American-Exceptionalism-10.5x10-PRINT-10.5 DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 11
A NATION ROOTED IN FAITH
Even
defenders of American exceptionalism have a
hard time explaining what makes us different. Is it that
our great nation is founded on the principle of liberty?
Is it that we affirm in our thoughts and deeds, as well
as our laws, that all men and women are created
equal? Is it that our government is by, for, and of the
people?
our God may bless us in the land whither we go to
possess it” he wrote. “But if our hearts shall turn away,
so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and
worship other gods, our pleasure and profits, and
serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall
surely perish out of the good land whither we pass
over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore let us choose life.”
Yes, all these things are part of what make us different.
But they all issue from the same central fact that
undergirds our foundations. What makes America
exceptional is simple: Our country has a covenant
with God.
If it sounds Biblical in character and scope, it was
intended that way. After all, there are no other nations
that have a covenant with God. Every other country
but two is an accident of geography or politics. There
are the people that Moses led out of Egypt and that
wandered in the wilderness for forty years before
settling in the land of milk and honey, and after the
ancient Israelites, only America. And that’s the core of
American exceptionalism — our nation is rooted in
our faith in God.
This dates back to even before the founding of our
Republic. Indeed, some scholars say that among our
founding documents we should include the Mayflower
Compact, written in 1620, more than a century and a
half before the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution. It was the first governing document of
Plymouth Colony, which is where the hearty men and
women who built what would become America first
settled. Those pilgrims, tradesmen, and farmers made
a compact with themselves that was the basis of their
joint covenant with the Almighty.
In his famous 1630 sermon aboard a ship destined for
the New World, the preacher John Winthrop
articulated that relationship in the clearest terms:
That’s why we are a light unto the world. Or, as
Winthrop put it: “For we must consider that we shall
be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are
upon us.” The stakes couldn’t be higher. Either we
keep our pact with our Maker or perish wholly. “If we
shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have
undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His
present help from us, we shall be made a story and a
by-word through the world.”
“We are commanded this day to love the Lord our
God, and to love one another, to walk in His ways,
and keep His Commandments and His ordinance and
His laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him,
that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord
That is, abiding by our covenant with God glorifies
Him and us, but repudiating Him shames us. American
exceptionalism, then, isn’t a privilege; rather, it is a
mission we are charged to live every day among each
other, in the eyes of the world, and before the altar of God.
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