America’s founding did not all come after its Revolution. The Puritans believed they had a special covenant with God, and that by building a godly society based on biblical principles, they could create a moral example for the rest of the world to follow. it was called the City on a Hill after they founded an early colony intended to be like this, using the metaphor of Jesus from his saying about a city on a hill being visible to all. The Puritans believed in trying to use their King James Bible as a basis for all their leading principles in order to achieve a purity devoid of merely human-rooted laws, traditions, practices, and values. Much later Puritan-rooted church leaders such as John Darby tried to apply such principles to churches. He too wanted church laws to be based on the Puritan rules, and Puritan King James Bible, rather than metrly human laws. Now the real problems are these. Did this actually work? Is it even biblical? It seems it did not work. Even the laws of this origin are still human. In the case of Darby, they are even more contrived than normal human laws, being baeed on his rather contrived Dispensationalism ideas. Also it is not acceptable to other churches. Likewise Puritan principles have not been seen by other countries, and religions, and even other Reformed denominations, as entirely pure and divine. This leads into the answer to the second question, was it biblical? The limited source of the King James Bible without ardent scholarship, critical thinking, and Christian tradition, means that lots of knowledge and practice gaps existed which had to be filled with prevalent ideas of the Reformation being published via printing presses, such as Calvinism. In some cases such ideas were rather weird, outlier concepts invented by poorly educated but Reformed farm folk, such as ideas about witchcraft and spirits. Yet most of all, was the idea of this secular application of a City on a Hill ideology even biblical? There is nothing in the Bible, the King James Bible, to suggest a culture should be based as much as possible entirely on a select set of scriptures. Jesus did not show favour on the Pharisees who were working towards such an ideal. Certainly it is not a command of God, nor a teaching of Jesus. Really the Puritans or later Darby would be hard pressed to prove it from scripture alone. This makes it rather paradoxical. After the Revolution it seems to have all been played down somewhat, as alternative ideologies and principles were balanced with it. Yet the influence remains strong in American society, culture, denominations and education. Is it still a paradox? Is it now a paradox which is being spread around the world? A city on a hill, but what kind of city really? What part does it play in end times?
