The Myth of "The City on a Hill" and a Covenant of Works

I came across this Reformed Forum podcast with Dr. Richard M. Gamble, historian and member of the OPC. Dr. Gamble has just published a book, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War. This book covers the background of the familiar "hymn," which was eye-opening to me. In a nutshell, a supposedly Christian song was written by a Unitarian who was influenced by German liberalism. The podcast is very interesting and points out how easily we are swayed by Christian-ish lyrics that sound vaguely biblical. Perhaps the vagueness is the reason The Battle Hymn endured and became part of American civil religion.

I requested A Fiery Gospel through the public library, which I am hoping to read. In the meantime, I looked up Dr. Gamble's other books. His main area of research is American civil religion, a topic that I find grimly fascinating. I was able to find a copy of this book - In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth. 

Dr. Gamble looks into how a metaphor from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:14) could become synonymous with America. He first examines John Winthrop's discourse, "The Model of Christian Charity," which is primarily cited as the text that identifies America as the city on the hill. Oddly enough, there is only one remaining copy of this work, written in a different hand than Winthrop's with a cover also in another hand. Given the language of the work, this may have not been read on the ship mid-voyage to the New World. It may not have been widely read at all. But one thing is clear, Winthrop read himself and this venture into the text. There's a side by side comparison between Deuteronomy 30 in the 1560 Geneva Bible  and a section of "The Model" where Winthrop borrows the chapter but inserts himself as Moses and the colony as the Promised Land. In his case, he is allowed to go with the people unlike the original. Thus the covenant language of God with Israel was modified to assume a covenant between God and this particular group. This was also a reciprocal arrangement. If the people did xyz, then God would bless. If they sinned, God's judgment would be upon them. Winthrop even draws a parallel to Saul's disinheriting the kingdom when he failed to slay the Amalekites. Of note, Winthrop had the Bay Colony in mind, not America because America didn't even exist yet.

Gamble then refers to early church fathers, such as Augustine, Hilary of Poitiers, and John Chrysostom, Martin Luther, and John Calvin as interpreting "the city on a hill" to be the church or pastoral ministry. Not a nation state. Winthrop was also chided by Lord Saye for writing that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was "God's only elect place for the church." Another Puritan, Robert Cushman would have advocated - "Since the coming of Christ, there is no longer any geographic homeland for the Christian corresponding to the Promised Land for the ancient Jews. There is no earthly Holy Land, there is presently no literal homeland that serves theologically as a type of heaven to come." Thus Winthrop's mode of interpretation was not the only school of thought at the time.

"The Model" was pretty much out of circulation for 208 years, and yet this idea endured. This same theme of "the city on a hill" and a national covenant was also picked up by other Puritan preachers in the 1700's, the most well-known being Jonathan Edwards.  He expanded the idea of a city on a hill "beyond the church at large to denote any 'professing society' - any Christian community, that is, whose faith or behavior 'distinguishes' it and causes it to be spoken of 'far and near.'"

Based on sermons, Dr. Gamble writes that Edwards "placed a tremendous weight of responsibility on God's chosen people in New England... There was no clear line for him between church and community. Any notion of distinction between the 'secular' city of Northampton and the 'sacred' body of the church would have struck him as artificial." And here's the kicker. "He taught a national covenant of works right alongside a covenant of grace and the evangelical 'new birth.'" (my emphasis)

This boggles my mind. How is it possible to believe in a covenant of grace in regard to salvation and then turn to a covenant of works for the nation? Gamble also notes this in regard to Winthrop. (Again my emphasis)

Their theology taught them that Christ filled to perfection the covenant that ancient Israel failed to keep. But the special covenant that carried them to the New World - a covenant of works and not of grace - obligated them to perform their mission to the letter or incur God's wrath. Their eternal salvation did not depend on this national covenant but their earthly success certainly did."

Ironically Edwards is distressed over the rise of the Papacy, Socinianism, and Arminianism in Massachusetts. Yet his and Winthrop's political theology is an earthly national salvation by works. And what would it have done to the people in the pews? Would they have heard the gospel preached clearly one Sunday and then hear that the well-being of their society depended on their moral record? What would that contradiction have done to their faith? (Assuming that gospel preaching remained uninfluenced by a works-driven political theology, but can one make that assumption?)

I don't read books like In Search of... because I take perverse delight in bursting people's bubbles or raining on their parades. Truly, I don't. I read books like this because I don't want to believe myths. I don't want to be lied to. I also don't want to bear false witness about my country (6th commandment) that may lead to idolatry of my country (1st commandment).

I think these two quotes from Dr. Gamble and Hannah Anderson, respectively, go hand-in-hand:

history does not owe Americans, or any other people, stories that make them feel good about themselves.

Pursuing truth requires more than knowing where the facts lead. It requires the honesty to actually follow them, regardless of who they implicate.

And I still half of the book to go...

In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth, Richard M. Gamble, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012. pp. 1-90.