From Remant to Superpower

I'm just gonna say it. American Christianity bores me to tears. It's not the professor's fault. I'm just utterly disinterested in American history. I don't know why. I love European history, and just about anything that happened before 1600 fascinates me. But American history? Call me back when the World Wars start.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find a fascinating snippet in my reading for the class this week. Our primary textbook for the class is the Fortress Introduction to the History of Christianity in the United States by Nancy Koester. In chapter one, I came across a paragraph that tied Puritanism's view of themselves as God's chosen people (an Old Testament concept originally applied to Israel) to the essence of Americanism even today. The Israelites' story of a promised land and a divine mission resonated with the Puritans, and many would argue that the basic idea lives on in modern foreign policy.

Here's the most interesting part: "The remnant in the wilderness has become a superpower, and the old Puritan sense of accountability to divine judgment has all but vanished. Yet the chosen nation idea lives on."

With divine blessing comes divine accountability. The Puritans knew this. Are Americans today as aware of what Luke 12:48 says--"From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required"? It can be hard to keep in tension the call of 1 Peter 2:9:

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

Let's not chip off or skim over the phrase "in order that." Let's not forget the darkness from which we were brought out by a power not our own.