Contents

INTRODUCTION
“The Most Famous Lay Sermon in All of American History”    1

PART I    TEXT

1    Writing “A Model of Christian Charity”    13

2    “We Shall Be as a City upon a Hill”    31

3    A Chosen People    44

4    New England in a World of Holy Experiments    58

5    Left All Alone in America    71

6    Love Is a Bond or Ligament    86

7    Moralizing the Market Economy    96

8    The Poor and the Boundaries of Obligation    107

PART II    NATION

9    Inventing Foundations    123

10    Mobile Metaphors of Nationalism    133

11    From the Top Mast    146

12    Constructing a City on a Hill in Africa    158

13    The Carnage of God’s Chosen Nations    171

PART III    ICON

14    The Historical Embarrassments of New England    189

15    Puritanism in an Existentialist Key    204

16    Arguing over the Puritans during the Cold War    217

17    Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill    233

18    Puritan Foundations of an “Exceptionalist” Nation    247

19    Ambivalent Evangelicals    264

EPILOGUE
Disembarking from the Arbella    280

APPENDIX
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”: A Modern Transcription    289

Notes    309

Acknowledgments    341

Index    345