Between Babel and Beast: America and Empires in Biblical Perspective
Overview
The United States is one of history’s great Christian nations, but our unique history, success, and global impact have seduced us into believing we are something more—God’s new Israel, the new order of the ages, the last best hope of mankind, a redeemer nation. Using the subtle categories that arise from biblical narrative, Between Babel and Beast analyzes how the heresy of Americanism inspired America’s rise to hegemony while blinding American Christians to our failures and abuses of power. The book demonstrates that the church best serves the genuine good of the United States by training witnesses—martyr-citizens of God’s Abrahamic empire.
Top Highlights
“For a generation, conservative Christians have accepted and taught a one-sidedly rosy view of America’s Christian past, and in practice Christians have confused ‘restoring America’ with promotion of God’s kingdom and His justice. Against this American mythology, I contend that the ‘American faith,’ though unthinkable without the heritage of Christendom, represents a heretical departure from the political heritage of the church. American Christians need to assess our past accurately if we are going to act faithfully in the present. Until American churches actually function as outposts of Jesus’ heavenly empire rather than as cheerleaders for America—until the churches produce martyrs rather than patriots—the political witness of Christians will continue to be diluted and co-opted.” (Page xi)
“Americanism has three founding moments: Its sense of vocation was established by the Puritan settlers of New England; its political eschatology emerged in the era of the Founding; its version of patriotic sacrifice was one of the chief legacies of the Civil War. Americanism often sounds like Christianity, but it is not. For Americanism, the American nation takes the place of the church as the sacred community.” (Page xii)
“Churches reduced to voluntary societies or cheerleaders of republicanism had few resources to resist overheated war fever. They did not have the critical distance or independence to say no. Pulpits became propaganda arms for the Union or Confederacy. On the other hand, more traditional preachers refrained from addressing politics at all. Convinced of a typically Southern Presbyterian view of the ‘spirituality’ of the church, Richmond’s Rev. Moses Hoge lamented the division, but was determined, along with his associate T. V. Moore, not ‘to introduce anything political into our sermons, but wish to direct the minds of the people from man to God.’103 A noble sentiment, but the effect was to leave the laity without moral compass or guide, and to leave the state to its own reasons of state.” (Page 80)
- Title: Between Babel and Beast: America and Empires in Biblical Perspective
- Author: Peter Leithart
- Series: Theopolitical Visions
- Volume: 14
- Publisher: Cascade
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Christianity and culture; Church and state › United States
- ISBNs: 9781608998173, 1608998177
- Resource ID: LLS:THEOPOLBABELBEAST
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T21:00:53Z