Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations“God Has Favored Our Undertaking”: Explaining American Security and Strategic Culture

A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations: “God Has Favored Our Undertaking”: Explaining American... [Twelve years before the American Revolution began, John Adams described the founding moment of the American colonies as, “the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence.”1 Such sentiments are expressed in the chapter title quotation, which is written in Latin on the Great Seal of the United States. Since the founding of the Republic, Americans have expressed their self-identity through this grand narrative that began with the underlying belief that their nation was bestowed to them by God, and that they were “the Seed of Abraham.”2 Recently, the nineteenth rector of Christ’s Church in Philadelphia observed of the role the grand narrative played: “Whether or not the Bible is true …is insignificant …the Pilgrims, George Whitefield, even Benjamin Franklin…trusted the narrative. They believed God would deliver them. They never sank into the pure limitations of rationalism, that the world was only what they could perceive.” He follows with a flourish: “And because of them, that narrative became America’s narrative.”3] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations“God Has Favored Our Undertaking”: Explaining American Security and Strategic Culture

Download PDF
26 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-thorn-in-transatlantic-relations-god-has-favored-our-undertaking-6QFaP43T8u
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-46557-6
Pages
23 –49
DOI
10.1057/9781137343277_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Twelve years before the American Revolution began, John Adams described the founding moment of the American colonies as, “the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence.”1 Such sentiments are expressed in the chapter title quotation, which is written in Latin on the Great Seal of the United States. Since the founding of the Republic, Americans have expressed their self-identity through this grand narrative that began with the underlying belief that their nation was bestowed to them by God, and that they were “the Seed of Abraham.”2 Recently, the nineteenth rector of Christ’s Church in Philadelphia observed of the role the grand narrative played: “Whether or not the Bible is true …is insignificant …the Pilgrims, George Whitefield, even Benjamin Franklin…trusted the narrative. They believed God would deliver them. They never sank into the pure limitations of rationalism, that the world was only what they could perceive.” He follows with a flourish: “And because of them, that narrative became America’s narrative.”3]

Published: Oct 29, 2015

Keywords: Foreign Policy; External Threat; Religious Conviction; Grand Narrative; American Respondent

There are no references for this article.