Puritan family
I mentioned yesterday that if you have a philosophy of near perfection, then it can all too easily lead to a minimizing of your imperfections. This is particularly true if your group claims that you separated in order to set up a community that would show what true Christians were really like. This was the background to the Puritan experiment in the USA. The Puritans came here not only for religious freedom, but also to have the opportunity to set up a Christian community that would be a light on a hill. This same philosophy was held by many of the Christian groups that came over, because of either their Calvinist or their Anabaptist backgrounds.
Consider also that we quickly developed a philosophy of Manifest Destiny. What is Manifest Destiny?
Manifest Destiny is the historical belief that the United States is destined, even divinely ordained, to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes Manifest Destiny was interpreted so widely as to include the eventual absorption of all North America: Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Central America. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious (“manifest”) and certain (“destiny”). Originally a political catch phrase of the 19th century, “Manifest Destiny” eventually became a standard historical term, sometimes used as a synonym for the expansion of the United States across the North American continent which the belief inspired or was used to justify.
The term was first used primarily by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the annexation of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, and the Mexican Cession). It was revived in the 1890s, this time with Republican supporters, as a theoretical justification for U.S. expansion outside of North America. The term fell out of usage by U.S. policy makers early in the 20th century, but some commentators believe that aspects of Manifest Destiny, particularly the belief in an American “mission” to promote and defend democracy throughout the world, continues to have an influence on American political ideology.
Can you see the religious connection there? Manifest Destiny is not too far away from saying that we were predestined as a country to expand all across the continent. Hmm, do you remember that the Puritans were strict Calvinists? Can you also see the subtext of our being the new chosen people, the new Israel? Can you also see how some commentaters might believe that our drive to promote and defend democracy throughout the world might be the modern outworking of this same idea? That is, the idea that somehow the USA was especially chosen by God to be a light to the world may very well still be present in our drive to spread democracy throughout the world.
But, remember that I pointed out yesterday that when one has a philosophy of either perfection or of special calling often leads to a minimizing of one’s fault as a way to preserve one’s self-image that one is better or even that one deserves to be chosen. After all, if one is a Puritan and is claiming that one is better than those Romans and those Anglicans, and even those Geneva Calvinists, and maybe even than the Scottish Covenanters how Christianity should be lived, then it does not help one if one’s behavior ends up being little different than those in the groups you left. So, to repeat, the tendency will be to minimize your imperfections.
But, what happens if that way of thinking makes it over into a political philosophy?
===MORE TO COME===
“But, what happens if that way of thinking makes it over into a political philosophy?”
The state becomes God.