The chances are good that many of us have been swept away by certain phrases and images used in politics. Whether it is President Kennedy’s challenge to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” or others, such stirring invocations to our better natures have the power to stir ourselves to make a positive difference in politics and political life.
One of these is the evocation of a shining “city on a hill.” Try speaking this phrase out loud and listen: what images does this conjure? Does it lead you to look upward, perhaps in silent admiration? While many of us have heard this phrase, few have understood its history and meaning. By exploring the history of this phrase we can grasp its deeper meanings.
John Winthrop and “Christian Charity”
Much of the credit for this phrase (as used in politics) goes to John Winthrop (1588-1649). Himself a Puritan lawyer and elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, Winthrop moved to Massachusetts out a sense of disappointment with life in England.
Within his lay sermon “A Modell of Christian Charity (1630) Winthrop uses the concept of Christian charity—giving without regard for the cost and doing so in accordance with God’s work—to describe the ways by which people are to live together as a community. Inequalities of wealth are a part of God’s plan, not only so that people act according to the Holy Spirit (e.g. restraint to avoid class warfare) but also that people “might haue [sic] need of each other, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the Bond of brotherly affection” (Levy 1988, 7).
Applying this understanding of brotherly love and duty, members of this community are to be charitable in lending and collecting money. As members of one body, one community, everyone suffers if one suffers. For the community to survive and thrive as “fellow members of Christ,” then, they are to follow God’s plan while designing a suitable government “both civil and ecclesiastical” and favoring the public (over the private) good. As Winthrop describes (to use his exact words):
“wee must vphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoice together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, always haueing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the vnitie of the spirit in the bond of peace” [sic] (Levy 1988, 12).
Winthrop then heightens the importance of this emerging community by declaring it worthy of emulation: “for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty vpon a Hill, the Eies of all people are vppon us” (Levy 1988, 12). This emerging community of believers, eagerly concerned with each other’s well-being, may thus fulfill the meaning found in the Gospel of Matthew (5:14).
Public Officials and the “Hill”
While this phrase has its roots in the 17th century it remains a significant part of American politics and more narrowly as a call for people to work for the public good, as an ideal community working toward the public good. Public officials have over the centuries used this phrase, including President Reagan.
Sources:
Levy, Michael, ed. 1988. Political Thought in America: An Anthology, second edition. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.
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