A model of Christian charity - Essay Example

Human beings have a tendency to manipulate things in their favor, they take the smallest chance they have and grab the opportunity to live with someone else’s glory for them. John Winthrop made speeches to bring people towards God and reconcile them with God. He came up with strategies make his mission a success, which involved his metaphorical city on hills. The Americans used this concept to magnify themselves become the world’s chosen nation. A model of Christian charity was a sermon delivered by john Winthrop; this was done on board the Arbella in 1630.

In the sermon, his aim was to show the true value of puritan faith. The crowd on board was approximately 300 people, all these people were convinced by John Winthrop’s sermon and would soon become the first population of Massachusetts who believed that they were an experiment of freedom and independence in religion. At this time, religious communities were so possessive that people were not given the freedom to worship in any way they want, they were tie to certain rules within which they were to abide.

The sermon convinced all the 300 people that they lacked religious freedom and that they should join the puritan religion, which would give them the freedom they lacked. So those who were aboard the arbella were the first of their kind, they were the first puritan community to reach North America. They had with then the Massachusetts Bay colony charter, which they intended to take to Salem in Massachusetts. The mission was of so much importance to the puritans in Massachusetts. In Britain, however this was seen as an opening to further trading opportunities and chances for expand their colonial posts; the puritans on the other hand were on a mission from God and had no any ill motives.

This mission was to test the faith of the puritans; it would really convey their intentions and see if they were genuine or had ill motives, like their counterparts in Britain1. American Exeptionalism, The Jeremiad, And the Frontier: From the Puritans to the Neo-Con Man, is an article written by William Spano, tells how Sacvan Bercovich’s summary helped to understand the concept of the puritan religion. Bercovitch explains that the puritans are like the Jews in the Old Testament who claimed to be God’s chosen people; the puritans were convinced that their movement from Europe was a new revolution to the church.

They thought of it as a new inaugural moment for a providential history, this was mainly to rectify the world that had moved away from their creator, and to claim it back. They were on a mission to save humanity and re-establish their relationship with God. They thought they were the tool for reconciliation just like the Jews of the Old Testament united humankind to God. The puritans’ mission in Massachusetts was the ultimate test to see if they were really, God’s chosen people, and a success in the mission would mean that they were indeed the chosen people of God.

It is now more than four centuries since the sermon was made and we still see the traces of this experiment, the politicians use it every day, they, however, do not use it to describe America and its role in the global society. The phrase city on a hill is a legend used by American history to refer to the sermon of john Winthrop. The Americans have lived to believe that the sermon in a way insinuated that they were God’s chosen country, in 1961; American president John F Kennedy made a speech in which he referred to Americans as having their eyes on the leadership so that there are no any cases of bad leadership.

He referred to it as the city on the hill and everyone looked upon it, meaning that the whole world had their eyes on America. The aim of this speech was to tell Americans that they should be good role models to other countries since they are perceived to be the chosen country, hence should look after the world. This greatly shows the American exeptionalism. When Winthrop talked about the city on the