The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
See also Clinton, Bill (New Covenant)
For Reference and Further Reading
Bennet, James. 1998. “Testing of a President: The President; Tearful Clinton Tells Group of Clerics, ‘I Have Sinned.’” New York Times. September 12. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/12/us/testing-president-president-tearful-clinton-tells-group-clerics-have-sinned.html.
Clinton, Bill. 1998. “I Have Sinned.” The History Place Great Speeches Collection. September 11. http ://www.historyplace.com/speeches/clinton-sin.htm.
Herlinger, Chris. 1998. “Clinton Tells Religious Leaders: ‘I Have Sinned.’” The Layman. September 18. https://layman.org/news61c4/.
Ofulue, Nneka Ifeoma. 2002. “President Clinton and the White House Prayer Breakfast.” Journal of Communication and Religion 25:1: 49–63.
Vile, John R. [1998]. “David and Ahab, Clinton and Nixon: Contemporary Lessons from Two Biblical Stories.” www.leaderu.com/socialsciences/david-ahab.html.
Winston, Diane. 2017. “The History of the National Prayer Breakfast.” Smithsonian Magazine. February 2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/national-prayer-breakfast-what-does-its-history-reveal-180962017/.
Colonization
Americans like to glorify those, particularly the Pilgrims, who settled in the new land, which many regarded variously as a wilderness or as a new Eden or Canaan. Given the near decimation of the Native American Indian population, it is increasingly difficult fully to credit the biblical rationales that settlers gave for coming to America, but contemporary understandings can equally go awry if they fail to consider biblical motives for such efforts.
In his study of the English Bible in America, David Daniell observed that “the conversion of the pagan inhabitants to Christianity” was “high on the list” of reasons that early explorers gave for coming to America (2003, 392). He cited Dionyse Settle’s book of 1577 entitled A True Reporte of the Laste Voyage made into the West and Northwest Regions, &c. 1577: Worthily atchieued by Capteine Frosbisher as observing “that by our Christian studie and endeuour, those barbarous, people, people trained up in Paganisme, and infidelitie might be reduced to the knowledge of true religion, and the hope of salvation in Christ our Redeemer” (392). Moreover, a subsequent book, A report of the voyage and successe thereof, attempted in the yeere of our Lord 1583 by sir Humprey knight, intended to discover and to plant Christian inhabitants in place convenient . . . written by M. Edward Haies, Gentleman, specifically cited the need to sow the 115seeds of the gospel among the pagans and cited the call (Matthew 24:14) to preach the gospel through the entire earth, as well as numerous references to the biblical books of Joshua and Judges (419).
That same year, Richard Hakluyt’s Discourse of Western Planting cited the call for the preaching of the gospel in Romans 10 and the call to seek the kingdom of God in Matthew 6:33 as reasons for colonization (Daniell 2003, 417). The Massachusetts Bay Company’s Seal portrayed a Native American uttering the plea of the Macedonian to Paul in Acts 16:9 to “come over and help us” (417).
Although such motives are often attributed chiefly to New England settlers, Daniell observes that they also served as justification for Jamestown and other settlements to the South. Captain John Smith observed that although “religion” was “their colour,” the primary aim of those who colonized was “nothing but present profit” (400), but even Smith interpreted the survival of the settlement, much as New Englanders would interpret they own survival, as providential. Moreover, some took solace in Jeremiah 5:14–18, which suggested that the Bible had predicted both “hardships and disasters” for such pilgrims (403). Daniell further notes that the settlers in both the North and the South likely carried Bibles with them, that biblical images of Eden and of a new heaven and a new earth inspired them, and that they looked upon the New World as an opportunity “to remake Christ’s church,” which many believed had been corrupted both by the papacy and the Church of England (405).
In 1622, the English poet John Donne, who was dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, assured stockholders of the Virginia Company: “You shall have made this Island, which is but as the Suburbs of the old world, a Bridge, a Gallery to the new; to join all to that world that shall never grow old, the Kingdom of Heaven. You shall add persons to this Kingdom, and to the Kingdom of heaven, and add names to the Books of our Chronicles, and to the Book of Life” (Daniell 2003, 417). One of Christopher Columbus’s motives for seeking gold in South America was to finance an expedition to free Jerusalem from the Turks and hasten the second coming of Christ. Noting that Spanish and Portuguese explorations were also accompanied by priests, Daniell observed a contrast between what he thought were primarily the “Church-based” efforts of Roman Catholic explorers from the “Bible-based” motives of the English (419).
Daniell is quick to acknowledge that motives were quite mixed, and not always transparent, but cites Professor Perry Miller’s assessment that “in their own conception of themselves,” planters and their promoters were “first and foremost Christians, and above all militant Protestants” (420). As later critics such as William Apess would point out, this latter aspect could become particularly disturbing when settlers cited passages from the biblical conquest of Canaan to justify almost unspeakable atrocities during Indian wars. These were often linked to ideas that Native American Indians were both pagan and sexually immoral (Stevens 1993).
Daniell observes that in his history Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford quoted extensively from, without citing, Psalm 107, which, in applying its description of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, became known as “the settlers’ psalm” (Daniell 2003, 432).
116
Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans continued to use the concept of manifest destiny to justify their expanse across the continent and their dispossession of Native Americans from their path. At the end of the Spanish-American War, which was supported by many advocates of the social gospel, President William McKinley further used the desire to convert Philippine natives as a justification for American occupation of those islands.
See also America as New Israel; City upon a Hill; Apess, William; Columbus, Christopher; McKinley, William; Manifest Destiny; Native American Indians; Puritans; Social Gospel
For Reference and Further Reading
Daniell, David. 2003. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Stevens, Paul. 1993. “‘Leviticus Thinking’ and the Rhetoric of Early Modern Colonialism.” Criticism 35 (Summer): 441–61.
Colson, Chuck
Chares (Chuck) Colson (1931–2012) transitioned from serving as White House counsel and being one of President Richard Nixon’s “hatchet men” (the first to be imprisoned) to being a prominent evangelical leader and head of the Prison Fellowship, which had sought to provide spiritual help to individuals who are incarcerated.
Born in Massachusetts and educated at Brown University and