So why would Calvinist confessional state Christian nationalists not favor helping Western-aligned Ukraine against Russia’s invading forces? The old Puritans and Presbyterians would likely not have hesitated to align against Russia. They would have seen Russia as an Asiatic despotism intrinsically hostile to Protestantism and Protestant notions of liberty. They would have quickly favored Ukraine, which has an active evangelical minority and offers freedoms to Protestants not easily available in Russia.
In America’s own history, Calvinists, including Presbyterians and Congregationalists, have typically been internationalists, both in their own overseas missions but also in their vision for a morally elevated American influence globally. Often they have seen America as the temporal incarnation of Protestant liberty that is obliged to share its blessings with others.
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