American Exceptionalism

Amid grievance and despair, it’s a challenging season for believers in America and its founding principles. Most of the current protests echo the fads of postmodern academia, insisting that America is a uniquely wicked and oppressive enterprise without redemptive possibility. Much of the commanding heights of culture to some degree feel obliged to pay obeisance to this grim perspective; journalism, big corporations, philanthropies, the social sciences, entertainment moguls and personalities.

Formal religious adherence is declining, but America’s longtime religious self-identity as a lodestar of democratic responsibility in the world continues unabashed.