Many may not realize that America’s mission was established long before the colonists declared independence from Great Britain in 1776.
It actually was articulated in late April 1607, when settlers with the first permanent English settlement in the New World arrived at the shores of Cape Henry at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
They numbered 145 in total, including 40 seamen, on board the ships Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. In their ranks was the Rev. Robert Hunt, author Craig von Buseck noted in a 2022 article for CBN.com.
The Virginia Company had been granted a charter from England’s King James the previous year.
“Though the ships they sailed upon were very small, The Virginia Company leadership insisted that they carry one item with them from England for the purpose of giving glory to God in the endeavor – a rough-hewn wooden cross,” von Buseck wrote.
On April 29, 1607, the settlers went ashore with the cross and planted it on American soil. A commemorative one made of granite stands near the location today.
1st Landing Cross @ Cape Henry #VirginiaBeach #virginia #travel @VisitVaBch @VisitVirginia https://t.co/BRCnvJQztI pic.twitter.com/SAUnVYQhL7
— Paul Diming (@pauldiming) August 24, 2016
“As they knelt in the sand, Hunt reminded them of the admonition of the British Royal Council, taken from the Holy Scripture: ‘Every plantation, which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.’ Raising his hands to heaven, Rev. Robert Hunt claimed the land for country and king and consecrated the continent to the glory of God,” von Buseck chronicled.
Hunt then declared, in words that would prove very prophetic, “… from these very shores the Gospel shall go forth to not only this New World, but the entire world.”
Indeed, the Christian Broadcasting Network, located just 20 miles away in the city of Virginia Beach, is one fulfillment of Hunt’s pronouncement, with its programs beaming all over the planet.
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Hunt’s words also mirrored the language in King James’ Virginia Charter itself, which said in part, “We greatly commend and graciously accept their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”
Of course, The Virginia Company wanted to establish an economically successful venture in the New World, but the spiritual underpinning of the endeavor was clear.
“They said, ‘We have come here, first of all, for the glory of God, secondly for the advancement of the Christian faith,’” Eddie Hyatt, author “America’s Revival Heritage,” told CBN.
And that’s really been America’s mission: Bring glory to God and advance the Christian faith. And part of the way the U.S. would bring glory to God is by its example.
No nation has done more to spread the Gospel around the world than the United States. Most missionaries still come from the U.S., which has the largest Christian population of any country, according to the Pew Research Center.
Further, no nation produces the sheer volume of Christian programming Americans do, including from CBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Daystar and The Victory Channel, to name some.
The same faith Hunt expressed at Cape Henry regarding America’s mission was restated to the north 13 years later, when the Pilgrims arrived off the coast of what would become Massachusetts.
The Mayflower Compact, signed in November 1620, says the purpose of establishing Plymouth Colony was “for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith,” as well as to honor King James and their nation.
Ten years later, when Puritans set out to create the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony, under the leadership of Jonathan Winthrop, it too was right on mission.
On board the ship Arbella, as it traveled across the Atlantic, Winthrop delivered a sermon that has resonated through the centuries called, “A Model of Christian Charity.” “Love” is translated in the King James Bible as “charity.”
In Winthrop’s sermon, he said that God would be among the settlers to make them a “praise and glory” that other colonies would want to emulate.
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us,” the governor added.
The phrase “city on a hill” comes from Jesus Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount, in which he said, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
“Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven,” Jesus instructed.
So Winthrop was tapping into the same mission statement expressed by the settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth Colony: bring glory to God and advance the Christian faith through example.
But he did warn, “if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”
As I chronicled in my book, “We Hold These Truths,” the Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, saw their mission as reestablishing God’s divine order under his laws found in the Bible. In so doing, the nation would bring glory to God through its example and allow the Christian faith to advance, thanks to its protection of religious liberty.
“Appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions” and with a “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” the 13 colonies declared themselves free from British rule.
Similarly, Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address in November 1863, exhorted Americans to fulfill their high calling, saying the Civil War was testing whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal “can long endure.”
He concluded saying, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
So both the Founders and Lincoln, like the first English settlers, saw themselves on God’s stage, setting an example to the world.
In more recent times, presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan grabbed hold of “the city on a hill” language Winthrop espoused.
In a January 1961 speech to the Massachusetts state legislature days before he was inaugurated as the 35th president of United States, Kennedy said, “[N]o man about to enter high office in this country can ever be unmindful of the contribution this state has made to our national greatness. Its leaders have shaped our destiny long before the great republic was born.”
The enduring qualities of the state include “the common threads woven by the Pilgrim and the Puritan.”
In putting together his new administration, JFK said, “I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier.”
“We must always consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.”
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Reagan, in his Farewell Address in January 1989, shared his vision of what America meant as a “shining city upon a hill.” The 40th president had added “shinning” to it.
“The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man,” Reagan noted.
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“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But 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,” he continued.
“And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home,” Reagan said.
America’s mission was set even before it became a nation and symbolized in the cross at Cape Henry: Bring glory to God and advance the Christian faith.
May she continue to do both in the years ahead.
