That Americanism is the successor of Puritanism is crucial to anti-Americanism. In the 18th century, anti-Americans were conservative, monarchist anti-Puritans. (Boswell reports Samuel Johnson?’s announcement that ?“I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.?”) In the 19th century, European elites became increasingly hostile to Christianity?—which inevitably entailed hostility to America. In modern times, anti-Americanism is closely associated with anti-Christianism and anti-Semitism.2
Anti-Americans are still fascinated and enraged by Americans?’ bizarre tendency to believe in God. In the months before the Iraq war in spring 2003, a Norwegian demonstrator waved a placard reading, ?“Will Bush Go to Hell??” An expatriate American wrote recently (for the FrontPage website) of being instructed by Londoners that ?“the United States is one giant fundamentalist Christian nation peopled by raging Bible-thumpers on every street?”; that America is ?“running wild with religious extremism that threatens the world far more than bin Laden.?”
And we needn?’t go to Norway or Britain to find angry denunciations of President Bush and the Americans who support him in religion-mocking terms. The President?’s faith, said one prominent American politician in September 2004, is ?“the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, and in many religions around the world.?”
The speaker was former Vice President Al Gore. His comments were offensive and false. Today?’s radical Islam is a religion of death, a religion that rejoices in slaughter. The radical Christianity known as Puritanism insisted on choosing life. Americanism does, too.
Puritans took to heart these famous words from the Hebrew Bible: ?“I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life and live, you and your children?” (Deuteronomy 30:19). On board the Arabella, John Winthrop closed his famous meditation of 1630 by citing that verse from Deuteronomy, centering his words on the page for emphasis:
Therefore let us choose life
that wee, and our Seede,
may live; by obeying his
voice, and cleaveing to him,
for hee is our life, and
our prosperity.
No Saudi fanatic, no Kashmiri fanatic could have written those words. John Winthrop was a founder of this nation; we are his heirs; and we ought to thank God that we have inherited his humanitarian decency along with his radical, God-fearing Americanism
By Sam Adams of Braintree
Anti-Americans are still fascinated and enraged by Americans?’ bizarre tendency to believe in God. In the months before the Iraq war in spring 2003, a Norwegian demonstrator waved a placard reading, ?“Will Bush Go to Hell??” An expatriate American wrote recently (for the FrontPage website) of being instructed by Londoners that ?“the United States is one giant fundamentalist Christian nation peopled by raging Bible-thumpers on every street?”; that America is ?“running wild with religious extremism that threatens the world far more than bin Laden.?”
And we needn?’t go to Norway or Britain to find angry denunciations of President Bush and the Americans who support him in religion-mocking terms. The President?’s faith, said one prominent American politician in September 2004, is ?“the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, and in many religions around the world.?”
The speaker was former Vice President Al Gore. His comments were offensive and false. Today?’s radical Islam is a religion of death, a religion that rejoices in slaughter. The radical Christianity known as Puritanism insisted on choosing life. Americanism does, too.
Puritans took to heart these famous words from the Hebrew Bible: ?“I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life and live, you and your children?” (Deuteronomy 30:19). On board the Arabella, John Winthrop closed his famous meditation of 1630 by citing that verse from Deuteronomy, centering his words on the page for emphasis:
Therefore let us choose life
that wee, and our Seede,
may live; by obeying his
voice, and cleaveing to him,
for hee is our life, and
our prosperity.
No Saudi fanatic, no Kashmiri fanatic could have written those words. John Winthrop was a founder of this nation; we are his heirs; and we ought to thank God that we have inherited his humanitarian decency along with his radical, God-fearing Americanism
By Sam Adams of Braintree
