Religion and American Exceptionalism

Dennis Hoover

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780415857093
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000155600
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"American exceptionalism" was once a rather obscure and academic concept, but in the 2012 presidential election campaign the phrase attained unprecedented significance in political rhetoric. President Obama's conservative critics—most notably Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney—accused the president of disbelieving in American exceptionalism and thereby offending the nation's civil religion. This creed traditionally has included the notion that America is a political "new Israel" called by God and guided by His Providence to be the exemplar, vanguard, and champion of liberal democracy and the free market for all humanity. The newly politicized narrative of exceptionalism portrayed Obama as a president embarrassed by his own country and intent on remaking the United States in the image of the secularist and socialist countries of Europe. This book takes a step back from the partisan rhetorical bluster and examines afresh the historical and analytical meanings of American exceptionalism, and the extent to which religion—both "real" religion and the more ambiguous "civil" religion—has shaped these meanings and their uses/abuses.

This book was published as a special issue of The Review of Faith and International Affairs.

INTRODUCTION: SHARP-EDGED EXCEPTIONALISM

By Dennis R. Hoover

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.

—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America¹

In 1831 a young French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in an attempt to understand American politics in comparative perspective. In particular, he wanted to understand why democracy was succeeding in America but struggling in France. His resulting observations, published as the two-volume Democracy in America (1835, 1840), is now the best known of all the “foreign traveler” works about the United States. Democracy in America is also frequently credited as a primary source text for the idea of “exceptionalism.” The ways in which Tocqueville thought that the United States was an “exception”—that is, distinct from other nations, especially European ones—were numerous, and religion figured prominently among them. Tocqueville was impressed, for instance, by America’s system of religious liberty and its profusion of sects.

The specific phrase “American exceptionalism”² has accrued different meanings over time. Some use “American exceptionalism” primarily in an academic sense, as an empirical hypothesis to be tested through comparative research. One of the best books in this vein is Seymour Martin Lipset’s American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. By “double-edged” Lipset meant to highlight that America is an “exception” or an “outlier” among nations on both socio-politically desirable and undesirable variables (e.g., the United States has high rates of volunteerism, but also high rates of crime and ofteen pregnancy).³ Normative questions were a separate matter and could be bracketed off.

But others use “American exceptionalism” in a broader and more loaded sense of being not only “different” but also “greater”—especially when it comes to America’s role in the world. It is this latter usage that overlaps to a significant extent with American “civil religion,” which traditionally has included the notion that America is a political “new Israel” called by God and guided by His Providence to be the exemplar, vanguard, and champion of liberal democracy and the free market for all humanity.

Once rather obscure, in the last few years the phrase “American exceptionalism” has suddenly become commonplace in political rhetoric—a change due almost entirely to presidential politics. It started when President Barack Obama was asked during a 2009 press conference (in, of all places, France) “whether you subscribe, as many of your predecessors have, to the school of American exceptionalism that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world, or do you have a slightly different philosophy?” Obama’s response has since been quoted selectively ad nauseam, so it is worth reproducing the unabridged transcript here:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I am enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.

And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality that, though imperfect, are exceptional.

Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise, and that includes us.

And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity, and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on our ability to create partnerships, because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.⁴

Obama’s conservative critics—most notably Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney— seized on the hedges and equivocations in this response as evidence of a betrayal of (civil-religious) American exceptionalism.⁵ Moreover, they fitted their critique within a broader narrative of Obama as a president who is embarrassed by his own country and intent on remaking the United States in the image of the secularist/statist/socialist countries of Europe … like France.

Whether Obama or his critics ultimately have the better take on “exceptionalism” is not, of course, the kind of question this journal exists to address. The journal’s remit does, however, include the specific question of the influence that different religious traditions have had on different exceptionalisms. Toward the end of stimulating and enriching scholarly and popular-level consideration of religion and American exceptionalism, in this issue:

• Mark A. Noll examines the exceptionalist rhetoric of America as a “city set upon a hill.” John Winthrop’s famous 1630 address, “A Model of Christian Charity,” quoted the biblical metaphor of a “city upon a hill” when casting a vision for the Puritan community to be established in the Massachusetts colony. Modern exceptionalist rhetoric assumes a continuous line of development from Winthrop’s 17^th-century aspirations to present-day ideals for the United States. But, Noll argues, Winthrop’s address had very little to do with any presumed destiny of America to promote an American ideal of liberty throughout the world.

• Chris Seiple notes that many contemporary invocations of American exceptionalism strangely ignore the importance of religious freedom. Seiple argues that although political rhetoric today often heralds the Massachusetts Puritans as the founders of American exceptionalism, Roger Williams’ colony of Rhode Island best exemplified exceptionalism’s essence: “Liberty of conscience” for every citizen, given of God, protected and promoted by the state.

• Edith Blumhofer examines the case of a past Republican president whose religious upbringing and worldview led him to an ecumenical exceptionalism: Theodore Roosevelt. Blumhofer shows how Roosevelt’s religious convictions were shaped by 19^th-century mainline Protestantism with a strong evangelical bent. He believed a universal morality governs both the private and public spheres, and that in a democracy private faith should express itself publicly in willingness to work with all principled people; religious affiliation was a matter of conscience not of politics.

• Mark Silk shows how the charge of disbelieving in American exceptionalism has only recently become a rhetorical weapon wielded by conservatives and Republican candidates in particular. American exceptionalism, Silk argues, has been joined rhetorically to the Judeo-Christian tradition not as a traditional civil religion including Americans of all persuasions but as an exclusivist “political religion.”

• Philip S. Gorski and William McMillan argue that a proper understanding of the debate over “American exceptionalism” requires some historical perspective and analytical clarity about the shifting and manifold meanings of the term. They identify two main types of American exceptionalism: A “crusader exceptionalism” favored by most of Obama’s GOP rivals, and a “prophetic exceptionalism” articulated by Obama. Both forms are rooted in the Bible, but they draw on different parts of it.

• Philip L. Barlow examines exceptionalism in the religious tradition of Mitt Romney: Mormonism. The United States and Mormonism took form concurrently, and a prominent motif in the Book of Mormon is that America is populated by a chosen people for a singular destiny. There is a distinction, however, between “American exceptionalism” and “religious exceptionalism” in the Mormon tradition. Further, each exceptionalism has had countercurrents within Mormonism itself, which leads to many ambiguities in interpretation and application.

• M.A. Muqtedar Khan notes that American exceptionalism is often denounced by African American Muslims and by immigrant Muslims who feel strongly about US foreign policy (especially in the Middle East). But members of immigrant Muslim communities who focus more on their own experience in American society (which has generally been very positive) tend to be much more open to notions of American exceptionalism. Moreover, some American Muslims have begun developing a public philosophy of “American Muslim Exceptionalism”: An idea that American Muslims are special and called to leadership among Muslims worldwide.

• Michael Vlahos argues that a recent, nontraditional iteration of the American exceptionalist idea has had alarming ramifications, demonstrated through US counterterrorism policy. Global terrorism today threatens America’s sense of divine blessing, its civil-religious identity. Vlahos holds that the mindset undergirding current US counterterrorism, especially the extensive use of drone attacks, should be criticized as a major deviation from the traditional ethos of exceptionalism. The new ethos is one of ruthlessly purging the world of threats rather than redeeming/ transforming the world.

• James L. Guth presents an original empirical analysis of public opinion on a core tenet of American exceptionalism-that “The United States has a special role to play in world affairs and should behave differently tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: Sharp-Edged Exceptionalism
• 2. “Wee Shall be As a Citty Upon a Hill”: John Winthrop’s Non-American Exceptionalism
• 3. The Essence of Exceptionalism: Roger Williams and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
• 4. Morality Writ Large: Theodore Roosevelt’s Ecumenical Exceptionalism
• 5. American Exceptionalism and Political Religion in Republican Politics Today
• 6. Barack Obama and American Except1onal1sms
• 7. Chosen Land, Chosen People: Religious and American Exceptionalism Among the Mormons
• 8. American Exceptionalism and American Muslims
• 9. Counterterrorism and the New American Exceptionalism
• 10. The Religious Roots of Foreign Policy Exceptionalism
• Index