The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
City’s Public Libraries, 1754–1711. New York: Fordham University. [Chapter 4: “The Biblical Library of the American Bible Society: Evangelicalism and the Evangelical Corporation,” pp. 101–17.]
Hogue, William M. 1991. “An Authorized Bible for Americans.” Anglican and Episcopal History 60 (September): 361–82.
Jackson, Kent P. 2014. “The Cooperstown Bible.” New York History 95 (Spring): 243–70.
McKivigan, John R. 1982. “The Gospel Will Burst the Bonds of the Slave: The Abolitionists Bibles for Slaves Campaign.” Negro History Bulletin 45 (July–August–September): 62–64, 77.
Mondon, Marielle. 2018. “American Bible Society to Open $60 Million Religious Center on Independence Mall in 2020.” PhillyVoice. December 7.
Shimron, Yonat. 2018. “Employees Quit American Bible Society over Sex and Marriage Rules.” Religion News Service. May 29. https://religionnews.com/2018/05/29/american-bible-society-to-require-regular-church-attendance-strict-sexuality-codes/.
Taylor, Justin. 2016. “An Interview with John Fea on His New History of the American Bible Society.” March 23. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-interview-with-john-fea-on-his-new-history-of-the-american-bible-society/.
American Exceptionalism
One idea that has been prominent through much of American history is the idea that America is an exceptional nation with a special God-ordained mission, variously described as that of spreading liberty, advancing civilization, or otherwise aiding in human progress. This sense of mission is often tied in popular discourse to 2 Chronicles 7:14, in which God, speaking to Solomon, proclaims, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will heal their land.” In such an interpretation, the American people become the New Israel or the new church that will inherit God’s blessings and share them with the rest of the world.
In its mildest form, this idea touts America as an example for others to follow and urges the people to sacrifice on behalf of the freedom of others. The view can, however, also be used to justify American expansion into the West (manifest destiny) or even the American acquisition of colonies in the wake of the Spanish-American War.
The notion of exceptionalism seems to derive in part from the Puritan idea of a covenantal people, who are the recipient of God’s special blessings. One 28foundation for such a belief is John Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill” speech in which, using an example from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Winthrop argued that the rest of the world would be watching the new colony to see whether or not it would succeed. Although Winthrop’s focus was less on a nation state than on the Puritan church, his words have subsequently been used by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to justify a robust American foreign policy that promotes American freedoms and values.
Pointing to Puritan unwillingness to extend religious freedom to those outside the Puritan fold, historian Mark Noll has argued that the notion of American exceptionalism might better be traced to the circular letter that George Washington sent to the states when resigning his military commission in 1783 to return to private life (Noll 2012). Observing that “we shall have equal occasion to felicitate ourselves on the lot which Providence has assigned to us,” Washington observed, with greater emphasis on human flourishing than on the glory of God, that, having achieved their independence, Americans “are, from this period, to be considered as the Actors on a most conspicuous Theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity” (Washington 2015, 128). He further observed that “Heaven has crowned all its other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other Nation has ever been favored with” (Washington 2015, 128). Washington thought the time was auspicious both because of reason and revelation:
The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. (Washington 2015, 128).
In seeking to take advantage of God’s providential blessings, Washington argued for the importance of “an indissoluble Union,” “a sacred regard to Public Justice,” “the adoption of a proper Peace Establishment,” and “the prevalence of that pacific and friendly Disposition, among the people of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community” (Washington 2015, 130).
Even though the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, and the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, many early American history texts argued both that God had intervened to help the United States achieve 29its independence and that Americans thus occupied a higher moral ground than other nations. John Fea thus notes that in Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, which she first published in 1805, she both attributed American independence to a “superintending Providence” and said that the “religious and moral character of Americans yet stands on a higher grade of excellence and purity than that of most other nations” (Fea 2016, 9). Perhaps even more shockingly, Emma Willard’s History of the United States, which was first published in 1826, describes the thinning of Native Americans through disease as a providential provision for “exchanging, upon these shores, a savage for a civilized people” (Fea 2016, 11). Later in the nineteenth century, the notion of American mission was often fueled by secular ideas of progress, by Hegelian ideas of an immanent world spirit, and even by social Darwinism (Ceaser 2012, 19–20).
During the Civil War, both sides portrayed themselves as the heirs of this legacy, with Northerners touting their opposition to slavery and the Confederate States of America pointing to the reintroduction of God within the preamble of their revised constitution. Many leaders of the social gospel movement portrayed World War I as a war for righteousness (Gamble 2003), while World War II pitted America against totalitarian powers and the Cold War pitted it against godless communism. This opposition was highlighted by the congressional introduction of the words “under God” into the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag in 1954. President Reagan, who was quite fond of the “city upon a hill” analogy, further labeled the former Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” while George W. Bush later labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as constituting an “axis of evil.”
It thus seems clear that the idea of American exceptionalism can be used either to remind Americans that much of their prosperity and success has been a gift of grace and to inspire them to seek