Challenging the Eschatological View that America is God's New Israel

[Notrash]

Antagonistic Church of England?

With all due respect, it is the Puritans who were at fault. They wanted what they couldn't get, while being given full representation and voice, and instead of accepting the fullness of the faith, they rebelled, martyred the king and archbishop, and drove the Church underground...and the people HATED it so much that they asked for the Church and monarchy restored!

The Puritans kicked themselves out.

Now, with that aside taken care off...

...the idea that America is God's New Israel, depending on how you use the term "Israel", is either nothing more than 19th century ce-type Nationalism or, perhaps even worse, British Israelist racism and heresy. It may be even both. Either way, history has shown the extreme dangers associated with both and they have no place within orthodox Christianity.

I am a good and proud citizen of my country, but I don't act like a haughty jerk about it like many sadly do. Each country contributes or should, and while American hegemony may be here to stay, it doesn't mean Americans should lord it over others. If anything, we should be preparing the world for a global-level hegemony instead of being selfish.

Agreed for the most part. I picked up a history/reference book containing perspectives of some religious leaders of the time of the colonialism. John Winthrop was one of the writers mentioned.

I was somewhat surprised to see the massachusetts colony documents [some would call them a 'constitution'] centered around Levitical law and the mention of "Israel" or new Israel in many places.

In contrast, the people of the everlasting covenant who please God by the Spirit and not by law or works are "NOT LIKE" those of the mosaic covenant. This is from Jer 31:32. They are of the 'children of the prophets' and of the promise made to Abraham to come through the seed of God/woman.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Shalom

If anyone here has any thoughts, I'd love to hear sometime....

You should read your own OP. You have invited discussion but only after you have completely ruled out any opinions that you don't like.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

You should read your own OP..

Already Did - as did others who actually stayed on the topic.starting with PaladinValer ( #3). And as said before:

For more information, the Puritans originally came to America in order to gain freedom of religion, freedom from the persecution that they were experiencing at the hands of an antagonistic Church of England. And so they fled. In their fleeing they encountered all kinds of hardship and tribulation, and yet they endured and finally made it to the ‘Promised Land’. It was these kinds of experiences, and the relative success of establishing a new nation, that imbued Puritan pastors and theologians with the notion that Divine Providence had carried them into the new land of promise. Indeed, many (if not all) of the Puritans believed that they were truly the new Israel of God, and that they had been given Divine sanction to sack the native Americans (like the original Israel did with the Canaanites), and take their lands (manifest destiny)

.....one should consider investigating the work of Roger Olson who has provided a mini and partial review of Peter Leithart’s book, Between Babel and the Beast. (more here ).Leithart challenges a religion that he (amongst others) has labeled Americanism (or the worship of America as God’s special nation, like the new Israel). Moreover, for others who've spoken on the issue. One is Soong-Chan Rah in his work The Next Evangelicalism: Releasing the Church from Western ... - Page 449..and another is Andrea Smith of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances.

As the Late Richard Twiss said best:

Richard Twiss: A Theology of Manifest Destiny​

Richard Twiss: Hope For the American Church​

You should stop reading into things past what is there and focus on what the authors of OP say on the matter when they also share in follow-up on the thread. For there was NOTHING in the OP saying it was an open discussion for promoting British Israelism - and those saying otherwise don't know how to follow along.

You have invited discussion but only after you have completely ruled out any opinions that you don't like

Incorrect - and your objection is no different than going into a thread on creationism vs evolution and then arguing "I want talk about why aliens made the world" and complaining on why no one either focuses on that...or cares to allow in the discussion. For it is not focusing on the OP nor the focus. If you want to create a thread/discussion where you can promote as you wish, you have the freedom to do so - but it's illogical to go into other threads/do there.

Moreover, anything ruled out is what does not line up with Biblical History ...scripture...or what the saints have already said in Church History. Whenever there's all manner of things made up and no backing from scripture to verify, it'll be dismissed since it has little basis.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Agreed for the most part. I picked up a history/reference book containing perspectives of some religious leaders of the time of the colonialism. John Winthrop was one of the writers mentioned.

I was somewhat surprised to see the massachusetts colony documents [some would call them a 'constitution'] centered around Levitical law and the mention of "Israel" or new Israel in many places.

In contrast, the people of the everlasting covenant who please God by the Spirit and not by law or works are "NOT LIKE" those of the mosaic covenant. This is from Jer 31:32. They are of the 'children of the prophets' and of the promise made to Abraham to come through the seed of God/woman.

Good points...as it concerns the ways that God wants us to act in the world if claiming to be in/with His covenant..

 

[Contemporary Historicist]

Dear String,

Our country was not founded by Puritans is was founded by Separatists. Puritans wanted to Purify the church and the government. The separatists knew such things cannot be done by men. Having men purify the church is like having a surgeon wash his hands in manure. The patient gets sicker not better. Purification can only be done by God.

Puritans embraced theocracy Separatists fled it they saw it as an anti-Christ system. After all England was a Theocracy as was the Papal Throne and the Holy Roman Empire. The King of England Ruled the Church and England. The Pilgrims were the first self sustaining colony ever established in the New World, all other colonies needed a lifeline from Europe. The Puritan Mass. Colony governed by John Winthrop was self sustaining also but only came when they heard of the Plymouth Colony's survival and that it was beginning to thrive.

Plymouth Plantation was not founded by people fleeing persecution. In Holland they had no more persecution. William Bradford went to great pains to establish this fact in his writings. They left Holland to establish a new place where their kids could be free from being torn between the licentiousness of Holland and the heavy work burden of the life of a English manual laborer.
But one of the reasons less talked about was Spain was about to (and went) go to war with Holland . They actually controlled half of it (Spanish Netherlands). Spanish rule meant coming under the rule of the Papacy. The Pilgrims did not want to worry about their and the children's future. Bottom line the Separatists were called (sent) to establish a new land free from the possibility of the tyranny of a Theocracy.

I believe that our Pilgrim forefathers had a higher calling that they did not talk about. They were told by the word of God and the Holy Spirit not to discuss it. They probably could not imagine they were to be so used for such a wonderful thing.They were called to be the rock that was mentioned in Daniel 2 that destroyed the statue. (Christians are living stones like Christ.) That statue represented rule by king (Sole rule, Monarchy). The mountain in heaven represented the heavenly kingdom of Christ that the church is part of. The hands that were not human was Christ or God the Father. The feet of clay and iron were the European Monarchies. Growing mountain is the unhealthy growth we see today of what the Pilgrims were the foundation of.

They probably finally realized that what was promised them was coming to pass decades after 1620. Probably when the English King was executed in 1650 and England was no longer a Monarchy but a Commonwealth. At that point or a later the separatist survivors erected an uncarved stone, an eschatological marker for the future body of Christ to realize the dates and times we are in.