A City on a Hill?
To celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Cana Academy has taken up the task of telling the American story. Among the resources offered to schools, especially classical schools, is the new “HISTORY250” series of free, beautifully made short films, released weekly, that tell the story from America’s founding to the present. According to their website, Cana Academy’s approach to history is “observational and sympathetic, not anachronistic or moralistic; narrative and fully contextual, not fragmentary; unitive, not divisive.”
A film in the series, titled “A City Founded Upon on a Hill,” tells the story of Puritan John Winthrop and the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, an event 150 years prior to the Declaration but essential to America’s formation and future. Prior to making landfall in the New World, Winthrop wrote and delivered a famous sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop made this famous statement, inspired by Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount:
We are entered into Covenant with [God] for this work … For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.
His words were daring, yet humble. Having landed on a massive, largely unknown continent, with slim prospects for survival—much less success—there was no hint of arrogance or invincibility. Instead, Winthrop offered a pious warning for the Puritans to keep covenant with God lest they become a blot on the pages of world history.
As historian Wilfred McClay put it, Winthrop’s sermon was not only a declaration that the new colony would be a beacon of God’s light to the world, but “[i]t was also saying that the colony would be judged by the same high standard, by the degree to which it faithfully carried out the terms of the ‘commission’ that God had assigned it.”
Winthrop’s words were picked up by various leaders throughout American history, from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. Each time, they were intended to inspire hope in an American future rooted in its providential past.
Today, Winthrop’s words are often portrayed as arrogant and intolerant, and American history as primarily a narrative of injustice and oppression. This portrayal rarely strives for a balanced “warts and all” account, in the spirit of Oliver Cromwell’s famous instruction to his portrait painter. Instead, it delivers “only warts” and no redeeming features.
Yet, even as we engage the realities of fallen individuals, as the American Founders were, such attempts at deconstruction downplay the true miracle of America and ignore the role Christians played in advancing liberty and equality for all. In his book, Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, historian Mark David Hall argued that Christians and Christian ideas were pivotal in resisting British tyranny, conducting the American Revolution, eradicating slavery, pursuing justice for Native Americans, and promoting religious liberty.
Andrew Zwerneman, co-founder and president of Cana Academy and writer and narrator for HISTORY250, noted that Americans are a “recollective people.” Meaning, the American Founders and many of our greatest statesmen—from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr.—were steeped in history and understood the realities of human nature, the truths of the Bible, and both the triumphs and tragedies of civilizations of the past.
Christians should likewise be a people of recollection. Scripture repeatedly calls God’s people to remember. We should remember the works of God as well as those who have gone before us. As such, we should be people of hope, with a deeper sense of God’s oversight and goodness throughout history. And we should be a people of humility, striving to be the “city on a hill,” declaring the goodness and greatness of God.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico.
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Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/LeoPatrizi
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
