Alexis De Tocqueville: American Exceptionalism

Stretching from the colonial times to the present times, the people of the United States have consistently believed that their country had a particular purpose in history due to its unique constitution and founding history of the nation. Alexis De Tocqueville, a French historian of the 19th century, wrote in his book Democracy in America that “the position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.” He wrote this following his explanation on how America has departed significantly from its European ancestry, diverging into a unique and unprecedented path. It is believed that he had first initiated the term today known as ‘American exceptionalism’, which

has been a pivotal belief that shaped American evangelicalism, culture, and foreign policy.
William V.

Spanos, a postmodernist critique of Western foreign policy, believes that the history of American exceptionalist ethos is divided into four phases: the colonial era to the Gilded Age, the Cold War era, the Vietnam War decade, and the post 9/11 era. Spanos states that these phases have significantly increased in aggression chronologically, and goes on to believe that American exceptionalism is the product of analyzing the world with a secularized teleological view of history derived from Christianity. John Gray, a political philosopher, holds parallel beliefs to Spanos as he provides an extensive historical survey of the Evangelical postmillennial influence on the conception of American exceptionalism and that American liberal internationalist foreign policies are based on unachievable utopian

ideals.
John Gray, in his anti-utopian book, Black Mass, states that the evangelical protestant belief of a unidirectional and teleological history with a final destructive end to bring about a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ has created ‘Apocalyptic politics’ in postmodern America. The Christian population has been the dominant group since the founding of the state, and they have been able to hold a dominant hand in shaping culture, economy, and politics. Numbers of fundamentalist evangelicals, those who particularly believe in an imminent Armageddon, began to rise in the late 19th century to the early 20th century when tragedies of economic depression, threat of immigration, growing urbanization, the two World Wars, communism, the Cold War, and the atomic bomb seemingly fell in line with prophesies of the End Times stated in the Bible. In a sense, fundamentalists used the Bible to interpret history, find their sense of purpose in the world, and provide hope for the future.
These fundamentalists were premillennialists, and believed that the Christ would return before the millennium of the rule of saints. They believed that the terrors of the world were apocalyptic in nature and that America, as the world’s greatest power, had the unique responsibility to usher the second coming of Christ. Premillenialists, such as Mark Matthews, a Presbyterian minister, had great relations with political figures and simultaneously influenced many evangelicals to foster his particular political view. Matthews was a firm believer in Woodrow Wilson, and frequently wrote to the president with advice. He used the Bible to justify militarism, capitalism, and Zionism. Other prominent Fundamentalists kept close relations with presidents and underhandedly guided domestic and foreign policies as religious advisors.
The most defining variant of evangelicalism in modern American history, however, is postmillennialism. Postmillennials hold the view that the millennium of peace must pass before the second coming of Christ, and as Gray has noted, they have had a more pivotal and lasting impact on American politics. Premillennialism predicts an imminent end and provides a more pessimistic view of the earthly discourse. Postmillenialism, however, provides the belief that there will be a millennium of peace on earth through Christian rule. In Gray’s point of view, this is a type of a utopian ideology because it envisions a perfect society of ultimate harmony that is brought about from a great and violent revolution. In the American context, postmillennialism neatly tied in with the creation of the belief of ‘Manifest Destiny’, in which Americans began to see their country as the ‘Redeemer Nation’ in which it was specifically and divinely chosen to create this worldwide utopia based on liberal democratic values.
Both premillennial and postmillennial beliefs, however, coincided with in each in influencing America’s foreign policy since colonial times to the ‘War on Terror’. Both views fostered the sense of a war between ‘good and evil’ in which America was the good force that was determined by God to bring about the Apocalypse. Starting from the 1940s, the Cold War era was significant in that several prominent evangelists rose to represent the scattered fundamentalist voices into a tangible movement that was “carefully direction by powerful and culturally influential white male elite.” Due to their interpretation of the world through the apocalyptic lens, evangelical leaders such as Harold Ockenga, L. Nelson Bell, Charles Fuller, and Billy Graham preached against the isolationist policies of the past and prompted political figures to assume global leadership to the responsibility of Christian America. Particularly driven by the premillennial thought, evangelicals advocated aggressive leadership to counter atheistic communism.
A native of North Carolina, Billy Graham rose to prominence at a young age as an evangelical Southern Baptist minister who held large audiences captive through the radio, television, and crusades. Not only did he have the recognition as a spiritual leader, he also had an important political role in the South where he assisted in civil rights movements and was a southern strategist during Richard Nixon’s presidency. He was consulted by President Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon on matters of civil rights, spiritual life, and even foreign policy. He had gained the trust and respect of these three particular presidents that were in office during the stormy postwar years of growing atomic threat, American prominence, and communist rivalry. Fervent and confident evangelists like Graham that seemed to understand the world in supernatural terms were reliable personal confidants for these presidents, and not just political advisors.
During the Cold War era, Graham never once doubted that the end was near, and that Christianity and American nationalism were perfectly compatible with one another. His charismatic fervor captured the hearts of the world’s most powerful men. President Lyndon Johnson was in particular the closest to Graham relationally and was greatly affected by his advice. In Graham’s interview in 1983, he stated that Lyndon Johnson was ‘very religious’ and that they held private prayer meetings and Bible readings at Camp David. In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s had stated in his speech that the American government “makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith—and I don’t care what it is.” Sustaining such close relationships with these presidents, Graham undoubtedly emphasized the premillennial apocalyptic view of the world and America’s unique role as the chosen Christian nation.
The rest of the population, like their political leaders, seemed to turn to the churches and synagogues under the pressure of the anxiety of the times. Apocalyptic books and film by Graham, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and John Walvoord in the 1960’s and 1970’s created a new generation of radical evangelicals with the premillennial outlook. According to the polling data, 1960 as the year when a record of 69 percent of Americans claimed church affiliation. Graham worked adamantly for the creation of the Christianity Today magazine, and it proved to be successful in reaching Christians to shape their political values. The contents of the magazine contained premillennial prophesies that interpreted the news and promoted political conservatism by endorsing anti-communist domestic and foreign policy. Some of those who read the magazine believed it to be a sign of the rise of a new powerful ultra-right wing political party.
As a forefront runner of the rising evangelical movement, Graham believed and taught that the US should implement aggressive Cold War foreign policies. He, like many others, saw that the Vietnam War in particular was a defining point in making an attack at atheist communism. He believed that America had the mission to stop communism from spreading, and that the divine promises dictated in the Bible were true for America as it is true for ancient Israel. Graham constantly recited the verse in 2 Chronicles 7:14 which states, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” He insisted that America should obey God’s orders to spread capitalism and Christianity abroad in order to be forgiven for their collective failures as a Christian nation.
Christians believed that the Vietnam War was a significant event to bring about World War III, which they assumed to be Armageddon before the Second Coming. However, as the war dragged on for decades, Americans grew restless of the conflict and began to resent the number of lives lost on both sides. The popular atmosphere turned against the liberal internationalist policies of the three presidencies responsible for the War as the Doves’ arguments began to prove superior. Although he hoped that the US would win the war, Graham ultimately did not believe that war would be won. Following the pessimistic premillennialist belief, he knew that there would only be more depravity and destruction before the end despite all hopeful efforts.
When the public realized that the Vietnam War was lost, all began to question whether their supposedly chosen nation was truly any different than other power hungry states.

In 1981, Graham wrote The Coming Storm, an essay in his book Till Armageddon: A Perspective on Suffering. It rationalized the disillusioning circumstances when he stated that “the theory that the world is getting better and better, and solving its political, economic and social problems is no longer taught with much confidence. We are living in a day of serious turmoil and trouble, and most thinking people to whom I talk forecast that things are going to get worse instead of better.” Although Graham maintained his stance of imminent destruction throughout his life, this was a contrast to the more optimistic world view of what he wrote earlier in 1965 in essay The Flame of Political Dilemma: “I do not believe that all is black and hopeless. There is still time to return to the moral and spiritual principles that made the West great. There is still time for God to

intervene.”
Graham had gone through troublesome years with his involvement in politics as an advocate and advisor for three presidents that had endured the controversial Vietnam War. He had particularly outspokenly supported Nixon in public and private so he would be elected as president, and approved of his military methods in Vietnam. However, in 1973 the Watergate scandal prompted the South to question Graham’s stance on Nixon and his policies. In response, Graham wrote his article titled Watergate and Its Lessons of Morality in the New York Times mildly condemning the scandal yet still obscuring the fact that Nixon directly partook in the crimes. He used the Bible to create parallels between the Watergate and the “Water Gate” in the book of Nehemiah as a sign that America needed to repent just as the post-exilic Jews had to. However, responses to his article proved the growing cynicism of Americans as they began to believe that Graham was trying to defend his companion Nixon through biblical language and morality tales.
Essentially Graham was negatively affected by the Watergate and he began to slowly distance himself away from politics. However, he still maintained his influence in the public sphere despite the interpretations that his relativizing explanation of the scandal involved a spiritual and political double standard. Realizing what the public was seeing, Graham made efforts to keep politics and religion separate by refusing to believe that Nixon was as immoral as the public claimed him to be. A month after his article in the New York Times, he wrote a letter of comfort to Nixon with implications that King David, like Nixon himself, was falsely accused of wrongdoings. He repeatedly called for national repentance to avoid the blame to fall entirely on Nixon and related Watergate participants by infamously stating that “there is a little Watergate in all of us” . However, when the crisis had extended to 1974, Graham decided to urge Nixon to repent because to the public, Nixon was very personification of the scandal. Graham believed that if Nixon repented, God would show mercy and provide a solution to the crisis like He did in the book of Nehemiah. Through Nixon’s eventual resignation and later death, Graham remained to be a loyal supporter of his person.