Echoes in Eternity

American exceptionalism is objectionable because it is a false religion, a false faith. It is a smooth and attractive idol, and probably the idol most likely to ensnare conservative evangelicals.
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The problem is that Americanism is seen as a source of ideals, an artesian well of ethics, a fountainhead of standards. This is not just nonsense, it is damned nonsense.
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To object to American exceptionalism (for I am an American objectionalist) is not to maintain that there is nothing unique about Americans or American history. It is to say that there is nothing religiously unique. We are sinners like everybody else, we need God's grace like everybody else, we are thoughtless when prosperous like everybody else, and peevish when not prosperous like everybody else. Take off an American's boots, and you will find ten toes. Son of a gun.

Now one of the unique things that is striking about the wisdom of our founders is that they knew this. The constitutional arranagement they made for us presupposes that we are just like everybody else. The founders did not trust Americans with the kind of power that Obama wants, the kind that Congress wants, the kind that the Supreme Court wants, the kind that the Republicans want, the kind the Democrats want, and the kind that most American voters have hitherto wanted to surrender to the aforementioned. The founders knew that Americans were good, old-fashioned me-firsters, and so they built enough booby traps in the constitutional arrangement to make it look like the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie.
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The founders knew that we were in no way unique, and that really was unique. As long as we kept that Calvinistic humility in place, we were greatly blessed. And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging and rejoicing in that blessing. We need to return to it.

So American gratitude is something else entirely. That is not what I am shooting at when I go after exceptionalism. Acknowledgement of God's great blessing is not just okay, but is rather mandatory.
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So what is this sin of exceptionalism? It is here: "And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth" (Dt. 8:17).