A friend of mine from the U.K. took issue with Rick Perry saying that America is “the last best hope of mankind.” Below are the contents of my response:
Some thoughts on “the last best hope of mankind.”
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Perry is basically quoting Ronald Reagan and Reagan was saying a variant of something that Abraham Lincoln had said. (http://ask.metafilter.com/60189/Whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-last-best-hope-for and http://reagan2020.us/speeches/City_Upon_A_Hill.asp).
I can see why it would sound arrogant to someone from another nation. I also see that many Americans might say such words in ignorance without really knowing what they mean.
But it would be worthwhile to study the history behind them.
The Reformation in Europe created a new way to see the world, and some of the best seeds of this new way floated on boats over the pond to start the early American colonies. The European Christian Reformation saw it’s greatest fruitfulness in the fields that it planted in North America!
Those seeds grew in the U.S.A. until those ideas floated back across the pond and improved life in Europe as well. Those ideas have now been written into constitutions around the world and influenced many nations on earth.
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Those ideas created a nation that along with the U.K. told Hitler exactly where he could stick his Fascist Tyranny. That same nation led the way in telling the Soviets what do do with Marxist Tyranny!
That same nation poured out it’s blood on European shores preserving liberty and self-government for much of the continent that birthed the Reformation’s ideas!
What I am getting at is this. An American could say “America is the last best hope of mankind” in an arrogant way, and an American could also say it in a way that is simply historically true.
I don’t believe that the United States is the only nation that God can use. I don’t believe that the United States is anywhere near perfect. I don’t believe that an American is somehow a greater person by virtue of where he was born than someone of another nationality.
However, there are a feisty band of Americans standing against socialist tyranny in a way that Europe has mostly abandoned. (Not completely, but mostly).
When I look around the globe (and I’ve been to many places on it) I don’t see any other nation that has a realistic chance of being a pillar for liberty and law like the United States has been and could be again. At least not for another 100 years.
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Like Queen Esther, Americans could pass this opportunity by and God will raise up another; but there will be heaps of global suffering in the meantime.
Whatever Barack Obama’s personal intentions are (who but God can judge the heart?) his worldview and policies are leading America towards the same World Socialism that Europe and much of the rest of the world has already embraced. If America succumbs we are in trouble.
This is why the Tea Party Movement is a good thing. This is why the Homeschool Movement is a good thing. This is why a rebirth of enthusiasm for returning to Constitutional Foundations is a good thing.
I would urge my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are offended by American Arrogance (and there definitely is Arrogance and Ignorance on many things) to FORGIVE US and PRAY for REVIVAL in America! Pray that America will rise up and fulfill it’s role. Pray that the Arrogance won’t be so great that God has to allow destruction!
If America fails God will eventually raise up another, but I don’t want to know what life will be like on planet earth in the meantime. Ronald Reagan once talked about “a thousand years of darkness.” This is a REAL HISTORICAL POSSIBILITY! In fact, the Protestant Reformation ended what was in many ways “a thousand years of darkness!”
But this remains true for the time being: America really is the last best hope of mankind.
I hope now you have some context for that quote.
🙂