This archive report was first published on 9 September 2019.
Published on September 9, 2019, the relationship between the Bible and American nationalism is multifaceted and often misunderstood.
On one hand, nationalist conservatives often focus on the Bible's teachings on sexual morality and strong borders. However, this perspective overlooks the central issue of the American Revolution: the danger of monarchy and the centralization of authority.
As Rabbi Meir Soloveichik notes, “If there is a central political message for Israel throughout the Bible, it is this: For Israel to deserve independence, it must remember that it exists for a calling more important than independence itself.” This idea is echoed in the Declaration of Independence, which affirms universal truths rather than merely presenting a case against British rule.
Abraham Lincoln further developed this argument in an 1859 letter, stating, “All honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”
Lincoln's vision of America as an “almost chosen people” dedicated to principles of freedom and civic equality is a powerful reminder of the nation's higher purpose. However, this rhetoric has often been used as an excuse for costly and unnecessary wars.
As the biblical Hebrews learned, a nation's greatness is not measured by its power or cohesion, but by its commitment to individual rights and equality among citizens of various origins, faiths, and creeds.
