City upon a Hill

For other uses, see City on a Hill (disambiguation).

A City upon a Hill is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his listeners, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden." It has become popular with American politicians.

A model of Christian charity

The phrase entered the American lexicon early in its history, in the Puritan John Winthrop's 1630 sermon "A Model of Christian Charity". Still aboard the ship Arbella, Winthrop admonished the future Massachusetts Bay colonists that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill", watched by the world — which became the ideal the New England colonists placed upon their hilly capital city, Boston. The Puritans' community in New England would set an example of communal charity, affection, and unity to the world, or if the Puritans failed to uphold their covenant of God, "we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world" of God's judgement. Winthrop's sermon gave rise to the widespread belief in American folklore that the United States of America is "God's country" because metaphorically it is a "Shining City upon a Hill", an early example of American exceptionalism.

Use in American politics

In the twentieth century, the image was used a number of times in American politics. On 9 January 1961, President-Elect John F. Kennedy returned the phrase to prominence during an address delivered to the General Court of Massachusetts:

...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". Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill — constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities. For we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arbella in 1630. We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less fantastic than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within. History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required...

President Ronald Reagan referred to the same event and used the same image on the eve of his election in 1980:

I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining "city on a hill," as were those long ago settlers.... These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still…a shining city on a hill.

and in his January 11, 1989, farewell speech to the nation:

...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, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still....

During the struggle for the Republican nomination in 1999, Gary Bauer used the same image and explicitly presented himself as a Reagan devotee; he used the phrase three times during his stump speech, and according to The New York Times simply stole them from Reagan. President Reagan's adopted son Michael Reagan wrote a book entitled The City on a Hill: Fulfilling Ronald Reagan's Vision for America (1997).

In 2000, Marc A. Thiessen, George W. Bush's speechwriter, contended in a Weekly Standard article that there are two competing visions of internationalism in the 21st century: the "'global multilateralism' of the Clinton-Gore Democrats" vs. the "'American exceptionalism' of the Reagan-Bush Republicans".

In 2004, President George W. Bush said:

Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America...

In his commencement address on June 2, 2006, at the University of Massachusetts Boston, then Senator of Illinois Barack Obama also made reference to the topic:

It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill - that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places.

Use in Australian politics

In Australian politics, the similar phrase "The light on the hill" was famously used in a 1949 conference speech by then Prime Minister Ben Chifley, and as a consequence this phrase is used to describe the objective of the Australian Labor Party. It has often been referenced by both journalists and political leaders in that context since this time.

See also

• American civil religion
• American exceptionalism
• Empire of Liberty
• Manifest destiny
• Speeches and debates of Ronald Reagan