The Promised Land’s Existential Election

By Dr. Chris Seiple on 30 June 2008

We Americans are not in a good mood. Eighty percent of us think the country is headed in the wrong direction.¹ Consumer confidence is at its lowest mark in 16 years, and people are even more pessimistic about the next six months. Almost 16 percent of us expect our income to drop in that timeframe. These statistics are worse than the fall of 1973, when the oil embargo resulted in recession by December of that year.² It is no wonder that our national leaders have such low approval ratings. The president is at 24 percent, the vice-president at 18 percent, and the Congress, incredibly, is at 13 percent.³

What does it all mean? First, there is serious and significant change coming with November’s election. Incumbents—no matter their party—should fear for their seats. The election, however, will be about much more than change for change’s sake. I believe November’s vote will represent the nation’s attempt to positively reclaim its identity and sense of mission in the world.

But how do we regain a confident sense of direction? When so much seems so far beyond our control, what can we do right now? And what do we need from our next president?

The way to recover a positive vision is to reach back into our past—mythical and factual—and reclaim the core of who we are. And then we have to live it.

One of the most enduring elements of American national identity is that we feel “chosen.” We believe that we are a special nation appointed by God to serve humanity. And that feeling is firmly rooted in the sacred texts of the Judeo-Christian heritage. As Walter Russell Mead so ably describes in the current edition of Foreign Affairs:

Both religious and nonreligious Americans have looked to the Hebrew Scriptures for an example of a people set apart by their mission and called to a world-changing destiny. Did the land Americans inhabit once belong to others? Yes, but the Hebrews similarly conquered the land of the Canaanites. Did the tiny U.S. colonies armed only with the justice of their cause defeat the world’s greatest empire? So did David, the humble shepherd boy, fell Goliath. Were Americans in the nineteenth century isolated and mocked for their democratic ideals? So were the Hebrews surrounded by idolaters. Have Americans defeated their enemies at home and abroad? So, according to the Scriptures, did the Hebrews triumph. And when Americans held millions of slaves in violation of their beliefs, were they punished and scourged? Yes, and much like the Hebrews, who suffer the consequences of their sins before God.

This mythic understanding of the United States’ nature and destiny is one of the most powerful and enduring elements in American culture and thought. As the ancient Hebrews did, many Americans today believe that they bear a revelation that is ultimately not just for them but also for the whole world; they have often considered themselves God’s new Israel.⁴

This is who we are; this is what we want to believe in again. Yet what is the nature of the “revelation” that we should attribute to America’s “promised land”? What is it that makes us feel truly good about ourselves and thus about how we engage each other and the world?

In his book, Jesus of Nazereth, Pope Benedict XVI makes an argument about a biblical conception of “the land” that helps us begin to answer these fundamental questions.

We must not overlook, however, that the promise of the land is clearly about something far greater than the mere idea of possessing a piece of ground or a national territory in the sense that every people is entitled to do. The main issue in the foreground of the struggle for liberation prior to Israel’s exodus from Egypt is the right to freedom of worship, the people’s right to their own liturgy. As time went by, it became increasingly clear that the promise of the land meant this: The land was given as a space for obedience, a realm of openness to God, and so of the right ordering of the earth, is an essential component of the concept of freedom and the concept of the land.⁵

While there is clearly a deep theology present in these words, I believe that we can, momentarily, interpret them in a non-theological manner that still honors their intent. That interpretation is this: Whatever the higher ideal of an individual human being—from secular humanism to a belief in the Almighty—obedience to it takes place when the land is used as a space for religious freedom.

This is the “revelation” of the American experience—that despite our problematic past and present state of imperfection regarding religious freedom, we have found a way to live with, and cooperate across, our deepest differences. American national identity has come to be defined not in terms of Christian entitlement to a particular piece of the North American continent but rather as a society that has embraced a covenant to perpetually pursue the ideal of responsible religious liberty.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks provides these careful and thoughtful insights regarding the promise of America as a covenantal society:

In a contract, what matters is that both gain. In a covenant, what matters is that both give…. Covenant is the politics of quest: for the promised land, the place of freedom, the society that honours the dignity of all …The only thing that satisfies the prophetic imagination is a society of free individuals, each respecting the non-negotiable dignity of others, who come together in freedom to pledge themselves to work together to build a gracious, just and compassionate world.… [C]itizenship in a covenantal society is: co-responsibility for justice, equity, kindness, and compassion… [A] covenant is about creating a “We” out of multiple “I’s”. It is about common identity, shared destiny, collective responsibility, moral reciprocity. It is about the deep human need to live in groups on whose support we can trust in times of Crisis. If these do not exist at a society-wide level, then many people will turn away from society and focus instead on a religious, ethnic or neighbourhood community.”⁶

And here is the peculiar paradox of the American revelation: because we protect and promote the individual’s right to believe or not to believe—and act in the public square according to those (non)beliefs—our allegiance is to the idea of respecting the multiple identities that we each have in a pluralistic society.

Put differently, if there is not a space where someone’s religious identity is respected and encouraged, that very identity can become a dangerous cocoon—either because the rest of society is not enriched by the insights of that identity, or because that identity becomes defined against the rest of society.

The revelation of the American promised land is the patriotism of a piece of paper—the Constitution. It is the responsibility to understand and live the motto E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. This motto is only possible where there is the true freedom to believe (or not), and be respected as a result. Religious freedom is America’s first freedom, the non-mythical fact and foundation of our covenantal society. As Os Guinness writes:

Because freedom is a duty as well as a right, an obligation and not only an entitlement, all citizens in a free society are responsible for the rights of others just as other are responsible for theirs. Unless rights are exercised freely, and unless responsibilities are protected vigilantly, freedom, becoming empty, will be eroded. In light of these fundamental principles, there are two reasons why religious liberty should rightly be seen as the first liberty. On the one hand, it comes first logically, in that it protects the inner freedom of thought, deliberation, judgment, and choice that is the source and subject of the later rights of free speech and free assembly. Though not infallible, conscience is inalienable.

Thus, what we are each bound by according to the dictates of our reason and our conscience is the very deepest thing we also desire to speak of with freedom. And we further desire to gather together with others who prize those same things. On the other hand, religious liberty comes first historically, in that it is only as religious liberty was guaranteed that the other rights were guaranteed, and it is only as religious liberty is guaranteed in the future that the other rights will remain protected, too. Religious liberty is therefore the precedent, pattern, and pledge for all other rights.⁷

As the first freedom, religious liberty is therefore the foundation of the academy (ensuring freedom of thought and inquiry); the foundation for a covenantal society that is truly civil (enabling respect and reconciliation between and among the different identities); and the foundation for a global security that deters extremism (promoting a mutual respect that is consistent with the local culture and protected by the rule of law).

This is the revelation and essence of our promised land. If we want to feel good about our country and its role in the world again, we must find ways to celebrate and live out these ideals of freedom based on respect. If we each made that effort—according to the very best of our different beliefs and the revelation of religious freedom in this promised land—then we will recover our covenantal society and elect a president who helps in the same.

Last updated 15 December 2008