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3 U. St. Thomas L. J. 261 (2005-2006)
Messianic Nation: A Christian Theological Critique of American Exceptionalism

handle is hein.journals/usthomlj3 and id is 265 raw text is: ARTICLE MESSIANIC NATION: A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM WILLIAM T. CAVANAUGH* September 11, 2001 has taken on the status of a kairos moment in U.S. history, a decisive hour when, we are told, everything changed. In the New Testament, kairos often takes on eschatological significance, a time of cri- sis, as distinguished from the ordinary calendar time of chronos.1 A kind of eschatological sensibility pervades discourse about September 11, not nec- essarily in the sense of an end to chronological time, but rather a suspension of ordinary time. We live in a state of exception, a time when exceptional measures such as torture become thinkable. Kairos, however, does not legit- imize a generalized state of anarchy in which rules are suspended for every- one. Kairos is Messianic time,2 a time for one decisive actor to appear on history's stage. In the language of American exceptionalism, that actor is the United States, the indispensable nation, as Madeleine Albright called it,3 the one exceptional nation needed for exceptional times. Although I have been using theological language to describe American exceptionalism, such discourse need not be explicitly theological. I want to distinguish between two broad types of American exceptionalism, one with Judeo-Christian roots, and the other with its roots in the Enlightenment. There is of course much mixing of the two types, but they represent two quite distinct ways of approaching the question of exceptionalism. The first explicitly appeals to Christian theological concepts such as the election of Israel and God's providence. The second appeals to Enlightenment con- cepts concerning the universal applicability of the American value of free- dom. The two types of American exceptionalism would appear to be at odds: the one appeals to a nation under the Christian God, the other to the * Associate Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. 1. Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and His- tory 39-55 (Floyd V. Filson trans., Westminster Press 1950). 2. See e.g. Acts 3:20. 3. Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplo- macy x (Harvard U. Press, 2002).

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