Robert H. Nelson: Sin, Sacrifice, and the State of the Union
[Robert H. Nelson is a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and the author, most recently, of “The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America” (Penn State Press, 2010).]
Mainstream Protestantism has declined sharply in recent decades in the United States but the big speeches of our political leaders still routinely echo the Protestant history of the nation. The message is one of sin and redemption. We have committed many grave wrongs but the time has now come to repent and reform. We must renew our dedication to live up to the high expectations God holds out for us. As Americans, we are called to a higher standard because this nation is, as the Puritans said, a “city upon a hill” to shine a beacon to all mankind. This idea of a model for the world was secularized after the American Revolution to become a national model of progress, liberty, and democracy. Each new president is required to repeat this message on suitable occasions, if in ways suited to the specific economic and other circumstances of that president.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama offered the latest updating of the American national faith. We are a nation uniquely created, he said, on “common hopes and a common creed.” This mission is what “sets us apart as a nation.” We are a place where “every race and faith and point of view can be found,” binding us together as “one people”—a message of particular poignancy coming from the first black president of the United States. America must be “not just a place on a map, but the light to the world.” John Winthrop could not have said it better....
Read entire article at PBS: Religion & Ethics Weekly
Mainstream Protestantism has declined sharply in recent decades in the United States but the big speeches of our political leaders still routinely echo the Protestant history of the nation. The message is one of sin and redemption. We have committed many grave wrongs but the time has now come to repent and reform. We must renew our dedication to live up to the high expectations God holds out for us. As Americans, we are called to a higher standard because this nation is, as the Puritans said, a “city upon a hill” to shine a beacon to all mankind. This idea of a model for the world was secularized after the American Revolution to become a national model of progress, liberty, and democracy. Each new president is required to repeat this message on suitable occasions, if in ways suited to the specific economic and other circumstances of that president.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama offered the latest updating of the American national faith. We are a nation uniquely created, he said, on “common hopes and a common creed.” This mission is what “sets us apart as a nation.” We are a place where “every race and faith and point of view can be found,” binding us together as “one people”—a message of particular poignancy coming from the first black president of the United States. America must be “not just a place on a map, but the light to the world.” John Winthrop could not have said it better....