The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
Joseph Crukshank. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=main;view=text;idno=N12457.0001.001. Accessed April 19, 2019.
Bruns, Roger A. 1976. “A Quaker’s Antislavery Crusade: Anthony Benezet.” Quaker History 65 (Autumn): 82–92.
Noll, Mark A. 2016. In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beveridge, Albert J.
Albert J. Beveridge (1862–1927) was an Indiana Republican who served in the U.S. Senate from 1899 to 1911. A graduate of DePaul University, Beveridge became a leader in the Progressive movement and a strong advocate of American imperial expansion in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. He also established himself as a historian with a classic work on Chief Justice John Marshall.
In 1907, he published a work entitled The Bible as Good Reading, in which he tried to demonstrate that the English version of the Bible was one of the finest works of literature ever written. He put particular emphasis on short stories like the account of David killing Goliath, the story of Esther’s patriotism, the stories of Moses, and the life of St. Paul. He praised the wisdom of the laws of Moses and their superiority to all but the most recent systems. He lauded the wisdom of King Solomon as expressed in the book of Proverbs, the Jewish judicial system, and by what he perceived to be the Bible’s “tendency toward liberty—even toward democracy” (1907, 69). He was also impressed by the provision for a Year of Jubilee in which slaves were to be set free and “there is to be a new deal all around” (75). Beveridge presented the biblical Joseph not simply as a “dreamer” but also as a “doer” and praised St. Paul’s oratory, particularly as demonstrated by his speech on Mars Hill in Athens.
Perhaps as much as any twentieth-century politician, Beveridge took seriously the idea that America was a chosen nation with a unique providential destiny. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War (1900), he thus argued that “God . . . has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world,” and that this destiny involved holding the Philippines. Lambasting those who opposed the war against Filipino independence, Beveridge paraphrased one of Jesus’s sayings on the cross in Luke 23:34 to say “that our brothers knew not what they did.”
Whereas the vision of American revolutionaries was that of spreading liberty, Beveridge only wanted to do so in a limited sense because he did not believe the Filipino “children,” as “Orientals,” were capable of self-government. They had “not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom.” What America could give the Philippines “involves government, but not necessarily self-government. It means law. First of all, it is a common rule of action, applying equally to all within its limits. Liberty means protection of property and life without price, free speech 55without intimidation, justice without purchase or delay, government without favor or favorites.” Beveridge observed that “the Declaration of Independence does not forbid us to do our part in the regeneration of the world.” It “applies only to people capable of self-government.” The U.S. flag was on the march and should never retreat.
As he progressed, Beveridge continued to elevate the nation and its implied powers. Noting that “the written Constitution is but the index of the living Constitution,” he observed, “The nation alone is immortal. The nation alone is sacred.” The nation was, in turn, tied to race: “It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. NO! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.”
In a paragraph that ended with a quotation from one of Jesus’s parables as recorded in Matthew 25:21, Beveridge observed that God “has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are the trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the Master is upon us. ‘Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things.’” He subsequently referred to America’s duty as “a holy trust” and professed to see “the hand of God” in this destiny.
Perhaps paraphrasing Isaiah 41:1, Beveridge observed, “We will renew our youth at the fountain of new and glorious deeds.” Continuing, he observed that “where dwells the fear of God, the American people move forward to the future of their hope and the doing of His work.”
Beveridge managed to combine traditional notions of America’s destiny with a version of social Darwinism that showed how political progressivism could sometimes morph into expansionistic imperialism with a racial twist. Although not all supported American control over the Philippines, Lyman Abbott (1835–1922) and other progressive pastors of the day also associated American participation in the war as a way to fulfill its mission as God’s chosen nation to spread liberty and Christianity (Wetzel 2012). Other Progressive members of the clergy shared similar sentiments. In 1898, Pastor L. B. Hartman observed, “Thus without the least consciousness of presumption or extravagance we recognize our republic as the politico-religious handmaid of Providence in the aggressive civilization of the world” (quoted in McDougall 2019, 123). Similarly, an Episcopal rector named William S. Rainsford observed, “This war has not been cunningly devised by the strategists. America is being used to carry on the work of God in this war, which no politician could create, control, or gainsay” (quoted in McDougall 2019, 123).
See also City upon a Hill; Colonization
For Reference and Further Reading
Beveridge, Albert J. 1900. “U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge Speaks on the Philippine Question, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1900.”https://china.usc.edu/us-senator-albert-j-beveridge-speaks-philippine-question-us-senate-washington-dc-january-9-1900. Accessed April 17, 2019.
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Beveridge, Albert J. 1907. The Bible as Good Reading. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus.
Inabinet, Brandon. 2007. “Albert J. Beveridge, ‘March of the Flag’ (16 September 1898).” Voices of Democracy 1 (June): 148–64.
McDougall, Walter A. 2019. The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wetzel, Benjamin J. 2012. “Onward Christian Soldiers: Lyman Abbott’s Justification of the Spanish-American War.” Journal of Church and State 54 (Summer): 406–25.
Bible Balloon Project
One of the more bizarre initiatives endorsed by the U.S. national government was the Bible Balloon Project hatched by evangelist Billy James Hargis and Rev. Carl McIntyre, both right-wing fundamentalist pastors with broad radio audiences (Jordan 2013, 67). Begun in 1953 and continuing for the next four years, this project sought to float helium balloons from West Germany into Eastern European nations controlled by the Soviet Union with Bible tracts and Scriptures. It followed earlier messages of friendship that had been launched by balloon in August 1951, which, in part, conveyed what the New York Times described as “the frequencies and broadcast schedules of Western radio stations” (“Balloon Barrage Grows” 1951).
Although this would not seem to be a particularly effective method of propaganda, a later report noted that eight Russian planes had sought to shoot the balloons down (“Reds Shoot at Balloons” 1951). After reports that the Eisenhower administration had opposed including Bibles, Dr. James B. Conant, the U.S.