But is this narrative really so concrete? “The eyes of all people are upon us,” John Winthrop famously said, “so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work … we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” Despite centuries of dealing falsely, America and its progeny have survived, even flourished, in what was called “the New World.” How could this be? How could centuries of chattel slavery and human bondage not qualify as false dealings with “our God”? For scholar of African American religious life Eddie Glaude, Jr., such stories continue to be told because they depend on a lie-perhaps the greatest one ever told. It begins with the New England Puritans and their city upon a hill, and it ends with their collective efforts to build a democracy in the proverbial wilderness. In many instances, the story seems to write itself. Traditional renderings of “America” typically begin with the idea that it can be concretely defined.
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