America's City on a Hill

 Ronald Reagan frequently quoted his feel-good characterization of America as ”a shining city on a hill," including in his Presidential farewell speech.

He took the words from John Winthrop’s address to the Puritans embarking for New England on the great emigration fleet of 1630,  But as throughout his political career, Reagan's comprehension of principles was shallow, and his purpose manipulative.

Winthrop's speech, “A Model of Christian Charity," called on Puritans to build a Christian society in their new home, modelled on Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5: a "city on a hill" whose godliness would be an example to the divided nation they left behind, and "a light to the world" (Matthew 5:14).

The only way we can be what Jesus calls us to be, Winthrop told his fellow emigrants, "...is to follow the counsel of Micah [6:8]: to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God."  He continued,

"We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and our community in the work as members of the same body.  The Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as His own people.  For we must consider that we shall be as a city on a hill.  The eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world...till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going."

The Puritans fell short of Jesus' commands for a Godly life, as we all do.  But the "Model" Winthrop set before his fellow emigrants put before America's following generations the Pilgrims' certainty that Jesus' teachings were the only basis for a Godly society, and that obeying Him was the only way God would be pleased to bless this new land.  

If we believe Jesus is Lord of all, as the Puritans certainly did, His commands for a Godly society are still the "model" for men of our time, and every other: even those for whom it is only an ideal of what makes a "good" secular society.  Massachusetts, which grew from Winthrop's colony, indeed adapted that ideal for their secular polity, constituting themselves a "commonwealth," rather than a  "state," in our new nation.  The "-wealth" in that form of government is "weal," the ancient English word for "well-being:" and Massachusetts' secular governing principle to this day is the shared well-being of its people.

When Puritan-descendant John Adams wrote Massachusetts' constitution a century-and-a-half on from Winthrop's day, he described that principle as "...a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall shall be governed by certain laws for the common good."

The Puritans' uncompromising faith was that Christ's teachings were those "laws;"; and they would have been horrified at the thought that "the people" should be their source.  But the Puritans' vision for their "city on a hill" was indeed (to secular understanding) a "commonwealth."  A famous example is that, following age-old English custom, when Winthrop's company moved to the Shawmut Peninsula and founded Boston, they set aside 50 acres as grazing-land held in common by the community: and it remains "Boston Commons" today, a public park belonging to all of Boston's citizens.

(I have to wonder if Reagan was aware that the Puritan leader he so admired was imbued with such "socialist" ideas ?  But of course Winthrop would have considered his "Model" the Spiritual communitarianism of the first Christians in Acts 2:44-45: a scripture Reagan may not have been familiar with.)

The Puritans' failed to live up to Jesus' commands that Winthrop set before them.  We all do; which is the human reality for which God offers the honest...any who will admit to themselves and God their failure...the grace of repentance and forgiveness in Christ.

John Winthrop would never have questioned that Jesus' "Model" of a Godly society "got it right."  He was at the same time too fervent a lover of Truth (Who Jesus IS) to not admit, confess and repent that the Puritan colony fell short of being the "city on a hill" Jesus commanded.  He did so in his writings in later life.

But Ronald Reagan invoked that image for a very different purpose than Winthrop's:

"And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm."

Reagan's nod to Jesus' commands came at the end of a valedictory in which he claimed America had risen in the previous 8 years (not coincidentally, his term in the White House) from recession, over-regulation, and the self-doubt of the Vietnam era, Reagan claimed too that America was once again respected throughout the world: he claimed a foreign leader at a summit-meeting once asked him the secret of the "the American Miracle."

I'm always very suspicious of self-congratulation, my own or anyone else's.  Christianity teaches the discipline of rigorous self-examination: (I Corinthians 11:28, II Corinthians 13:5, Galatians 6:4, and I Thessalonians 5:21): that God demands of us unrelenting vigilance against self-deluding pride, without which we cannot recognize our failures, repent of them, and be forgiven.

From his writings we know Winthrop regularly practiced that discipline for his own life, and the life of the colony under his charge.  And my understanding of Biblical truth is that all of us who honestly self-examine will find we fall short of God's command of righteousness, always.

Reagan's "shining city on a hill" is of the contrary spirit, a celebration of what he regarded as America's rightful pride in its greatness (restored, he said, under his administration).  He credits those words to Winthrop, rather than Jesus: and characterizes Winthrop not as Jesus' follower (which Winthrop himself doubtless considered the whole point); but as what Reagan extolled as a "freedom man."

Reagan saw in his "shining city on a hill" no sins to confess: no slavery, no massacres of native Americans, no Vietnam: and he doesn't.   A more honest President had held out to us in America's darkest days a vision of our nation that mirrored Winthrop's deep Christian consciousness of God's will and God's way; that America is "the last best hope" for human government on earth, and that our unrepented sins would destroy America, and that hope.  But self-congratulation, not repentance, was Reagan's purpose.

"...a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it...We made the city stronger, we made the city freer...

"And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."

It grieves me that even decades later many Americans still buy into Reagan's shallow, self-serving, vision of his “shining city on a hill;” a fictionalized ideology rooted in "American Exceptionalism" more than in reality.  And I think we should be terrified that, because so many Americans believe the lie that God will bless an unrepentant proud nation such as Reagan urged us to be, America has never been in greater mortal danger than in our time.

Reaping the Whirlwind

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

"For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind..."     Hosea 8:7a


It's not often we see a direct line between causation and result in history.  America's distress today may be one of those times.

Almost 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan began his presidency with the proclamation that "...government is the problem."  He promised his presidency would attack that "problem" by making government smaller and less powerful, and instituting a government-wide policy of "de-regulation."

He did a great deal to enact his doctrine.  His followers ever since have proclaimed and followed his doctrine...at least, publicly and superficially.  Politics' real purpose is always power, and politicians are always lying when they claim they want to limit their own exercise of power.

There are so many things wrong, and hypocritical, about Reagan's doctrine.  I usually focus on its greatest falsehood: its denial of God's command that human government be His "minister," doing good to its people, and punishing evil-doers.  Reagan "de-regulated"  government from doing both.

Sometimes I ponder Reagan's reversal of America's traditional doctrine of government, that "the people" are our government.  If government is instead a "problem," it's clearly an external entity endangering "the people"...unless Reagan meant that "the people" are "the problem."

Sometimes I focus on the illogic of that statement.  Anyone who paused to think for an instant, in the flow of Reagan's inaugural rhetoric, would have had to ask how it was possible to have anti-government government.

As a former anarchist, I was probably more sensitive than most people to the fact that Reagan's doctrine..."government is the problem"...is the core teaching of anarchism.  But that's the evil I was pondering today.  Pondering what scripture says about the consequences of following evil.

The scripture in Hosea 8:7 came to mind, that those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind: almost always, in scripture, a symbol of God's wrathful judgement.

The thought that came to mind with that scripture was very clear:  Reagan sowed in America the "wind" (the Hebrew word is ruah, which is also translated "spirit") of anarchic government, and America is reaping God's judgement in today's anarchic government.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I've been hearing a lot about the Republican tax-cuts.  We all have.  It's doubtful anyone who has listened to a radio or a TV in the past month is unaware of the matter.

In one way, it's not at all a "spiritual issue."  Other than general scriptural admonitions (such as Romans 13:8's "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another..."), there are probably no specifically "Christian" issues involved; at least, not in the way that the political manipulators make issues "Christian" issues today.

But of course no human thoughts or deeds are ever truly "non-spiritual."

I know very little about financial matters; especially governmental financial matters.  But it looks to me like all the evidence is that the Republicans' "middle-class tax-cut" will primarily benefit the already-wealthy, and corporations.  That's the finding of the non-partisan Congessional Budget Office, whose job it is to tell Congress (and us) how their legislation will play out in financial reality.

The Republicans' plan seems very similar to Republican Governor Sam Brownback's 2012 tax-plan for Kansas, and predicated on the same "conservative" theory.  That theory is that if businesses pay less in taxes (Brownback eliminated corporate taxes altogether), they will use their increased wealth to create more jobs, and we will all benefit from a stronger economy.

That theory hugely failed in Kansas.  It essentially bankrupted our state.  And every citizen of Kansas suffered because of it, in cuts to our state's education-system, roads, and health-care.

They say that true insanity is doing the same thing again, and expecting different results.  By that rule, Republicans are insane.  I'm not.  If the Republicans impose their failed "tax-cut" theory on America ...if it passes the Republican Congress, and is signed into law by the Republican president who's been demanding it...I expect it will do unimaginable damage on our country, the way it did to Kansas.

I could be wrong.  I'm little knowledgeable about financial matters, especially governmental financial matters.  I can only go by the realistic financial analysis of those whose job it is to do realistic financial analysis, and our experience of Kansas' disastrous tax-cut "experiment" (as Sam Brownback called it.

If the Republicans' "tax-cut" becomes law, as it now looks like it will, and proves as disastrous as it seems it will, we'll probably see a great many people turning against Trump and the Republicans.  No doubt that will include many of their "Evangelical base" who have overwhelmingly supported that faction and its candidates for 40 years.

I'd have to understand such economic "repentance" a profoundly spiritual event.

It seems very few of the "Evangelical base" have turned against their political deceivers because they teach evil.  Because of Reagan's doctrine of rebellion ("Government IS the problem"), for example; or the anti-Christ Mormon spirit Mitt Romney worships; or George W. Bush's blasphemy that "the ideal of America" is the light of the world; or their continual lying (who'd Jesus say is "the father of lies" ?), like the current president.

The "Christians" who comprise those politicians' "Evangelical base" have shown no discernment, and no fear of offending God, in their willlful disobedience to Him when His commands contradict their political "principles."  And acting by their political "principles," they have inflicted great harm on our country.

So if the "Evangelical base" finally turns against their political (and their "Christian") (mis-) leaders because of economic collapse, it would be a good thing...though probably too late.

But what does it say about a people who willfully ignore The King's commands, continually offending the God they say they love...if they finally "repent" when their financial well-being suffers ?

My spiritual take-away would be that it shows the god they truly love, and trust in, and serve, and worship in their heart, is Mammon.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The Spirit of Reality

The blog-post by our Australian brother Tim about "post-truth" Christianity, which I re-posted a couple weeks ago, included a particularly striking insight

"It’s sad fact that many (even professing Christians) really have no love of the truth, preferring to mould a more appealing (to them) version of 'reality' to live by."

His linkage of "truth" and "reality" is spot-on.

We know there's a profound sense in which "truth" and "reality" are somehow the same kind of thing: though we can't easily say how that's so.  "Reality is the manifestation of truth" is the working definition I've come to: though I'm certain there's a lot more to that equation than my formulation takes into account (or that limited human understanding can take into account).

Another way of putting it might be that "reality" and "truth" are both what really and truly IS.  And that makes both, to my understanding, theological quantities, since God IS "I AM THAT I AM."  Theologians who have opined that God is "Ultimate Reality" are probably close to the mark.

Jesus' Own Person seems to bear out that equation.  He used God's Own Name when He revealed His Being is exactly Truth: "I AM...The Truth" (John 14:6).  Jesus is the Word (Logos) of God through Whom "...all things were made," and without Whom "...nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3).  "Truth" and "reality," including the physical reality of creation, are joined in Who Jesus IS.

The confirmatory "flip-side" is that the enemy, rebel against All that God IS and does, is, in Jesus' words, "the father of lies" (John 8:44).  From the first time we meet him in scripture, he is working to deceive human beings by questioning God's Truth ("Has God really said . . .?", my emphasis) and denying the reality God made ("You surely will not die . . .", my emphasis).

The enemy has not changed his tactics.  They still work.  Even though, as Tim notes, refusal to love truth necessarily means relinquishing reality as well...and forces people to invent their own.

I find it interesting that the political faction Christians have followed for 40 years is the premier anti-Truth and anti-reality voice in America.

Like all political factions, it's always "spun" truth to achieve electoral success (the only "good" political factions serve): though rather more outrageously than other factions.  But the surprising election of its "post-truth" candidate this year has hugely confirmed that faction in the "wisdom" of post-truth politics: that truth doesn't really matter for electoral success.

It's no accident that the same faction also champions various kinds of reality-denial.  One major example is that "climate-change denial" is a virtual litmus-test for members of that faction, a legacy of their demi-god founder, Ronald Reagan.  Other varieties of reality-denial, including some very "fringe" ones (white-supremacy, for example), also make that faction their ideological home.

Tim's observation that "truth" and "reality" are linked seems sound theological insight: both are established by God, in His Own Being.

It should tell us something that American Christians have followed factionalists whose spirit is contempt for truth, and denial of reality: the same sins Adam and Eve fell for.  To those with spiritual eyes to see, that faction...and the Christians who do its will...abundantly show their spiritual patrimony.

May deceived Christians repent !  May God destroy those who deceive His people !!

Amen.