“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”1
Who said it? John Winthrop, governor-to-be of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop said these words to his fellow Puritans on the journey from England to the New World in 1630. His metaphor for America as a "city on a hill" was drawn from the Gospel of Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."
Politicians as diverse in their ideology as John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George Bush have borrowed Winthrop's vision, each giving his words their own spin.
Perhaps reaching its fullest expression when Ronald Reagan added “shining” to the phrase, here’s how he put it in his farewell address after his second term: Reagan said, “...in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, then the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”2
The idea of America as a special nation, blessed by God, is deeply ingrained in our American consciousness. Politicians especially often wrap themselves in the vision of America as a city on a hill.
The image is powerful, evocative, uplifting! It has driven our sense of divine purpose and undergirded our belief in Manifest Destiny. And for many, it has led to a sense of “exceptionalism.”
Is America today a city on a hill for the eyes of all the world to admire? That is a question that elicits strong differing opinions around the world.
But what if we look at this phrase in terms of how it might apply to Christians at the end of time? Are the “remnant people” at the end of time an exceptional people?
They stand firm in the face of persecution. They proclaim the gospel of the glory of God! What they do is exceptional! What they say is exceptional! But is there a danger if they think of themselves as exceptional?
But maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe we’re missing the whole point of what John Winthrop was trying to say years ago.
“A Model of Christian Charity” was a “sermon” delivered by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Puritan colonists aboard the ship Arbella, one of 16 vessels carrying 1,000 people en route to New England in 1630.
This sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” runs 20 pages but is primarily remembered for these 22 words: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
Wrenched from the larger document, this solitary sentence became the earliest known statement of American exceptionalism, and has been used to testify, not to the unique mission of the Puritans but to that of the future United States.
Yet as we look at it in its context, we find quite a different meaning.
The key word in the title of Winthrop’s address is charity. This word “charity” in the Bible means love in its highest sense. So here is a sermon whose predominant theme is not political mission but a call to model the love of God for the world.
Not emotional love, not brotherly love, not neighborly love...but the deepest level of love...the love that caused Jesus to lay aside his divinity, come to this world, and die on a cross.
Charity today has a very different meaning. If someone offers you charity? No Thanks! I can take care of myself!
But Winthrop takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to tell his fellow pilgrims that their ability to show divine love is the key to everything that lies ahead! They must love one another with a pure heart; they must bear each other’s burdens; they must be willing “to sacrifice their material surpluses if needed to supply the necessities of others.”3
Not all will do equally well; some farms will fail, some crops will not ripen, some farmland will be infertile… Charity is the only thing that will get them through all that lies ahead!
If they fail to live this kind of love, Winthrop warns, they will most certainly fail to establish a lasting Christian community in the new world!
And should they be tempted to think that they are so far away from everyone else that no one will ever know what really goes on there? No! Winthrop’s quote from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14): “We must live as a city set on a hill!”
No matter how high the walls you erect, you cannot hide a city on a hill! It will be seen by all! And if there are defects, if there is sin, all will know it, all will see it!
Winthrop wasn’t claiming that the Lord had chosen the Puritan migrants to serve as a shining example to the world. Instead, he was reminding them that it would be impossible to hide the outcome of their mission if they failed.
With 16 ships carrying more than 1,000 passengers, they were embarking on what was, given the technological context of the day, an undertaking of monumental proportions.
Their departure had attracted the attention of the western world. Many, if not most, of their non-Puritan countrymen resented them for their criticism of England’s king, resented their rejection of the established church of England, and so would hope to see them stumble, would hope to see them fail!
So, Winthrop’s point was not that the Puritan colony was destined to become a radiant light to the world. Rather, their Christian ambitions would be lived out under intense scrutiny.
In the very next sentence after noting that “the eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop issued a warning: “If we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken...we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world…. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God.”4
Rather than puffing up the Puritans with claims of a divine mission, Winthrop intended his allusion to send a chill down their spines. His words, “a city upon a hill,” were intended as a warning, not an affirmation; it was an exhortation to self-criticism, not self-congratulation.
Maybe, today, in our current political climate, our love affair with the image of a “city upon a hill” has come to an end anyway.
But is there anything more relevant for Christians today than the message Winthrop delivers?
We have a sacred calling! That calling rises or falls based on the love and charity we show one another. The world is watching, hoping we will fail! If we fail, we bring dishonor and reproach on God Himself!
We must at all times live as if we are a city on a hill that all can see!
We must live at all times in such submission to God that the light of His love, the power of His law, lights us up for all the world to see. So that in seeing us they will be convicted of God’s truth and God’s calling!
So that the Pilgrims wouldn’t get pumped up with a sense of divine mission that centered around “their” accomplishments, Winthrop wanted to send a chill down their spine!
You are a city set on a hill! The world is watching! Your success will be a testimony to the truth of God! Your failures will testify that your beliefs have no meaning!
That’s the challenge we face today! To go into our communities so that the world sees the love of God in action! That alone brings glory to God!
The Massachusetts Bay colonists did not live up to Winthrop's expectations—at the end of his tenure as governor, he wrote in his diary, "sin abounds.”5
“Sin Abounds!” Not the message on many Christmas cards, is it?
Why did they fail? They came to think of themselves as “exceptional” rather than recognizing that their “calling” was exceptional. And that their “exceptional calling” could only be realized as they lived out the exceptional love of God in their lives!
Call to Action
Have we exchanged our exceptional calling for a sense of personal “exceptionalism” that is all about us?
Christians can’t just talk about love; they have to live it! Christians can’t just talk about truth; it has to be seen in their lives!
So, live out the reality of who God is! Let the reality of His character be seen in your lives!
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:16 (KJV)
Unless noted otherwise, scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
- John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in A Library of American Literature: Early Colonial Literature, 1607–1675, ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson (New York, 1892), 304–307, reproduced in The American Yawp Reader, “John Winthrop Dreams of a City on a Hill, 1630”.
- Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation” (Washington, D.C., January 11, 1989), Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/farewell-address-nation.
- Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” The American Yawp Reader.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
