Earlier this year I was reading John Winthrop’s famous 1630 sermon, A Modell of Christian Charity which is more popularly known as “The City on A Hill” sermon.
According to tradition the sermon was given aboard the Pilgrim ship Arbella before landing at what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but recent scholarship suggests that it was more likely given in England before the pilgrims set sail.
The image of the City on a Hill that Winthrop envisioned has become a common American theme. U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously cited Winthrop’s imagery in his 1988 farewell address, and it is Reagan’s reformulation that is most often recognized:
The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the “shining city upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined…. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.
Reagan’s formulation of the city on a hill as an example and guide to all nations is, in my experience, what most people now associate with the phrase “city on a hill.”
I admire President Reagan a great deal. But reading Winthrop’s original sermon, it is clear to me that Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill was different from that of Winthrop. Winthrop never described a “Shining” city on a hill at all. The word shining does not occur in the text.
“Shining” in Reagan’s speech was likely adapted from the 14th verse of Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus declares, “Ye are the light of the word. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”
But Winthrop’s focus was on the fact that a city on a hill cannot be hidden. Winthrop says:
For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God’s sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing.
For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Winthrop’s message is well worth considering. Because of the nature of their endeavor and the claims that they made to be God’s people, the Puritan Pilgrims were as a city on a hill. As Jesus mentioned, and Winthrop emphasized, such a city cannot be hidden from the eyes of the world. Their actions would be subject to elevated scrutiny.
Like the Puritans, as we Latter-day Saint’s strive to establish Zion, the nature of our claims to be the Restoration of God’s church on the Earth make us a city on a hill and, for good or for ill, all the eyes of the world are upon us. Mistakes easily forgiven in those of less lofty endeavors will be held against us and, as Winthrop warned, “open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God.” We should have ever present in our minds that grave fact and we should be ever circumspect in our words and our actions.
Last Thanksgiving I wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s powerful proclamation that established Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
It is a shame that our culture concentrates on the story of the Pilgrim’s thanksgiving, when the holiday itself is also rooted firmly in the solemnity, terror, and self-affliction of civil war.
Thanksgiving should epitomize the virtue of being grateful and recognizing the merciful hand of God in our lives, especially amid the worst turmoil and affliction.
I have written about this before, but wanted to cover some of the same topics in the context of the issue in Utah of distributing “In God We Trust” posters to be displayed in the public school classrooms.
When those with more liberal views than I say that the nation as the founders established it was not a Christian Nation, they are superficially correct. However, the nation was arguably founded explicitly as a Theistic Nation, a fact which they often ignore or deny. And Christianity had an undeniable influence on the formation of the United States and its government even if it was not explicitly Christian. While there was to be no established religious sect or creed, the government and nation were expected to officially recognize the authority of a vague, generic Supreme Creator as the source and judge of their laws and actions and to recognize the necessity of His approbation of their collective actions.
I’ve been re-reading Richard Bushman’s biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling , and I just finished the chapter on the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. When reading about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, I recognized an interesting parallel to the early Norse and Anglo-Saxon origins of English Common Law that I had not noticed previously and thought I’d write a little about it.
The Classicist bent of our modern American education system often focuses on the real, but overemphasized contribution of the Greek and Roman civilizations to our modern legal system and government while unduly minimizing or ignoring the contribution from the medieval legal traditions of the Norse and Germanic cultures from which English Common law, and subsequently American law, developed. As a result, a number people have at least a cursory familiarity with the Athenian forum while far fewer are familiar with the Norse Thing or the Anglo-Saxon Folkmoot, or the later British Witenagemot.
The Anglo-Saxon folkmoot, like the Norse Thing, was a governing assembly consisting of the free members of the community or district. The folkmoot protected the people against anarchy and tribal feuding by mediating disputes and grievances according to the Common Law (Old English folcriht, literally “right of the people”) and in theory provided each free man a single vote, though like modern democracies it was often dominated by the more powerful, influential members of the community. Some assemblies had the power to elect chieftains and kings based on who they considered best for the community, regardless of blood relation to any current monarch.
The Folkmoot and Thing are the early precursors to our modern legislative assemblies and trials by jury. Later, the folkmoots developed into hundred courts, borough courts, and shire courts.
Lawsuits were heard before the folkmoot. The procedure was for a number of “oath-helpers” to testify of the innocence of the defendant, who himself made an oath of innocence. The word “Juror” comes from the Latin iurature, which means “swearer” or “oath maker.” The defendant had to secure a certain number of oath-helpers to establish his innocence . The number of oath-helpers was traditionally twelve, a number that has carried through to our modern juries. If he failed to secure enough oath-helpers, the defendant was judged guilty.
So, returning to my original thought, Richard Bushman’s biography shows that, understandably, there was enormous pressure on Joseph Smith to show the Gold Plates, which contained the ancient text that was being translated as The Book of Mormon, to others and prove their existence. Joseph was under strict heavenly command to show them to no one. As the translation of the Book of Mormon neared completion, however, he was permitted to show the plates to a few individuals who are known as the three witnesses and the eight witnesses. It occurred to me that the testimony of Joseph Smith plus those of the three witnesses and then the eight witnesses made a total of twelve testimonies to the real existence of the plates. In a sense Joseph plus the other eleven witnesses filled the ancient role of the twelve Anglo-Saxon oath-helpers needed to establish the fact of their existence. In this way the witnesses of the Book of Mormon fit into a deep rooted cultural tradition that still wields power in our society.
(Unrelated trivia for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fans: The Entmoot attended by Merry and Pippin with Treebeard in “The Two Towers” is based on the Anglo-Saxon Folkmoot; the Wizengamot, or high court of wizards of which Albus Dumbledore is the head in the Harry Potter books, is based upon the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot—Old English witan means “wise man”)
I have not seen the movies “V for Vendetta” and “Children of Men” nor have I listened to “Year Zero,” the new album released this week by the explicit rock band Nine Inch Nails. And because I avoid movies and music with “R” rated or explicit content, I am not likely to in the future. However, from what I can gather from news reports, critical reviews, and conversations with people who are familiar with them, they all attempt to push into the mainstream a view that is popular among the most radical liberals and a few of the most reactionary conservatives: that current events, the War on Terrorism, and the policies of Conservative Republicans and especially the Bush administration are intended to overturn and replace our constitutional Republic with some kind of corporate oligarchy or Christian theocracy.
This view is rampant among the more radical, liberal or progressive blogs and forums.
I think that a conspiratorial view of current events and of history has a certain natural appeal. It plucks the same psychological strings that make gossip attractive and wide spread.
On May 26th, the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his two counselors sent a letter to be read in all of the LDS congregations in the United States urging members to contact their Senators to support proposed amendments to the Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman to prevent the establishment of legal, homosexual marriage in the United States.
Since the release of this letter of counsel to the members, I have heard of several critics of the church, internal and external, who try to discredit the Church’s position against homosexual marriage as hypocritical in light of the Church’s own struggle against the United States government’s prohibition of the former LDS practice of Polygamy in the late 19th century.
These critics try to draw a parallel between the church’s fight to keep the government from prohibiting its religious practice of plural marriage and the modern fight by homosexuals to prevent the government from prohibiting same-sex marriage. “How can the church support government prohibition of same-sex marriage,” they ask, “when the church itself fought to prevent the government from interfering with their right to marriage in the 19th century?”
This criticism reveals a very superficial understanding of history and the church’s 19th century position in regard to congressional proscription of polygamy. Like the common comparison of the homosexual movement to the civil-rights movement, it is an effective rhetorical device with emotional appeal, but has little basis in reality. It is effective because it is superficially compelling and easily expressed in only a few words while an effective refutation of it requires a lengthy explanation.
Conspiracy theories have been and will continue to be a staple of politics. I suspect that the allure of conspiracy theories is tied very closely to the part of human nature that is drawn toward gossip. And like gossip, some conspiracy theories may even be true, or at least an exaggerated version of the truth. However, often such theories trick people into boxing with shadows when they could be expending their energy on other, real problems.
One persistent conspiracy meme that is prevalent among conservatives is the idea that the portions of the Great Seal of the United States, as seen on the reverse side of the dollar bill, contain elements that represent a Free-Mason or Illuminati conspiracy.
This is an unfortunate concept because it keeps conservatives from recognizing that, in the on-going conflict between conservatives and liberals over the appropriate role of Religion in Government, The Great Seal of the United States provides one of the best evidences of the conservative position.
What follows is a review of the history of the Great Seal, what it means, and why conservatives should embrace it as did the founders.
This evening, I am giving an 8 minute presentation to my Spanish class. The professor will be evaluating my spoken Spanish grammar and pronunciation in addition to the written Spanish in the visual portions of my presentation and the summary I will give to each student. I hope it goes well. It has been great to review and improve my Spanish skills.
I have also enjoyed researching the topic of my presentation, an obscure portion of the fascinating history of Chile. For any of you who read Spanish, I am posting a summary of my research. I’m sure that there are grammatical and orthographic problems that I have missed, but deadlines wait for no one!
UPDATE: The presentation went well, despite some silly errors on my part. Also, I have corrected the text below thanks to the helpful suggestions from a friend who reads the blog. Thanks!
Orélie Antoine de Tounens
La historia peculiar de un “Don Quijote” francés en Chile
Los Araucanos
Araucano es la palabra en español por los Mapuche. Los Mapuche (Mapudungun; che, “la gente”,+ mapu, “de la tierra”) son la gente indígena que vive en el centro y sur de Chile y Argentina. Resistieron ser conquistados por el Imperio Inca y después resistían a los Españoles por 300 años! El conflicto entre los Españoles y los Mapuche se llama “La guerra de Arauco” y continuó de 1544 hasta 1882. En 1569, un soldado español quien luchó contra los Mapuche llamado Alonso de Ercilla publicó una epopeya (poema épico) que se llama “La Araucana” en lo cual él glorifica los Mapuche.
Orélie Antoine de Tounens
Orélie Antoine de Tounens nació el 12 de mayo 1825 en Francia. Trabajó como “procurador del pueblo”. Leía mucho los libros de aventuras y conquistas (quizás incluyendo “La Araucana”). Para ser hombre sin influencia y posición social, tenía grandes aspiraciones: decidió hacerse conquistador y rey! Y siendo que los araucanos todavía no se habían conquistados, decidió ir a Chile para lograr sus deseos.
El “gran proyecto”
Orélie Antoine no pudo conseguir a nadie para financiar su “gran proyecto”. Entonces hipotecó algunos bienes de su familia para pagar el viaje y llegó solo a Chile en agosto de 1858. Después de casi dos años, envió una carta al gobierno francés pidiendo que le mandase 50 millones de francos, 5 a 20 mil soldados, un barco de guerra, y otras ayudas para combatir a los Chilenos. Firmó la carta como “Rey de Araucanía”. Entró el territorio de los Mapuche por primera vez al fin del año 1860 y se presentó a Quilapán, un cacique (jefe) de uno de las tribus Mapuche, comunicando a través de un intérprete.
Orélie Antoine proclamó a Quilapán y su tribu:
“Uds. están divididos en tribus independientes en torno de estados centralizados….Haced a mi el rey de la Araucanía y yo reuniré todas las fuerzas de la nación araucana! …Como rey de Araucanía yo hago el juramento de mantener sus fronteras sobre el río Bio-Bio y de expulsar los colones chilenos de la ‘Tierra’. Gritad conmigo: ‘Viva el Rey!’”
Según su propio relato, los Mapuche le eligieron como rey.
“Rey” de Araucanía y Patagonia
En el primer día de ser rey Orélie Antoine:
- Mandó proclamaciones a Francia, Chile, y otros países anunciando el Reino.
- Envió invitaciones al las otras tribus de Mapuche para que se reunieran al nuevo reino
- Presentó una constitución, escrito en francés, estableciendo una monarquía, que el había escrito mientras vivía en Francia. Los Mapuche ni pudieron leerla.
- Levantó una bandera para el nuevo reino que también había traído de Francia.
Después de cuatro días de ser rey anunció que Patagonia también sería parte del reino.
Después de 2 semanas en Araucanía, Orélie Antoine regresó a Chile. Durante el próximo año, publicó anuncios y proclamaciones en diarios chilenos y franceses acerca de su reino, pero nadie le dio mucho caso. Retornó a Araucanía en diciembre 1861 y comenzó visitar con caciques de los Mapche y pedirles que comprometiesen ayudar en la lucha contra Chile.
El “rey” aprisionado y exiliado
Después de unas semanas, Él fue detenido por los chilenos por fomentar “una sedición en territorio chileno”. Después de un juicio donde se decidió que era un loco, los chilenos expulsaron Orélie Antoine y lo mandaron a Francia. Allí, publicó un libro acerca de sus aventuras. Tres veces intentó regresar a su “reino” sin éxito.
Orélie Antoine de Tounens murió 17 de septiembre 1878 sin herederos. Un amigo llamado Gustave-Aquille Laviard se proclamó como el sucesor de Orélie Antoine y estableció un “gobierno en exilio” en París, lo cual nunca ha sido reconocido por ningún otro estado. Los descendientes de Laviard todavía se proclaman como reyes y reinas en exilio! Philippe Paul Alexandre Henry Boiry es “Rey” actual de Araucanía y Patagonía.
Considering all of the recent talk about the Patriot Act, I thought I resurrect a slightly modified version of an article I wrote some time ago, which I think helps explain my own position on the Patriot Act.
Take out a $20 bill and take a good look at the picture of President Andrew Jackson on the obverse side. Let’s review a little of the history of this controversial president, and then I’ll tell you what it can teach us about how to remedy our bloated and burdensome government.
