will vote for whomever promises to maintain or extend those comforts, not for those who espouse individual liberty and the responsibility inherent in it.

America is unlike any other country because it is at once a nation and a philosophy. This is the kernel of what we call American exceptionalism. To believe in American exceptionalism is to recognize what Chesterton, the Brit, recognized–that America is the manifestation of a creed. President Obama said he believed in American exceptionalism the same way the Brits believe in British exceptionalism or the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism (by the way, I wonder how exceptional the Greeks are feeling these days). With those words, Obama was saying that he rejects the American creed. He tried to hide this fact by redefining it as some sort of nebulous national pride or patriotism (which in itself is probably a stretch for him), but what he said was akin to heresy.

As a Catholic I’m used to reciting the Nicene creed every time I go to Mass. I know various Protestant denominations do something similar. We do this because it is a continual affirmation of what it is we believe. As a people of faith we often fail to live up to what we believe, so we recite it to remind ourselves. We need to know what we profess so that we can know when we are drifting or being led astray.

As Americans we need to know and recite our creed as well. We need to teach it to our children and to those who come here from other nations so that they understand what it means to be an American. We need to be evangelists for America. We need to harden the melting pot so that it retains its original Jeffersonian shape because when we stop believing in America, America will cease to be.