(Harbingers Daily) More than two decades ago, in 2004, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington warned in his book “Who Are We?” that America was facing a crisis of identity. He argued that a nation cannot remain united without a common culture, a common history, and a common understanding of itself. Remove those foundations, and a society inevitably fragments into competing tribes, interests, and identities.
Huntington pointed to the Anglo-Protestant Creed as the core of America’s unifying identity. He argued that America’s political institutions and civic ideals did not arise in a vacuum but were rooted in a culture shaped by Protestant Christianity. If Huntington identified the foundation of America’s shared identity, educator E.D. Hirsch explained how that identity was transmitted: through a common biblical literacy that provided Americans with a shared vocabulary, history, and moral framework. Without that shared knowledge, the cultural foundations of national identity inevitably begin to erode.
The Founding Fathers were immersed in biblical imagery. Benjamin Franklin famously proposed a national seal depicting Moses at the Red Sea. The Israelites’ exodus taught lessons about liberty, tyranny, divine providence, and national purpose.