America’s self-understanding as a shining “city on a hill” helps explain both our westward expansion and our paternalistic foreign policy. From Cuba and Central America to the Philippines, Vietnam and Iraq, Americans have been willing to impose their will on others. Some will argue it was because we wanted their land or oil. Perhaps. But it was also because we thought we knew what was best.
But probe the biblical metaphor that forms the foundation of the American psyche and you find that exceptionalism is always for service ”” never for favor. The prophets of Israel emphasized this point. Even the ancient book of Genesis establishes this baseline principle when God speaks to the patriarch Abraham: “By your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”
That’s a whole different way of thinking about the world and our place in it. If there is such a thing as American exceptionalism, it is for service, not domination.
Read it all.
(USA Today) Oliver Thomas–A Christian view of American Exceptionalism
America’s self-understanding as a shining “city on a hill” helps explain both our westward expansion and our paternalistic foreign policy. From Cuba and Central America to the Philippines, Vietnam and Iraq, Americans have been willing to impose their will on others. Some will argue it was because we wanted their land or oil. Perhaps. But it was also because we thought we knew what was best.
But probe the biblical metaphor that forms the foundation of the American psyche and you find that exceptionalism is always for service ”” never for favor. The prophets of Israel emphasized this point. Even the ancient book of Genesis establishes this baseline principle when God speaks to the patriarch Abraham: “By your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”
That’s a whole different way of thinking about the world and our place in it. If there is such a thing as American exceptionalism, it is for service, not domination.
Read it all.