Should a Christian Defend American Exceptionalism?

King Louis XVI lost his head to the French Revolution on 21 January 1793, primarily because of the root notion that he was born great.   His over-zealous constituents failed to share his self-admiration, and constructed a devise that would attempt to sever this very concept of Divine Right not only from his body (which it did quite handily by all accounts) but also from every elitist-thinking mind on earth.

As America flirts with disaster around the world and tries to climb out of the foreign policy tar pit she wandered into over the past several years, her citizens are faced with the opportunity and often responsibility to truly defend their core ideology of freedom for the first time in their lives.  Are we really a blight on the world stage?  Was there ever anything special about the United States?  Many American Christians struggle with how to address these questions.  On one hand, they feel they should defend their patriotism with a resounding ‘yes’ to all of the above.  But on the other, they feel the weight of the shared condition of humanity and have tasted too much of the grace offered by a loving Messiah to look past their own sin and claim to be anything greater than the rest of the world.  After all, what is a true Christian except someone who first understands their extreme need for salvation because of their own depravity?   Is there even space for anyone to be exceptional in Christian theology?  One of the founding fathers actually addressed this same paradox.  Benjamin Franklin alongside Silas Deane wrote this note while in Paris in 1777 during the height of the American Revolution:[1]

Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America for those who love liberty, gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind […] We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature.  Glorious is it for the Americans to be called by Providence to this post of honor.[2]

There is a difference between being inherently great and being called to do great things.  For the American Christian, God has granted an immeasurable occasion for being about the business of greatness.  To answer one’s calling and to do it well is never a mark of shame.  A good Biblical example comes in Exodus 31 when God mentions to Moses that he has “called by name Bezalel” and his fellow craftsman Oholiab to spearhead much of the detail work on the Tabernacle – the house of worship that would be replaced by the Temple generations later.  The text continues: “And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you.”  God called these men out of obscurity, equipped them with knowledge, and placed them in the setting for doing great things.

Sitting in pre-Revolution Paris on diplomatic business, Franklin certainly understood the complexities of favoring the American system of freedom over those of other nations.  Perhaps he could have gained more political points with his would-be allies if he had claimed that the French monarchy had its merits too.  But he unashamedly called America an asylum from the tyranny that plagued the rest of the world. 

This same tyranny still survives across so much of the world today, and Christians in America must realize that to understand American Exceptionalism is to understand the concept of calling.  They should agree with Franklin that Americans did not make themselves great, but rather, they simply answered the call to greatness.  I would urge all American Christians to put aside any sense of entitlement or arrogance that they may hold on to lest we become a nation waiting in line for our own cultural guillotine.  Instead, they should unashamedly remind others of those great individuals upon whose shoulders we stand that answered their own call and answered it well.  And they must never forget that excuses do not work when you are called.  For America to continue to be a great nation, exceptional individuals must continue to rise up and offer hope of a better future to those walking in darkness both at home and abroad.  Thus American Exceptionalism is a Providential gift that should never become past tense in the heart of American Christians.

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[1] Silas Deane was an on-again-off-again supporter of American Independence.  He died shortly after returning from a visit to France only a few years before the Revolution there.

[2] As quoted in Paul A. Varg’s Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers (Michigan State University Press, 1963), page 3.

McCarthy has Left the Building

    In light of the recent shift in US/Cuba policy, I had to ask myself: ‘what changed?’  While I was busy worrying about Ebola, mid-term elections, and government shutdowns, did the Castro boys skip town?  Were the lack of diplomatic relations with Cuba just a forgotten holdover from the United States’ Cold War policy, or was there something different with the island nation in December of 2014?  What changed last week to cause President Obama’s announcement?  The answer: very little.

    In the 1990s, the United States began to normalize relations with Russia and the former Soviet nations, and some people have drawn a comparison between the current action and that as if the US had simply forgotten to end the Cold War with its closer neighbor in the Caribbean.  The reality is quite different.  Russia underwent a massive shift in leadership, direction, and policy in response to western pressure.  Big changes took place – then the policy shift occurred.  Meanwhile, the Castro Bros. and their status quo remains in full swing 90 miles south of the border.

    However, I do not believe that this foreign policy shift is unique to this administration.  In fact, there is a definitive and traceable pattern developing.  What we are seeing is transference of the (arguably) failed Middle East policy into Latin America.  I.E. if we play nice, give them a seat at the table, we will gain ground.  Whether you like the honey over vinegar approach or not, it has clearly not proven to be tenable currency in the world of Islamic extremism.   Perhaps it will work better in Cuba.  After all, a case can be made that this is similar to the model we followed with China as it erupted into the world economy a few decades ago. 

    The biggest change did not happen last week, but actually took place over the last decade.  The American people simply are not scared of Communism anymore.  With Islamic terrorists as public enemy number one, McCarthy has left the building without so much as a raised eyebrow.

    Like it or not, America is on track to spend at least the next two years attempting “restorative justice.”  I’m sure some of our other antagonists are watching the situation very closely.  Sadly, sometimes being the ‘bigger person’ just makes you a larger target.

The Crimean Trail of Tears

   An entire ethnicity uprooted and forced to march across hundreds of miles of rough terrain.  Possibly 46% of the total population dies along the way to their new “homeland.”  While this sounds like the United States’ relocation of the Native American nations in the 1830s, it is actually the story of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula as the USSR orchestrated its own Trail of Tears in 1944. 

   The buildup to deportation included a decades-long pattern of [Russian] government induced starvation of the regional population, but the final excuse for removal came after the Second World War.  The Tatars were collectively blamed for collaborating with Nazi Germany and relocated into camps and then dispersed to other Russian controlled territories to the east such as Uzbekistan for their alleged treason. 

   But the purge went beyond deportation.  A massive effort was made to completely erase them from the history of the region.[1]  Everything written or translated to their language was burnt and grave markers were destroyed.  Even Tatars who fought in the Russian army during WWII were deported upon their return home while others who had been captured as POWs by the Nazis rarely escaped work camps or execution at the hand of those who should have been their liberators.

   Be it their Islamic roots, their history of antagonism towards Russia and Europe over centuries of raiding and capturing slaves, or the Nazi collaboration of a few, Soviet leaders were happy to be rid of the entire population and quickly bequeathed the entire peninsula to their trusted Soviet Socialist member state: Ukraine in 1954. It would be over 30 years before significant efforts were made to bring this people group back to their homeland.  Today, the Crimean Tatars struggle to champion civil rights and the interests of their people in the region and to reestablish their history, brutally erased in the name of ethnic cleansing.    

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[1] Allen W. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Hoover Press, 1978), page 172.

Crimea 2.0

Don’t have a clue about the Crimean Peninsula that everyone on the news is talking about?  Read on, because ignorance is not bliss.

   This is not the first time that the Crimean region has been fought over.  Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (that all you homeschoolers almost certainly memorized – or maybe it was just me) immortalized the events of an ill-fated charge into almost certain defeat ordered by poor military leaders during the Crimean War.[1]  The conflict was plagued by terrible leadership and planning all around.  Between 1853 and 1856, Russia fought against an unusual alliance of the Ottoman Empire and France, England, and other European nations over (1) who had access to the Holy Land and (2) Russian territorial expansion.  Russia favored the Orthodox Church while France and the others pushed for Catholic supremacy.  (Rabbit to chase: Thus Russian Expansionism is not new or somehow tied to communism.  Communist leaders simply used nationalism to fuel public opinion since expansion was already part of their collective heritage.)

   Eventually, Russia lost the war, and the territory reverted back to Ottoman Control for a brief time after going back and forth over the century before. 

   The Crimean War bears horrifying similarity to the growing tension today, and longtime Columbia professor Shepard Bancroft Clough’s (d.1990) prophetic words capture the situation best even though they were published in 1969: “The Crimean War, which cost the lives of half a million men, was not the result of a calculated plan, nor even of hasty last-minute decisions made under stress. It was the consequence of more than two years of fatal blundering in slow-motion by inept statesmen who had months to reflect upon the actions they took.”[2]  Let’s hope that while the last half of his statement has most certainly happened, the massive loss of life can be prevented before it is too late in 2014.

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[1] The opening stanza really foreshadows the end result: 

“Half a league half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred: 'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns' he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”  Read the whole poem: http://www.nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html#sthash.ykp0Ojd7.dpuf

[2] Shepard Bancroft Clough, A History of the Western World, vol 2 (D.C. Heath and Company,1969), page 1010.

(1) Why was Russia culturally and politically isolated?

Map of the Break-up of the Ottoman Empire
(Years in the green areas show when territory transferred to Russia).
From William R. Shepherd's Atlas of Medieval and Modern History (Henry Holt: London, 1932).

If you watched US coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, you might have caught the fact that Peter the Great (Tsar of Russia from 1682-1721), made a real effort to westernize his nation.  So what happened in the last 293 years?  Why did Russian history travel its own path as an isolated and anti-Western country?  If your answer was that it began with communism or the Russian Revolution, think again.

Peter the Great died on 28 January 1725 leaving his wife Catherine I to rule in his place, but her poor health did not allow her much time on the throne (she died in 1727).[1]  However, she used this time to continue to bolster foreign alliances including The Treaty of 1726 with the Austrian Empire that insured mutual military aid if the Turks attacked either nation (Sochi was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at this time). 

But in the chaos following the death of Catherine I, we begin to already glimpse the push back of the nobility to keep the West out.[2]  Many favored moving the capital away from St. Petersburg and instead to Moscow in an effort to set their own path independent of the tsars.  While the family was able to right the autocratic ship in the years to come, these ideas of toppling the elite (who were synonymous with their elite family members ruling in the rest of Europe) kept growing and finally were consummated with the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917.

The bottom line: Most of the interaction ordinary Russians had with the West came about because of the ruling elite, so when they pushed back against them, they were indirectly pushing back against Western ideas. 

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[1] Walter Keating Kelly, The History of Russia (Henry G. Bohn: London, 1854), page 400.

[2] Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power: 1715-1789 (Rivingtons: London, 1963), pages 114-115.

Healthcare: A Proxy War for Liberty

The 20th century witnessed an abundance of proxy wars.  These local conflicts around the world mirrored the greater chess match of the Cold War struggle against communism.  Without having to commit ourselves fully to an all out war, we championed our ideas through aid to other nations. 

The current healthcare debate is a proxy war.  It is a proxy war for our personal liberty in the face of government oppression.  Some say we could be more like Sweden or the United Kingdom.  I would remind you that our founders left the oppression of these very European shores where Government had already become a byword for control.  You show me a nation who dictates your education, your healthcare, your livelihood, and your religious freedom, and I will show you a society built on obligation rather than passion, fear rather than determination, and depression that devours the very essence of the word "hope."  

We stand on the precipice of forgetting the very concepts that drove the huddled masses to the ships in the first place.  For do not be fooled into thinking that they have corrected the past government oppression in Europe.  On the contrary, their current system is simply the natural progression of the one our ancestors abandoned and warded off with muskets and bayonets.  In these United States we have fought and died to establish and perfect our freedom, and I say we are, and will remain free.  'America the beautiful' is but a mere, foggy memory as we look into the faces of millions of our own who live in government supported and government sanctioned poverty with little hope.  In the America I know, mediocre is not praised as the dream, but there is always something greater on the horizon - something that transcends a single generation of thinkers - something that burned deep in the hearts of our founding fathers when they penned the words "We the people" in open opposition to the imperial notion of 'we the government.' 

Our children's future lies not in the next great plan or the next towering stack of legislative morass, but rather the near dormant promise of freedom embedded in our national conscience.  We must awaken this vision so the sounds of liberty may once again toll out across our entire nation.   Why do people fear the very name of our nation's capital?  Why is it spoken of as a place of corruption and bloated spending? 

No, my pride in our nation runs deep, and I believe it is time to shed the veil of contempt for our protectors and return the government to its role of service to our great nation.  We can once again taste the freedom of the pioneer as we join together in one voice to declare that we are again the United States - united in freedom, justice, and hope.  Do not let brightly colored lies distract from the true goal of liberty.  Hold fast in its defense, and pray that God blesses our great nation in the coming days.  

The Back-story: Why is the Word Plague so Scary?

The Biblical book of Exodus chapter eleven records the tenth and final plague leveraged against the land of Egypt by a God bent on delivering His people. The Plague of Death killed the firstborn of all who neglected to mark the surroundings of their doorways with the blood of a freshly killed sacrificial lamb. The famously dreadful plagues of the Torah only further to connect our fears of mass pestilence and disease. The fear is timeless. It is a faceless terror with no organization to wreak vengeance upon; no person to blame. Pandemics have happened across time. In fact, I myself had a great-grandmother die of the Spanish Influenza in 1918, and most of us recall the Bird Flu scares of more recent years. Yet however heinous these other epidemics, the word ‘plague’ conjures up grotesque and putrid images that must certainly dull in comparison to the real experiences of true eyewitnesses. 

The most historically famous instance is the massive spread of the bacteria Yersinia pestis in the 1340s and 50s. One third or more of Europe’s population died (roughly 25% of the world’s total population). The Black Plague, or Black Death, had traveled out of Asia on the backs of rats who took to the new era of open trade and commerce with gusto. The Xenopsylla cheopis [Oriental Rat Flea] was the prime carrier of the plague and simply transferred the infection to humans after biting the infected rats. In many cases, the plague became bubonic, one of several manifestations of the bacteria in question. Lymph nodes under the arms and groin swelled along with a litany of other appalling symptoms that subjected victims to tremendous torment before an ever imminent death. All of this terrible suffering happened in the cradle of our modern, Western civilization. Thus, all of the fear experienced by the survivors of the 14th century plague was passed on as readily as the disease itself. As cultural descendants of these individuals, we now cringe at the word ‘plague’ because it personifies the powerlessness and utter despair we feel when faced with an uncontrollable and unpredictable enemy. But will we ever face such a threat again?

Our modern world is much better equipped to identify and contain naturally occurring diseases. However, in the future there may very well be faces to blame, organizations to seek out, and terrorists to arrest. Could someone weaponize the worst nightmare of the Medieval world and attempt to unleash it on the 21st century? It has happened before, and could easily happen again. Unit 731, biological warfare, and a global society will all be discussed in an upcoming post in an effort to learn from our past experiences with the Plague. 

*For an interesting story of what could happen based on what has happened, see Tim Downs’ novel Plague Maker.