THE BIBLE AND “CHRISTIAN AMERICA” Abram Van Engen IN JANUARY 1983,, near the tail end of the worst recession since World War II, President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) addressed an annual convention of national religious broadcasters. The theme was “facing the future with the Bible,” and Reagan announced that as president he would do his part. “At the National Prayer Breakfast,” he said, “I will sign a proclamation making 1983 the Year of the Bible.” Knowing that some might criticize him for failing to separate church and state, Reagan declared that he was doing nothing less than the founding fathers of the nation who had supposedly looked to the Bible for guidance. In invoking these foundations, Reagan articulated a theology in which God specially chose and set apart the United States with a unique role in human history: I’ve always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here between the two oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth—people who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave
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THERE’S EVEN A RAINBOW This 1840 painting by Robert Weir for the US Capitol imagines the Pilgrims embarking with Scripture and prayer.
their homeland and friends. . . . They created something new in all the history of mankind—a country where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.
A SPECIAL ROLE Reagan was clearly not alone. According to recent polling from the Public Religion Research Institute, 40 percent of Americans believe God has granted the United States a special role in human history. In addition 36 percent say the United States has always been and is currently a Christian nation. Usually Americans bolster such a belief by turning first and foremost to the Pilgrims (as Reagan often did). Where others came for gold, the story goes, these settlers came for God. They left England for the freedom to practice what they believed and established a colony
Christian History
ROBERT W. WEIR, EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS, 1844 . ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A city on a hill?
