Archives for : America

Saving the Republic – The Second Great Awakening – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : December 27, 2013
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

In Part I, we noted the ebb tide of religious fervor and an increase in secularism and irreligion following the American Revolution, especially in the decade of 1790s. The Constitution creating the United States of America had just been ratified in 1787 and the Bill of Rights was added in 1791. Washington was President and there was an air of optimism regarding the nation’s future. But, at the same time morality at all levels of society was spiraling downward and threatened the survival of the young nation.

Following years of moral decline, the shameful debacle of the presidential campaign of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson illustrated the threat to the nation’s survival. Both candidates were vilified and slandered by their political opponents and operatives. Jefferson was accused of swindling clients as a young lawyer and charged with cowardice during his time as governor of Virginia. Pamphlets and newspapers called Jefferson a “…hopeless visionary, a weakling, an intriguer, intoxicated with French philosophy, more a Frenchman than an American…carried on with slave women…a howling atheist…” Adams was portrayed as being “…old, addled, and toothless…procuring mistresses… a vain Yankee scold, and, if truth be known, ‘quite mad’.” [McCullough, pp. 543-544.] Such was the political and immoral atmosphere that permeated the nation at the close of the century.

A society cannot avoid destruction if political ties are relaxed without a corresponding tightening of moral ties. [Tocqueville, p. 344.] The Political ties so painfully forged over a quarter century were in danger of permanently unraveling in the campaign wars of 1800 between the Federalist and anti-Federalist partisans. Destruction of the new nation was imminently possible without a corresponding tightening of moral ties. The republic had to be saved.

Thirty-one years following the end of the eighteenth century, a young Frenchman of the aristocracy traveled extensively in America and subsequently wrote of his impressions. Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has been called one of the most influential political texts ever written about America.

Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

On my arrival in the United States, it was the religious atmosphere which first struck me. As I extended my stay, I could observe the political consequences which flowed from this novel situation.

In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America, I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land. [Tocqueville, pp. 343, 345.]

How do we reconcile these two disparate pictures of America? Here we have a nation sinking into immorality—a cesspool of secularism, irreligion, political expediency, and debauchery following the Revolutionary War through the end of the century. Thirty-one years later Tocqueville described America as having a highly religious atmosphere in which the spirit of religion and freedom are inextricably entwined. Something must have happened to dramatically alter the course of the nation. We call that happening the Second Great Awakening.

In 1791, through the Union of Prayer that was begun with the efforts of William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliffe, and other church leaders, the Second Great Awakening began sweeping Great Britain. It was a New England Baptist pastor named Isaac Backus that played a pivotal role in igniting the Second Great Awakening in America. Backus was both a product of and participant in the Great Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Born in 1724, he began preaching in 1746, initially as a Congregationalist. Struggling with the issue of the incompatibility of infant baptism and salvation through grace, Backus and a number of his church members organized a Baptist church in 1756 at which he was the pastor for fifty years until his death in 1806. [McClymond, pp. 43-44; Johnson, p. 410.]

With spiritual conditions in America at their worst in 1794, Backus sent an urgent plea to pastors of all churches of every Christian denomination in America. His plea for prayer for revival was widely adopted, and a network of prayer meetings on the first Monday of each month soon led to revival. By 1800, revival had reached the western extremities of civilization in Logan County, Kentucky, if the wild and irreligious people of Rogue’s Harbour (as it was known) could be called civilized. Lawlessness was so rampant that local citizens formed themselves into regiments of vigilantes that fought outlaws, often unsuccessfully, to establish a measure of law and order for the settlements. It was here that Presbyterian minister James McCready settled and became pastor of three small churches. All through the winter of 1799, McCready and several of his congregants joined the national monthly Monday meetings to pray for revival as well as holding weekly Saturday evening to Sunday morning prayer meetings. Following months of prayer, revival came in the summer of 1800. The spiritual hunger was so great that eleven thousand came to a communion service. Overwhelmed, McCready called for help from all denominations. [Orr; Johnson, p. 410.]

Next came the famous Cane Ridge camp meeting in southern Kentucky during the summer of 1801. Six or seven ministers preached simultaneously from various points to reach crowds that were estimated to exceed 10,000. To give perspective to the significant size of the crowds, the largest city in Kentucky at the time was Lexington with a population of only 2,000. [Fishwick, p. 19; Johnson, p. 410.]

The Second Great Awakening provided spiritual and moral regeneration and initiated other civilizing influences on the young nation. These influences included popular education, Bible Societies, Sunday schools, the modern missionary movement, and ultimately sowed and nurtured the seeds that led to the abolition of slavery. [Orr; Johnson, pp. 410-411.] Just as the Great Awakening was the formative moment in American history, preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible, it is also fair to say that the Second Great Awakening was the stabilizing moment that saved the new nation from political and moral destruction.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

David McCullough, John Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 543-544.

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343-345.

Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Vol. 1, A-Z, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 43-44

J. Edwin Orr, “Prayer brought Revival,” ochristian.com. http://articles.ochristian.com/ article8330.shtml (accessed November 26, 2010).

Marshall W. Fishwick, Great Awakenings, (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1995), p. 19.

Saving the Republic – The Second Great Awakening – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : December 20, 2013
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

“No country on earth was ever founded on deeper religious foundations,” wrote Sherwood Eddy in his 1941 The Kingdom of God and the American Dream. The persecuted refugees from Europe landed on the shores of a vast wilderness and established thirteen colonies, practically all on strong religious foundations, during the first decades of the seventeenth century to the first decades of the eighteenth century. The tremendous hardships, deprivations, and loss of life did not diminish their religious zeal and quest for religious freedom. They were the followers of Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Puritans and non-Puritans, Anglicans, separatists, Baptists, Quakers, and many others groups seeking religious freedom. The fruit of their efforts was a “priceless heritage” which they left for the Founders of America. In 1765, John Adams recognized this heritage when he wrote of the settlement of America, “I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.” [Eddy, pp. 76-77, 147.]

By the end of the 1600s and beginning of the 1700s, interest in the colonists’ hard-won religious legacy was eroding due to a decline of religious fervor and to a lesser extent because of the assault by the forces of deism and French rationalism. However, the decline of religious life in the colonies was dramatically reversed as new religious forces exploded on the scene in the 1730s. This formative event became known as the Great Awakening and was a major influence that crafted the worldview of the founding generation. [Larry Johnson, pp. 123-124.] Paul Johnson captures the importance of the Great Awakening in the founding of America.

…There was a spiritual event in the first half of the 18th century in America, and it proved to be of vast significance, both in religion and politics…The Great Awakening was the proto-revolutionary event, the formative moment in American history, preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible…The Revolution could not have taken place without this religious background. The essential difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution is that the American Revolution, in its origins, was a religious event, whereas the French Revolution was an anti-religious event.” [Paul Johnson, pp. 109-110, 116-117.]

However, many any if not almost all of the early historians of the American Revolution gave little credit to religion’s role preceding and during the Revolution. Expanding on that assumption, many present-day historians generally believe that religion was displaced by politics as lawyers replaced the clergy as leaders which effectively “…secularized the intellectual character of the culture.” However, it was the dislocations caused by the war that affected the colonists’ church attendance, and it was natural that publications devoted to religious matters would be reduced considerably during the Revolutionary years as the pressing discourse on the war and political matters would take precedence and therefore gave an appearance that religious interest and fervor had subsided. With the decline of religion in the public arena during the revolution, historians have leaped to the conclusion that the American people were significantly less religious. This is a blatant misreading of the mood and character of Americans in the Revolutionary period. Protestantism in whatever form it took remained the principle means by which Americans perceived and explained the world and ordered their lives. [Wood, pp. 174-175; Larry Johnson, p. 131.]

A brief look at the growth in the number of churches during 1760-1790 refutes historians’ assertions that religion declined during the Revolutionary period. It is true that state-oriented churches declined or failed to gain during this period as the total number of all congregations doubled between 1770 and 1790. The Church of England-Anglican in the South and Puritan churches in New England accounted for more than forty percent of all American congregations in 1760 but declined to less than twenty-five percent by 1790. New denominations spawned by the Great Awakening were alive and well and growing—popular people’s churches including Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. The Baptists grew from ninety-four congregations in 1760 to 858 by 1790. During the same time period the Methodists grew from no adherents to over seven hundred congregations. Gordon Wood wrote of this period, “The revolution released more religious energy and fragmented Christendom to a greater degree than had been seen since the upheavals of seventeenth century England or perhaps since the Reformation.” Others would call the period a “…Revolutionary Revival.” [Wood, pp. 185-188; Eddy, p. 147; Larry Johnson, p. 132.]

History has proven that the years following protracted wars are generally periods of significant moral decline. This was true of the remaining years of the eighteenth century following the Revolutionary War (1776-1781). All denominations began to feel the effects of the war years, especially during the last decade of the century. [Larry Johnson, p. 132.]

The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennos, Massachusetts, in sixteen years had not taken one young person in fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York…quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment. The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church “was too far gone ever to be redeemed.”…Tom Paine echoed, “Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.” [Orr]

The churches had become almost totally irrelevant in curbing the nation’s downward spiral into immorality. During the last decade of the century, out of a population of five million Americans, six percent were confirmed drunkards. Crime had grown to such an extent that bank robberies were a daily occurrence and women did not go out at night for fear of assault. [Orr]

Christianity at the universities was just as destitute. Students at Harvard were polled, and not one Christian was found. Two admitted to being Christians at Princeton while only five members of the student body were not members of the filthy speech movement of the times. Few if any campuses escaped the denigration of Christianity and general mayhem. Anti-Christian plays were presented at Dartmouth, a Bible taken from a local church was burned in a public bonfire, students burned Nassau Hall at Princeton, and students forced the resignation of Harvard’s president. Christians on college campuses in the 1790s were so few “…that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.” [Orr]

Yet, the last decade of the eighteenth century also saw the planting of seeds destined to flower as the Second Great Awakening.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), pp. 76-77, 147.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 123-124, 131-132.

Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), pp. 109-110, 116-117.

Gordon S. Wood, “Religion and the American Revolution,” New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 174-175, 185-188.

J. Edwin Orr, “Prayer brought Revival, ochristian.com. “http://articles.ochristian.com/article 8330.shtml (accessed November 26, 2010).

American Exceptionalism – Part III – R.I.P. or Revival?

Posted by :webmaster On : July 19, 2013
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Category: America, Archives

John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, the America of the Founders was based upon the assumption that people who accept the biblical worldview are capable of governing themselves internally where ethical and moral issues are concerned. Thus, the architects of America’s early government structure envisioned the Republic supported by a foundation of common morality, and that morality rested on the bedrock of the Christian faith.

As we noted in Part II, Christianity and Christian principles that permeated and bonded with the principles of civil government formed the basis for America’s exceptionalism. Recognition of the truth of Adam’s words that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people has monumental implications for America in the 21st century as Christianity and Christian principles are being driven from the public square. If America rejects Christianity and Christian principles in guiding and informing American civil government and culture, we will cease to be great and America will no longer be exceptional. As a consequence we will lose our freedoms.

Daily we are seeing the loss of freedom in America. As citizens turn from a Christian worldview, they are unable to guide themselves internally with regard to ethical and moral issues. Benjamin Franklin recognized the folly of this course when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” This is a picture of America in the 21st century as we see the power and reach of the state expanding rapidly before our eyes.

The Bible outlines the course of events for nations and points to ancient Israel as the prime example. The cycle begins with a nation being blessed by God. From blessing comes satisfaction which begets pride, but as pride increases people forget God. God brings judgment so that they may remember, repent, and return to God. Without remembrance, repentance, and return, destruction follows. Today, the institutions of American life, its leaders, and a large percentage of the population have mostly forgotten God and deny the validity of the nation’s biblically-based Christian roots in the governance of America and its various institutions. And, the sad fact is that people are ignorant, apathetic, uncaring, or just too busy with life to make a difference.

Much of American society in the 21st century cannot be called by His name for we are chiseling that name from our public buildings and monuments and silencing His mention in public discourse. Humility is no longer an American trait for God has been pronounced dead, and man is now the measure. Prayer is not only lacking but banned from our schools and the public square. The ways of the wicked are embraced wholeheartedly by a popular culture in which deference to maximum autonomy of the individual and abdication of the will to the senses reign supreme.

America’s founding makes sense only when understood as the work of Christians who operated on the basis of a biblical worldview. Just as America was founded by believers, so it must be sustained by believers if it is to survive—believers who care deeply and passionately about their country. We must face the fact that the America as designed by the Founders is likely to disappear altogether if we do not take swift, deliberate, and resolute steps to salvage it.

American exceptionalism is not dead, but it may be on life support. The prescription for reversing America’s cultural decline is a spiritual renewal within the individual which can subsequently transform a nation. Only then can America’s central cultural vision be restored. Spiritual renewals have restored America during several times of crisis in the nation’s history. How do such revivals come? Throughout all of history, the remarkable and unfailing thread running through all of Western civilization’s spiritual awakenings is concerted prayer. That prescription is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 10-11, 247.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 414-416.

American Exceptionalism – Part II – The Essential Ingredient of America’s Greatness

Posted by :webmaster On : July 12, 2013
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Category: America, Archives

In Part I we looked at the origins and spread of the concept of American exceptionalism as well as the claims of its deniers and detractors. In Part II we will discuss the one essential ingredient that led to America’s exceptionalism and why exceptionalism’s deniers and detractors are so adverse to any consideration of its reality in the history of the nation.

To be exceptional is a condition of being different from the norm; also: a theory expounding the exceptionalism especially of a nation or region. In their book titled Understanding America – The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation, James Q. Wilson and Peter H. Schuck assembled a collection of essays which examined Alexis de Tocqueville’s declaration that America was “exceptional.” In their summation, the authors wholeheartedly agree with Tocqueville’s assessment and strongly refute the popular assertion, especially in Europe, that although the United States is the sole global superpower, America is no longer any more distinctive that other democratic societies.

Schuck identified seven overarching themes that connect the essays that point to America’s exceptionalism.

• American culture is different than all other nations due to its patriotism, individualism, religiosity, and spirit of enterprise.
• The American Constitution is unique due to its emphasis on individual rights, decentralization, and suspicion of government authority.
• Although generating greater inequality, the American economy has produced a high standard of living due to its competitiveness, flexibility, and decentralization.
• America has had a diverse population throughout its history. In spite of booms or busts, people all over the world want to come to America.
• A strong civil society has made America qualitatively different. This is evidence by the large share of responsibility for social policy borne by the nonprofit sector.
• America has historically relied on certain entities and institutions to provide benefits and minimize dependence on being a welfare-state.
• America has been exceptional demographically due to its population’s relatively high fertility rate.

As we read through this list, we begin to realize that none of the elements are exclusive to America and its founding but are found in varying degrees in other democratic societies. Also, there is no hint as to a special combination or mixture of these elements that made America exceptional. Wilson and Schuck’s book does a commendable job of analyzing the possible sources of America’s exceptionalism, but we still do not have a definitive answer as to that one ingredient that allowed America to become the greatest and most unique nation in the history of the world. Perhaps we can find a clue in the words of two of the nation’s Founders.

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.” John Quincy Adams (Sixth President of the United States). [William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 18.]“

“To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness, which mankind now enjoys… Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government—and all blessings which flow from them—must fall with them.” John Jay (Co-Author of the Federalist Papers; First Chief-Justice of the US Supreme Court). [“In God We Trust”, Tulsa World, July 4, 2012, A 17.]

From these words we see the influence of Christianity and Christian principles that permeate and bond with the principles of civil government. It is this influence that is the defining element necessary in creating and maintaining America’s exceptionalism, and it remained strong after more than four decades following the end of the Revolution and adoption of the Constitution and its Amendments. Tocqueville’s first-hand account also provides ample evidence of the centrality of religion and Christianity in particular in America of the early 1830s:

The Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

On my arrival in the United States, it was the religious atmosphere which first struck me. As I extended my stay, I could observe the political consequences which flowed from this novel situation. In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land.

…America is still the country in the world where the Christian religion has retained the greatest real power over people’s souls and nothing shows better how useful and natural religion is to man, since the country where it exerts the greatest sway is also the most enlightened and free.

Therefore, from the words of the Founders and Tocqueville, we see the defining element that distinguishes America as the most exceptional of any nation in history. That element was not just religiosity but the influence of Christianity and its principles upon the new nation, its civil government, and citizens.

Among most of the institutions of American life and their leaders in the 21st century, the God of the Founders is no longer welcome. The Founders, if alive today, would not recognize America. Look at the seven themes Wilson and Schuck identified as important to America’s exceptionalism. Patriotism has been replaced by the “hate America first” crowd. Individualism and spirit of enterprise have been replaced by a drive toward a nanny-state government, entitlements, and invented and illusory rights. Individual rights and decentralization of government have been replaced by a “greatest good for the greatest number” mentality enforced by a monstrous bureaucracy. The American economy is losing its competitiveness due to confiscatory taxes, onerous regulatory burdens, and erosion of and loss of individual property rights as the country marches toward socialism. American culture has become a moral sewer as Christian morality is replaced by moral relativism in which there are no standards of right and wrong. Humanistic definitions of multiculturalism, tolerance, and equality are undermining the nation’s central cultural vision resulting in a loss of unity necessary for it to survive.

Those that deny American exceptionalism do so from the perspective of a humanistic worldview. Those holding that worldview have no trouble embracing various aspects contributing toward exceptionalism such as abundance of natural resources, isolation from the problems of Europe and other parts of the world, America’s cultural diversity, and the absence of class distinctions apart from the stain of long-ago slavery. However, the central, defining, and dominating presence of one element in birthing American exceptionalism is an embarrassment to them: America’s Christian religion. Therefore, American exceptionalism is judged guilty by association and like Christianity must be denied and driven from the public square. However, such denial is nothing more than historical revisionism.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Peter H. Schuck and James Q. Wilson, eds., Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation, (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), pp. 627-643.

Karlyn Bowman, “Understanding American Exceptionalism,” The American – The Online Magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, April 28, 2008. http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/understanding-american-exceptionalism (accessed April 5, 2013)

Tocqueville, Alexis De, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 340, 343, 345.

American Exceptionalism – Part I – Myth or God’s Blessing?

Posted by :webmaster On : July 5, 2013
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Category: America, Archives

What is this thing called “American exceptionalism” that surfaces periodically in political speeches, esoteric articles and books in the academic world, and an occasional mention on talk radio? The term “American exceptionalism” is of recent origin (less than 100 years) but the concept of the unique and exceptional nature of the United States has been recognized and accepted for more than 200 years.

The unique and exceptional nature of the United States was noted by numerous Founders during and after the American Revolution. However, widespread recognition of the unrivaled and exceptional nature of the United States in comparison to the rest of the world began with Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, a monumental study of America. The visiting Frenchman described what he saw during his nine-month journey across America in 1831. But for America and the concept of American exceptionalism, there are many detractors in the 21st century, both here and abroad, many of whom are of the “hate America” variety and which are especially found in academia.

Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has been called one of the most influential political texts ever written on America. Yet, Terrence McCoy in an article written for The Atlantic dismissively calls Tocqueville’s Democracy in America a “travelogue”. The title of McCoy’s article claims that Soviet leader “Joseph Stalin invented American exceptionalism.” McCoy states, “There’s only one problem with that (American exceptionalism): It’s not strictly true. Although a superiority complex has long pervaded the national psyche, the expression ‘American exceptionalism’ only became big a few years ago.” McCoy is referring to the first use of the term “American exceptionalism” in the 1920s. The phrase came from an English translation of a condemnation made in Stalin’s 1929 criticism of the Communist supporters of Jay Lovestone for their heretical belief that America was independent of the Marxist laws of history “thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions.” (Marxist laws flow from the humanistic worldview which says there is no creator, man is basically good, and man can establish his own laws devoid of any independent supernatural authority.)

It appears that McCoy believes that the non-existence of the label of “American exceptionalism” prior to the 1920s proves that the concept and reality of American exceptionalism since the nation’s inception did not exist. To agree with McCoy’s shallow analysis and conclusions with regard to the existence of and belief in American exceptionalism is only possible when one ignores Democracy in America and other considerable evidence of wide recognition and acceptance of the concept following publication of Tocqueville’s book in 1835.

The theme of American exceptionalism became common in the 19th century, especially in textbooks. From the 1840s to the late 19th century, 120 million copies of the McGuffey’s Reader textbooks were sold. Most American students studied the Readers which hailed American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and America as God’s country even in the more secularized versions beginning in 1879.

For others who believe that America may have once been the greatest nation in the world, they now say that is no longer true. In an article by Tyler Gobin in the Technician Online, he states that America is no longer at the top of the heap. Our competiveness has fallen and Americans are perceived as lazy and culturally unaware. Mr. Gobin believes that, “…we ought to stop believing we are unique…and stop ignoring that we are only one part of a larger whole.” Gobin believes that, “Obama correctly recognized that exceptionalism stands for uniqueness and not superiority.”

Following Stalin’s use of “American exceptionalism,” the phrase fell into obscurity for half a century, until it was popularized by American newspapers in the 1980s to describe America’s cultural and political uniqueness. The phrase became an issue of contention between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign. President Obama again landed in hot water during the 2012 campaign against Mitt Romney for saying that while he (Obama) “believed in ‘American exceptionalism,’ it was no different from ‘British exceptionalism,’ ‘Greek exceptionalism,’ or any other country’s brand of patriotic chest-thumping.” But if everyone is exceptional, then no one is exceptional…thus the denial of American exceptionalism and its denigration as mere “patriotic chest thumping.” President Obama’s position is understandable given a thing such as American exceptionalism would offend his radical egalitarian sensibilities.

With certainty, the Founders would not have agreed with President Obama. Rather, they would agree with James Madison. Speaking of the American Revolution and the crafting of the Constitution, Madison said, “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of revolution.” Madison’s words echo the beliefs of many other Founders that America was an exceptional nation and the product of God’s providence.

We have examined the origins and spread of the concept of American exceptionalism as well as the claims of the deniers and detractors. In Part II we will search for that one element that made possible American exceptionalism and why its deniers and detractors are so adverse to any consideration of its reality in the history of the nation. In Part III we must consider the question, “Will America continue to be an exceptional nation, or will it succumb to the cycle of nations and have ‘Rest In Peace’ inscribed on its headstone?”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Tocqueville, Alexis De, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003).

Terrence McCoy, “How Joseph Stalin Invented “American Exceptionalism,” The Atlantic, May 15, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-joseph-stalin-invented-american-exceptionalism/254534/ (accessed April 7, 2013).

Tyler Gobin, “American Exceptionalism,” Technician Online, April 2, 2013, http://www.technicianonline.com/opinion/columnists/article_c3994862-9b4b-11e2-9c65-0019bb30f31a.html (accessed April 7, 2013).

W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981, p. iii.

Dis-united States of America

Posted by :webmaster On : March 17, 2013
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Category: America, Archives, Culture Wars

George Washington’s farewell address to the nation was published on September 17, 1796 near the end of his eight years as the first president of the newly minted United States. He spoke of his concern for the nation’s welfare as he expressed his “sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people…” His advice, warnings, and prescriptions have influenced generations of Americans but have been largely forgotten or ignored in modern times. Upon the occasion of his recent February birthday, it is well that we review some of the salient points from his farewell address that are particularly pointed and appropriate in twenty-first century America. I will quote liberally from his address and then revisit those quotes in light of the disunity caused by the culture wars and the resultant American angst.

Washington expressed his greatest concern with regard to maintaining the unity of the nation, both geographically and culturally. Unity and the prescriptions for its preservation were the central themes of his address. Speaking of the importance and source of the nation’s unity, Washington said:

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth…

In other words, unity of government is the main pillar of America’s independence, tranquility at home, peace abroad, safety, prosperity, and liberty.

For this [unity of government] you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles….

Whether a person was native or foreign born, Washington believed that America has a right to concentrate its citizens’ affections such that local or tribal differences would be subservient to the quest for national unity. As the eighteenth century was near its end, Washington was most concerned with the geographical differences that might damage the national unity. Those things which gave him hope that unity would be preserved and the nation would survive were the similarities of its citizens’ religion, manners, habits, and political principles. Effectively, Washington was saying that Americans to whom he addressed his farewell had a central cultural vision, a common worldview if you will, that would sustain them in a quest for unity. Furthermore, Washington said that America had a right to concentrate its citizens’ affections in the preservation of national unity.

Let’s fast forward to the twenty-first century and examine our national unity or, more accurately, our national disunity. First, we must recognize that the rapidity of modern communication and transportation generally have erased the boundaries imposed by geographical self-interests as was the case in Washington’s time. If that is the case, why is America not all the more unified than it was in the 1790s? The answer is evident when we look at America’s failure to concentrate the affections of its citizens as Washington believed it should. In other words we have lost a common central cultural vision (worldview) held by the Founders and the great majority of America’s citizens up until the mid-twentieth century.

This common cultural vision was biblical Christianity. Of course those imbued with modern sensibilities dominated by a humanistic worldview will scoff at this suggestion and point to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion. However, it is important to understand that the United States is not a nation that attempts to impose Christianity on all of its citizens, but rather it is a nation founded upon Judeo-Christian principles that form the nation’s central cultural vision. Americans can worship anyway they please or choose to not believe in a divine creator altogether. This is what the Founders meant by “…the free exercise of religion,” but freedom of religion does not mean we abandon the central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded.

To understand why American culture is in decline, one must understand the larger picture as to why cultures in general decline and ultimately fail over time. First, a culture declines and ultimately fails as it loses it cohesiveness or unity. Washington recognized this and made it the central theme of his farewell address. Second, even if a culture maintains unity and cohesiveness, its worldview must over the long term be based on truth. Again, Washington’s words point to the importance of truth in a nation’s central cultural vision.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of a particular structure, reason, and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Now, who is this God in whom the Founders believed? Is He some “generic, one-size-fits-all, and all religions lead to the same God” variety? No! The Founders’ God is the God of the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians as revealed in the Bible. From these beliefs arose the power of Christian teaching over private conscience that made possible an American democratic society that is unrivaled in the history of the world.

In twenty-first century America, a majority of its citizens still hold the biblical worldview, but most of the leadership of American institutions have abandoned it for the humanistic worldview. For America to survive, we must once again “concentrate our affections” and restore unity under the central cultural vision of the Founders.

Larry G. Johnson