The Shining City as God

Ronald Reagan inaugurated the political movement that sponsored the ascent of George W. Bush to the presidency and gave strong support to his policies. A key component of this triumph was Reagan's revival and recasting of John Winthrop's vision of America as the promised land occupied by God's chosen people. After eight years as President, Reagan concluded his farewell speech with a meditation on Winthrop's city on a hill. ‘I've spoken of the shining city all my political life,’ he explained, ‘but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed.’

Reagan's city is proud and overbearing; its conspicuous position does not impose obligations upon Americans but projects invulnerable spectacular prestige, a paradise of ‘commerce and creativity’ that is an irresistible magnet for those ‘with the will and the heart to get here.’ It dares peoples ‘from all the lost places of the world’ to muster the courage necessary to claim the divine blessing available in the city, and not elsewhere.

Reagan's shining city does not offer obedience to an inscrutable and demanding God, but itself occupies a position of god-like preeminence. Reagan acknowledges no transcendant standard of justice against which national conduct might be judged.