Truman?’s announcement was in the spirit of classical Americanism. It recognized America?’s message and duty to all mankind:
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure. . . . The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.
Although historians often skip over this point, Truman?’s world-view centered on the Bible nearly to the extent Lincoln?’s had. By his own account, he had read through the Bible three times by age fourteen; he read it through seven times more during the years of his presidency. It shaped his understanding of the American enterprise. Truman makes this remarkable comment in his Memoirs: ?“What came about in Philadelphia in 1776 really had its beginning in Hebrew times.?”
The end of the cold war was presided over by Ronald Reagan, who returns us (once again) to the nation?’s beginning. In one of his best-remembered phrases, Reagan declared that America was and must always be the ?“shining city upon a hill.?” John Winthrop had conceived this idea aboard the Arabella bound for Massachusetts Bay in 1630. The phrase goes back to Matthew (?“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid?”), and indirectly to the prophet Isaiah (?“In the end of days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord?’s house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and many nations shall flow unto it?”). Reagan?’s use of these words connected modern America to the humane Christian vision?—the Puritan vision?—the vision (ultimately) of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish people?—that created this nation.
VIII
Some agreed with Ronald Reagan and some disagreed. Some approved of him and some disapproved. Yet, to a remarkable extent, those who hated him are the ones who hate America?—for many of the same religion-mocking reasons that made them ridicule Woodrow Wilson.
The great British economist John Maynard Keynes had this to say regarding Wilson?’s behavior at the Paris Peace Conference: ?“Now it was that what I have called his theological or Presbyterian temperament became dangerous.?” Wilson?’s idealistic peace plan?—the ?“Fourteen Points?”?—became, according to Keynes, ?“a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the President?’s forefathers had persuaded themselves that the course they thought it necessary to take was consistent with every syllable of the Pentateuch.?”
The British diplomat Harold Nicholson concurred. He described Wilson as ?“the descendant of Covenanters, the inheritor of a more immediate Presbyterian tradition. That spiritual arrogance which seems inseparable from the harder forms of religion had eaten deep into his soul.?”
The same type of accusation would be directed at Ronald Reagan. On the occasion of his ?“evil empire?” speech, for example, the columnist Mary McGrory called Reagan?’s denunciation of the Soviet Union ?“a marvelous parody of a revivalist minister.?” Another journalist, Colman McCarthy, wrote that Reagan had descended ?“to the level of Ayatollah Khomeini?”?—to the level, that is, of an enemy of mankind who uses religion to do evil.
By Sam Adams of Braintree
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure. . . . The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.
Although historians often skip over this point, Truman?’s world-view centered on the Bible nearly to the extent Lincoln?’s had. By his own account, he had read through the Bible three times by age fourteen; he read it through seven times more during the years of his presidency. It shaped his understanding of the American enterprise. Truman makes this remarkable comment in his Memoirs: ?“What came about in Philadelphia in 1776 really had its beginning in Hebrew times.?”
The end of the cold war was presided over by Ronald Reagan, who returns us (once again) to the nation?’s beginning. In one of his best-remembered phrases, Reagan declared that America was and must always be the ?“shining city upon a hill.?” John Winthrop had conceived this idea aboard the Arabella bound for Massachusetts Bay in 1630. The phrase goes back to Matthew (?“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid?”), and indirectly to the prophet Isaiah (?“In the end of days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord?’s house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and many nations shall flow unto it?”). Reagan?’s use of these words connected modern America to the humane Christian vision?—the Puritan vision?—the vision (ultimately) of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish people?—that created this nation.
VIII
Some agreed with Ronald Reagan and some disagreed. Some approved of him and some disapproved. Yet, to a remarkable extent, those who hated him are the ones who hate America?—for many of the same religion-mocking reasons that made them ridicule Woodrow Wilson.
The great British economist John Maynard Keynes had this to say regarding Wilson?’s behavior at the Paris Peace Conference: ?“Now it was that what I have called his theological or Presbyterian temperament became dangerous.?” Wilson?’s idealistic peace plan?—the ?“Fourteen Points?”?—became, according to Keynes, ?“a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the President?’s forefathers had persuaded themselves that the course they thought it necessary to take was consistent with every syllable of the Pentateuch.?”
The British diplomat Harold Nicholson concurred. He described Wilson as ?“the descendant of Covenanters, the inheritor of a more immediate Presbyterian tradition. That spiritual arrogance which seems inseparable from the harder forms of religion had eaten deep into his soul.?”
The same type of accusation would be directed at Ronald Reagan. On the occasion of his ?“evil empire?” speech, for example, the columnist Mary McGrory called Reagan?’s denunciation of the Soviet Union ?“a marvelous parody of a revivalist minister.?” Another journalist, Colman McCarthy, wrote that Reagan had descended ?“to the level of Ayatollah Khomeini?”?—to the level, that is, of an enemy of mankind who uses religion to do evil.
By Sam Adams of Braintree
