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The author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds Christians that they’re surrounded by a terrific “cloud of witnesses.” (NRSV) That “cloud” has continued to develop in measurement since then. In this month-to-month column we will probably be occupied with a number of the folks and occasions, over the previous 2000 years, which have helped make up this “cloud.” People and occasions which have helped construct the neighborhood of the Christian church because it exists at the moment.
The begin of a deep story: a “metropolis on a hill”?
The well-known Mayflower settlers at Plymouth Colony, in 1620, had been the primary of a collection of waves of what we now usually merely name ‘Puritan’ settlers who colonised New England. Most of the ‘godly’ emigrants to North America travelled there between 1630 and 1640. This has develop into referred to as “the Great Migration.”
Among these waves of Puritan colonists maybe an important migration occurred in 1630, when John Winthrop led the so-called Winthrop Fleet, with 700 colonists travelling on eleven ships. This nice motion led to the founding of Boston and Massachusetts colony.
The basic nature of this new colony was made clear by Winthrop’s manifesto, A Model of Christian Charity. It declared,
“We are a Company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, during which respect
solely, although we had been absent from one another many miles, and had our employments
as far distant, but we should account ourselves knit collectively by this bond of affection,
and dwell within the train of it…We have to be knit collectively on this work as one man.”
It is abundantly clear, from Winthrop’s phrases, that this was not going to be simply one other industrial enterprise. It was going to be spiritually distinct and an instance to the world. For, as Winthrop defined to his companions on the ocean voyage to North America, their colony must be a “City upon a hill” (quoting Jesus in Matthew 5:14–16). That phrase would run and run within the North American context.
The settlers at Massachusetts Bay thought that they had been founding a beacon of godliness, Bible commonwealths during which all life can be lived in step with the Christian scriptures. It shouldn’t be arduous to see how this has fed over the centuries right into a perception in “American exceptionalism”.
In addition, different attitudes additionally started to coalesce round a way of divinely sanctioned goal. And a few of these had – and have – traits far-removed from the graciousness of that borrowed gospel phrase.
Where the story went subsequent
A way of being in step with God’s windfall impressed a supreme sense of confidence because the early settlers stamped their possession on the land. Some spoke of the colonies as constituting an “American Israel,” a brand new expression inside God’s providential plan.
This non secular self-confidence additionally revealed itself in an more and more unfavourable angle in direction of those that (of their opinion) didn’t kind a part of the ‘godly’ enterprise. This additionally linked to the assumption in being conquerors of an “American Canaan,” in a manner that mixed New Testament non secular designations (the “metropolis on a hill”) with Old Testament methods (conquest). This mixture would have long-lasting penalties.
As the settlers in Massachusetts Bay expanded inland, conflicts grew with native Native American tribes. And after they did, they assumed an virtually exterminatory character which was rooted of their selective use of the Bible (virtually at all times the Old Testament).
This angle first revealed itself of their view of the Native American mortality within the face of European illnesses. In components of New England this had resulted in mortality charges of 90 per cent. This was interpreted as an indication of God’s windfall. John Winthrop expressed this view in a letter he wrote in 1634, “God hath hereby cleared our title to this place.”
John White, who supported the settlements however by no means made it to America, referred to providential “defoliation,” which had left the jap coastlands “void.” The picture was that of ‘weeds’ cleared to make room for a ‘higher development.’ Two worlds had been on a collision course. It was accelerated by a settler angle which quickly assumed prior rights to any land they desired. The New England Puritan author, Increase Mather, wrote in 1676 of “the Heathen People amongst whom we dwell, and whose Land the Lord God of our Fathers has given to us for a rightful possession.”
Well earlier than he wrote this, violence had already occurred. In 1636, struggle broke out between the New England settlers and the Pequot tribe. In 1637, a Pequot settlement on the Mystic River was destroyed in an motion which noticed no mercy prolonged to non-combatants. The Native American allies of the English had been shocked; this was a brand new form of struggle. They would quickly expertise rather more of it.
In 1675 resentment at English behaviour and lack of land led a number of tribes to affix collectively in what grew to become referred to as King Philip’s War. It raged from 1675 to 1678, and noticed about twelve frontier cities destroyed, and enormous numbers of homesteads burnt. The struggle quickly unfold throughout what’s now Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and as far north as Maine. Only Connecticut survived with out devastation comparable with different areas, as a consequence of its alliance with native tribes holding agency. Large numbers of settlers had been killed throughout New England, however these numbers had been dwarfed by the massacres of Native Americans and the enslavement of survivors. It was an exterminatory coverage.
It was a sign of issues to return because the colonies later expanded westward. And this was accompanied by a way of cultural and, certainly, non secular superiority. This was not inevitable. In Pennsylvania, Quakers (themselves persecuted in New England) had a a lot better relationship with Native Americans. Extermination was not the one choice on the desk. But it could develop into the choice of alternative because the years unfolded.
This worry of ‘the opposite’ and intolerance of ‘distinction’ grew to become a characteristic of the semi-theocracy established at Massachusetts Bay, during which church ministers loved large political affect. This thought of a separate Church and state – however one during which the church buildings count on a spot on the desk with regards to political decision-making – continues to be a marked attribute of the US.
The godly experiment in semi-theocratic authorities was dropped at heel by the British crown. In 1684 the Massachusetts Bay constitution was annulled by royal selections in London. Then, from 1686, the assorted colonies of New England had been unified because the Dominion of New England. In 1689, energy was briefly wrested again to the colonies however, in 1691, King William III issued one other constitution which unequivocally unified the colonies beneath royal authority. This space was styled the Province of Massachusetts Bay. More basic for Puritan politics than a reputation and boundary change was the choice imposed on the province which prolonged voting rights to non-Puritans. This was a game-changer. The transfer successfully put an finish to the godly semi-theocracy. But it could not erase it from the cultural and mythological nationwide reminiscence of the US.
The thought of godly American exceptionalism would assist flavour the eventual rebel in opposition to British rule and the US Constitution which accompanied it. It would additionally affect the thought of “Manifest Destiny,” because the US expanded westward within the nineteenth century, on the expense of Native Americans.
The afterlife of a founding fantasy
The thought of godly exceptionalism, as declared by Winthrop in 1630, continues to echo in US politics. Ronald Reagan famously referred to “a shining ‘metropolis on a hill’,” when articulating his imaginative and prescient for the US in 1980. In 1989, he referred once more to “the shining metropolis,” in his farewell speech to the nation. John F. Kennedy had carried out this earlier, in 1961, stating that “we will be as a metropolis upon a hill — the eyes of all individuals are upon us.” These politicians appeared to connect with the goals of the Seventeenth-century Puritans. Perhaps a New Jerusalem actually may be raised within the context of the New World? It was a robust contribution to the idea of American exceptionalism, and it continues to resonate at the moment.
Since 1960, Winthrop’s textual content of 1630 has been referenced by presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. The trendy prominence of the phrases of Winthrop owes a terrific deal to the writing of Perry Miller (1905–1963), a mid-century Harvard scholar of historical past and literature who argued that US self-understanding began with the Puritans; and who discovered this finest represented in Winthrop’s sermon of 1630. Before Miller, the textual content had slipped out of the highlight.
In his Inauguration Address, in January 2017, Donald Trump declared: “We don’t search to impose our lifestyle on anybody, however moderately to let it shine for instance. We will shine for everybody to observe.” The reference evoked the identical custom that may be traced again to Winthrop’s sermon in 1630.
However, within the bitter politics of up to date America, it’s telling that Joe Biden – reflecting on an election marketing campaign, in 2016, which he described as having been ugly, divisive and coarse – remarked: “So a lot for the shining metropolis on the hill.”
So, the place does that phrase and idea sit at the moment within the deeply divided US? Arguably, the enduring idea of the “metropolis on a hill” assumes that there’s a peculiarly Christian nature to the nation. But historical past is moderately extra complicated.
A ‘battle for the soul of America’?
As far again as 1802, Thomas Jefferson spoke of “a wall of separation between Church and State.” This clear precept is contained within the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, of 1791. Article Six of the US Constitution additionally specifies that “no non secular Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust beneath the United States.”
The Treaty of Tripoli, between the US and Tripolitania, which took impact in 1797, states (in a manner that may shock many trendy US Christians):
“As the federal government of the United States of America shouldn’t be in any sense based
on the Christian Religion… and because the stated States by no means have entered into any struggle or
act of hostility in opposition to any Mehomitan [ie Islamic] nation, it’s declared by the events
that no pretext arising from non secular opinions shall ever produce an interruption
of the concord current between the 2 international locations.”
Nevertheless, an outlook developed through the nineteenth century that there’s something peculiarly Christian in regards to the US, there being no state Church or theocratic basis, and regardless of freedom of thought and expression being enshrined within the US Constitution and its First Amendment.
The US was, it appears clear from the proof, based as a secular republic and but Christianity has had a huge effect on political conversations and decision-making. It continues to take action. As a end result, at the moment few nations ‘do God’ so brazenly because the US. The contribution of New England and the “metropolis on a hill” motif to the political and cultural DNA of the US lives on – as does the talk over what this implies.
In 2017, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee asserted that: “I imagine Trump’s historic battle for the White House in 2016 metaphorically reminds us that America too is in a historic battle not just for its political future but additionally for its very soul.”
That explicit view continues to draw many adherents. But there are deep questions. Do Trump and the MAGA motion signify such a mission? Most US evangelicals imagine so. Others would strongly disagree. More typically, how ought to Christian rules affect a nation? Does the New Testament help a mannequin of ‘dominionism’ and semi-theocracy, if Christians are near the centre of energy, or one among humble service, instance, and persuasion? Is there any function for legislation and coercion in help of Christian ideology? And can anybody part of society impose its religion outlook on a various and multi-cultural trendy neighborhood? Readers will, little question, differ of their solutions to those urgent questions. What is simple is that, in 2024, a battle is happening for ‘the soul of the USA’ and this contains the query of whether or not a “metropolis on a hill” can/must be asserted via political energy? And in that case, how?
Much will probably be determined throughout this conflicted and turbulent autumn within the US. As nicely as debates in regards to the economic system, immigration, and the southern border, on the core is a heated dialog regarding what sort of nation the US is and will develop into. Is it nonetheless a “metropolis on a hill” and what does that imply within the complicated nation of the twenty first century? How does Christian religion communicate into this US debate? And which type of Christian religion (for believers are as polarised as their nation)? Whatever the end in November, the phrases of 1630 proceed to echo within the US of 2024.
Martyn Whittock is a historian and a Licensed Lay Minister within the Church of England. The writer, or co-author, of fifty-six books, his work covers a variety of historic and theological themes. In addition, as a commentator and columnist, he has written for a number of print and on-line information platforms and been interviewed on TV and radio information and dialogue programmes exploring the interplay of religion and politics. These have included being interviewed on information platforms in regards to the non secular dimension to present US politics, Christianity and the Crown within the UK, and the struggle in Ukraine. His most up-to-date books embody: The Secret History of Soviet Russia’s Police State (2020), Daughters of Eve (2021), Jesus the Unauthorized Biography (2021), The End Times, Again? (2021), The Story of the Cross (2021), Apocalyptic Politics (2022), and American Vikings (2023). His curiosity within the Seventeenth-century Puritans and their persevering with affect on the trendy world, particularly within the USA, is explored in: When God was King: Rebels & Radicals of the Civil War & Mayflower Generation (2018), Mayflower Lives (2019) and Trump and the Puritans (2020).
