21 January // Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity"

I am somewhat ambivalent about Winthrop. There are surprising points of fellowship, kindness, insight and charity in this speech that don't seem to really mesh with the parts that reveal his self-centered and short-sighted conceptions of the world. Some of what he says is inspired and beautiful, while other parts are just incredibly limited and moralistic.

The roots of American interventionism are apparent in this document, which is troubling for me because I agree with some of those offshoots. (Such as the United Nations and their 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) As a nation, we still feel like we are a "city upon a hill". We take this mindset as a economic and political imperative, intervening in the political systems and cultural structures of other places to instill our brand in place of their native systems. This document is where it all starts in our political history. It's the mindset that led to the enforced Christianization of the Native peoples of America, the federally-instigated downfall of numerous Latin American governments and the wars of the past century (including Korea and Vietnam). I wonder if Winthrop could ever have envisioned that application of his theology.