Time for America to remember she is 'The City on the Hill'
PAUL JOHNSON
The Sunday before Lent, which began on Wednesday, is marked by a famous passage from St Matthew, giving his version of the Sermon on the Mount, and adding Our Lord's specific invitation to his disciples to give a lead to the world. 'Ye are the salt of the earth,' he tells them; and again, 'Ye are the light of the world.' He adds, 'A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.'
I often think of the American people when I hear these striking words. For they were certainly in the minds of the early settlers, when they embarked in frail craft to cross the tumultuous Atlantic and create the Kingdom of God on its far side. Many of them thought that the Old World, not least England, God's Country, had become irredeemably corrupt, and that it must be reformed in the Western hemisphere: New England. One leader, William Bradford, in his History of Plimmoth Plantation, called them pilgrims, perpetually on their pilgrimage, setting up a new, sanctified country which was to travel ceaselessly towards a millenarian goal. The greatest of them, John Winthrop, who led 1,000 pilgrims to Massachusetts, referred specifically to the passage in St Matthew in a shipboard sermon he preached in mid-Atlantic. He stressed to his listeners the global importance of what they were doing: 'We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.'
This notion of America as a godly experiment, a lighthouse state to guide the world to goodness, has always been an element in the self-consciousness of Americans. It was present in their founding constitutions, down from the early 17th century, the first of which was a contract between the pilgrims and God, drawn up and signed when the Mayflower was still at sea. It was the motive force behind the Great Awakening, the mid-18th-century religious movement which first made the different colonies a unity and gave a spiritual impetus to their revolt against the Crown. It was an energising force in the American Revolution itself, distinguishing it from the pagan French Revolution which followed, and giving it a permanency which makes the American Constitution the most successful of all such documents. It was the inspiration of the fight against slavery and the reassurance which allowed Lincoln to win the most difficult civil war in history. It was behind Woodrow Wilson's concept of the League of Nations, and gave a moral dimension to America's determination to create a more realistic world order after the defeat of totalitarianism in 1945. It formed the spirituality of America's commitment to win the long Cold War, and made proper an exultant Te Daum laudamus, sung throughout the world when the atheistic Soviet state finally imploded in vain and the bells rang out again. And finally, the exceptional vanguard role of the City on the Hill is again the energiser of America's worldwide campaign to destroy international terrorism, the most evil force to threaten humanity since the hateful creeds which filled the Nazi death camps and the Gulag Archipelago with innocent victims.
That bin Laden's killers and their Taleban backers embodied the forces of evil can be shown beyond doubt, and will be so shown when the trials take place and the evidence is published in full. We have already seen bin Laden and his cronies gloating over the unexpectedly high death-list of 11 September, rather like Hirnrnler applauding the increased 'efficiency' of the Auschwitz ovens. That was not a meeting of religious men but of professional killers. It is hard to believe that the Taleban leadership represented any recognisable system of moral and religious belief, however distorted by fundamentalist zealotry. We now know that in south Afghanistan they practised systematic genocide of tribal enemies. They killed men, women and children without any trial or reference to Islamic law, however far-fetched. It was characteristic of their contempt for morality of any kind that, before fleeing. leading Taleban ministers, including the minister of finance, held up the Central Bank in Kabul and removed its entire reserve of dollars — which they had earlier categorised as 'Satan's currency' — to assist their getaway. Much of the ingenuity and energy of the Taleban and the bin Laden network — was spent on growing, processing and merchandising deadly drugs, for indiscriminate sale to the world's youth, in order to finance the purchase or development of weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, chemical and biological. No possibility of horror was left unexplored by these criminal monsters, whose dedication to inhumanity and sheer wickedness rivalled Hitler's or Stalin's. And the fact that they killed by the thousand, indiscriminately, and desired to kill by the million — the hundred million. indeed — in the name of the God they claimed to worship, made their infamy infinitely worse.
Those who now govern the City on the Hill have set their faces against this fearful enemy, and the prayers of all God-fearing people must go with them. I would like to see the Churches here and elsewhere hold regular services of prayer for the success of the American mission, just as, in my childhood, we used to pray every Sunday for Russia to be liberated from its atheistic dictatorship, a prayer granted in God's good time. Of course we must do more: we must actively assist the American effort. This, under the outstanding leadership of Tony Blair. Britain has been doing, and for it we are well equipped by the best armed services (albeit small ones) and intelligence networks in our history. Blair must carry on as he has begun, and not allow himself to be weakened by the faint hearts in his party and the Foreign Office; and the Tories must continue to give him their loyal support. Others are not so altruistic. In the reservations of France and Germany, one hears the chink of money: both do good trade in the Middle East, not least with states which actively assist terrorism. But as long as America and Britain remain firm and united, there is nothing to fear. Indeed, I would say to my American friends: the wider the coalition against evil the better, and all peoples of good will should be brought into the forces of civilisation. But support should never be bought at the expense of measures which you know to be not only right but essential. Far better to go on alone, which America is able to do, physically, spiritually and emotionally, than to jeopardise the success of the entire venture by allowing a reluctant ally to impose an ignoble compromise.
There is another point which Americans should bear in mind. In building the City on the Hill, Our Lord warned his disciples that their own conduct must be exemplary. They should take no notice of foolish critics: 'Blessed are ye when men shall revile you.' But, as the salt of the earth, they should take care that the salt does not lose its savour. He added, 'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works.' That is a command Americans must take to heart. They must show not merely political and military leadership but moral leadership too, and in the most unmistakable manner. I would like to see in America today another of the Great Awakenings to moral and religious fervour which have punctuated the history of the USA. And in the meantime let President George W. Bush and his close colleagues set the standard of moral excellence in everything they do, say and plan.
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