By James Wilson
Editor’s Note – It seemed good as we celebrate our nation’s
independence in 2014
that we think and pray about the grounding of that independence in
dependence
on the God who gives it as a gift – the gift of American
Exceptionalism. We re-print
the following in that spirit.
American leaders
from John Winthrop to Ronald Reagan referred to America as a City on a
Hill. The concept is rooted in the book
of Isaiah. The Israelites saw themselves
as endowed by Yahweh – God the Father – as first fruits of His intention to
redeem mankind after our catastrophic fall in the Garden of Eden. Israel saw herself as uniquely
blessed and uniquely charged to live and share with other nations a life with
and under God. Christians see Jesus
Christ as the resurrection of that vision – as well as its empowerment and
re-inauguration. When Americans claim that
kind of language we claim not a reincarnation of that vision so much as an
adaptation of it in terms of a secular context of unlimited freedom and maximum
opportunity. But to secularize the
context in no way lessens the sense of giftedness from God or obligation to
Him. Tragically, many of us see
ourselves as somehow superior to others because of this legacy; others see only
the gift and not the Giver; while still others are so conscious of the ways in
which we have failed to live up to our destiny that they engage in an orgy of
self-loathing whenever the topic arises.
Indeed
we are a flawed template – and that is putting it mildly. It took us ninety years to eliminate slavery
– we were virtually the last occidental nation to do it – and another
century-plus to integrate African Americans into the American Dream. (There are those who argue – justifiably –
that the job is far from complete; yet the fruit of our task of making a truly
egalitarian society for all of the tribes and nations greatly exceeds that of
any other nation.) We have broken virtually
every treaty we ever made with the Native Americans who preceded us into the
land, and we have treated them with unimaginable brutality along the way. (At the same time we have acknowledged and
acted on their claims more quickly and more thoroughly than have our
counterparts in – for example – Australia,
New Zealand, or Japan. Our record includes the homesteads provided
to ethnic Hawaiians – which are theirs by right, but such rights are flagrantly
denied in many other lands.) Although we
hold territory beyond our fifty states, we have never instituted a colonial system,
and we have blessed former colonies in which the so-called indigenous people
treat those who preceded them in a manner fit for shame. Vietnam,
Fiji,
and multiple African nations come to mind.
We are a flawed template, but we always return to it and the template of
the city on a hill is indeed our exceptional identity.
The
nation that gave the world the Monroe Doctrine – forbidding colonial nations
from further operations in the hemisphere we swore to protect – practiced
gunboat diplomacy when our economic interests were at stake in Latin America right up through the fifties. We subverted governments we believed
dangerous – such as Guatemala
when a socialist regime was elected – and we supported dictatorships so long as
they were not communistic – such as Batista in Cuba,
Somoza in Nicaragua, and
Marcos in the Philippines. We promised backing to nations throwing off
the communist yoke and then we bailed out on Hungary
and Czechoslovakia
when they acted on our promises.
At the same time
we share the heritage of Puritan, Quaker, and missionaries of all denominations
who dealt honorably with the Indians because they took their marching orders
from God and the covenant they made with Him concerning their life in the new
land. (The treaty breaking was in the
hands of those settlers and their descendants for whom manifest destiny was an
entitlement rather than a calling, according to Marshall and Manuel’s masterpieces The Light and the Glory and From Sea to Shining Sea.) We defended people groups around the world
when they were the victims of aggression – from western Europeans to Pacific
Islanders attacked by dictators in World Wars I and II. We rebuilt Europe – including the nations of
our enemies – and Japan,
supported freedom seekers in Southeast Asia and Korea,
and defended the innocent of Kuwait
and Iraq
without so much as a thought to grabbing their oil resources – despite
accusations to the contrary. We have
supported the Jews who clawed their way out of the Holocaust, and we have
supported the legitimate aspirations of the Arabs in what we know as the
Palestinian territories. When we saw
what domestic racism looked like on television in the sixties we stepped up to
the plate as a people.
In
the final installment of this series I will look at our hope-filled destiny.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
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