Professor richard gamble. When did the phrase sitting on the hill originate . In the gospel of matthew and made way of American History by way of speech and discourse written by the governor john back in 1630 and he wrote what became later a very famous speech called charity and gradually the phrase sitting on a hill came to describe be used by historians and others to describe america and one of the things im most interested in is how americans got into the habit of calling themselves a city on hill, how did they become an american nickname and the tendency that i found over the years is for politicians and journalists and others to assume that americans from earlier colonial period always thought themselves as city on a hill. It took more than 200 years before a prominent american historian started picking up the phrase and applying it to americas identity. What does the concept mean . Comes from the sermon on the mount in gospel of matthew and there jesus says to the crowd and disciples in the context of being a light to the world, says, you will be a city upon a hill, a city on a hill cannot be hidden and for centuries throughout the Early Church Fathers and commentaries on scriptures, through sermons that was understood to mean that the ministers of the christian faith, the ministers of the gospel would be conspicuous. One Church Father said that preachers were skeptical of the world. That was not a good thing. The way ministers behaved and what they taught would be out on display for good or bad and if they messed up, if they lived a scandal of life, they would also be a city on a hill. You cannot be hidden. That is pretty much the history of that phrase, century after century its still the phrase being understood in the reformation, in the 16th century, the 17th century. Its still the way understood that the reformer john calvin wrote on the gospels of matthew, mark and luke. We find that continuity, timelessness to how its interpreted but we also see another pattern emerging in 16th century england, congregations are referred to as a city on a hill. As exemplary congregation, but they are being commended by ministers for being a city on a hill. And in 1630 when the puritans made their way to set up colony of massachusetts bay, that large immigrant group came, john sat down to write this discourse, to write whats often called a laser mono, lay sermon and at the very end at the long, long discourse, he said that he aspired for his colony, puritan colony to be a city on a hill and for him its still meant that even though its given a little bit more of a political meaning than a narrowly church meaning, he clearly believes its a both blessing and warning. It means regardless that you will be a spectacle to the world. You will be obvious the whole world is watching you, another phrase that comes out of that speech, the eyes of the world are upon us which actually became more famous than the other phrase. Winthrop is warning his community. Youre on display, if you fulfill gods covenant then you would be praised, blessing to christianty. If you disobey god or break covenant you will be a spectacle to the world or the oldfashioned phrase, you will be a byword. Betrayed the covenant with god. Its an an omnibus youre on display, you better behave yourself because the future of the gospel rests on the success of your project here in the new world. So when did that phrase become politically right used . Right, this is what i hope is the most interested part of the story. What i hope the unexpected part of our own past and not to not to get around that question or avoid that question but to take a slight detour and then come back to it, i believe that we as modern americans when we listen to how city on a hill has been used in modern discourse, im sure we will come back to that question. It was recent as last week. I think we assume we have a false memory. We assume that we have always said this about ourselves but as i mentioned earlier, it takes 20 years, 208 years before it even enters the history books and then its not until the 1960s that it enters our political discourse. In mid 19th century a very prominent american historian by the name of george, a name hardly known today, if anyone know it is Naval Academy will known about the hall, massive dining hall. He he began to quote from the model of Christian Charity when it was finally published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1838 from 1630 until 1838, the now famous model of Christian Charity was buried in a family archived, stowed away in an atick and it have not in any school curriculum, not quoted by any politician, it couldnt be because nobody knew it existed. The new york Historical Society and not too important story how they got hold of it, the New York Historical associate offered it to the Massachusetts Historical Society and said, we see that you are interested in publishing original colonial documents we have archives that we think you might be interested in. So it appears and then the historian george reads it, hes a member of the Historical Society, gets proceedings and reads this and he start incorporating it into the revisions of his multivolume history of the United States. Even then it takes a long time for the speech to become famous, the phrase to become famous, until january 1961 that it makes debut in a political speech. And who uses it . Thats john f kennedy. Young man in his 30s at the time he incorporated John Winthrop, the model of Christian Charity and city hill phrase and in his fairwell to the massachusetts general court, the legislature. It was such a successful speech that the Kennedy Family talked and said, you seemed to have used your best material. Got plenty of material. I had the privilege of changing u few emails with him. To my disappointment he said he had no memory about how 50 years ago or more he decided to use the model of Christian Charity and the phrase sitting on a hill. I was hoping to find documentation for the link of how it made its debut in political rhetoric, im sorry, but it was a very long time ago so we dont know exactly why he reached for John Winthrop. I can think about that a little bit, think about how controversial john kennedy was, think of his as the first Catholic Kennedy of a major u. S. Party and think of him being Irish Catholic and still the vision of the the cultural reputation of the Irish Catholic in america in the 19th century and on to the 20th century. Ted sorensen performed magic in this speech, he reached all the way back to the puritan of puritans and connected him directly to an Irish Catholic president or president to be. Brilliant. Brilliant. So kennedy in that speech was able to connect himself with the very earliest most authentic truest american identity and connected him with what some later call the foundational text of American History, the model of Christian Charity. Its a brilliant maneuver, kennedy from that point on, in fact, the speech is often called in history books his city on hills speech. It becomes that successful as a tag line. But then we have a bit of a mystery that im sure youve sensed already. We have associate city on a hill not with kennedy but with Ronald Reagan and any one who remembers the 1980s and the campaigns in the 1980s we think of we think of Christian Charity and John Winthrop, one of Ronald Reagans signature trademark tag lines and he used it in more than a dozen speeches. Very successful appropriation. A phrase that had belonged to the Democratic Party taken by reagan in 1968, taken by a speech he gave in eisenhower college, no longer in business, a speech he gave, he attacheses city on a hill to america and then in the 1970s begins using the phrase routinely often at the end of speeches as inspirational americas motto, this is who we are and this is who we are called to be. We do. I havent spent much time speculateing why he added china, what we find if we look at the 5 by 7 cards, these at the Reagan Library in california. When we look at the cards that he kept across his whole career for speech preparation, we find one card that has lest than a paragraph from the model of Christian Charity written out on that ward. John winthrop aboard ship, 1630, city on a hill. Theres really no evidence that Ronald Reagan knew more than that part of one paragraph on the speech and thats not a criticism of him. He uses this as resource, he had quotations from tom payne and emerson and would flip through the cards trying to find the right inspiration. Somewhere along the lines it become the shineing city on the hill. It talked about optimism, the way he applied the metaphor to mean economic opportunity, the free market system. He thought in the current debate, he thought it meant open doors, open immigration. So it became that certainly lost the negative warning in chun that was still there for John Winthrop in 1630, reagan would quote that we dare not become a biword but he soon dropped that and it became routinely a matter of inspiration to america, this is what we must be. In search of the city on a hill, the making and unmaking of an american myth, you refer to that phrase as potent, trouble and tired. [laughter] and i still think thats the case. It has proven more durable than i had ever imagined. We saw it come up last week, Hillary Clinton gave a very important address to the american leg oib and in that speech legion, she used a number of celebrity phrases, she called the United States the indispensable nation, she quoted Abraham Lincoln, she referred to america as an exceptional nation, a phrase that had been controversial for president obama, she may have said shining on a hill. President obama connected himself to the phrase more directly than he ever had. He is criticizing donald trump. He said, Ronald Reagan called american the shining city on a hill. Donald trump sees america as a crime scene. He did not say america on a shining hill. And then Hillary Clinton, one of my favorite historians, everything could have been different, right . Theres no reason city on a hill ever had to become attached to america, but its proven durable, tired and i think even the way it gets trotted out as a tagline. It has become a cliche. You dont believe a city on a hill or a maybe a ted cruz in the Republican Campaign saying we used to be a city on a hill until barack obama and now we are no longer city on a hill, vote for me and we will again be the city on a hill. So it has its a phrase that has now it has to carry so much weight, baggage that i fear the phrase was burning itself out. At first i heard it much less in the 2016 campaign compared to 2012, compare today 2008 but here it is again in the last fazes of the 2016 campaign. To the best of my knowledge donald trump has not used it directly and maybe make America Great again an invocation of that, i dont know. And my other word was troublesome. Thats thats probably what my book drives toward and i approach that in three ways and i will try not to go in too much detail on this, but my book is addressed simply to americans in general, helping americans to recognize a phrase that might otherwise just slip by them and i cant tell you how many people say i heard city on a hill . Jeopardy the other night and people do start recognizing that. Im grateful for that because thats one of the main purposes of the book, people now see and hear whats always right in front of them. Its addressed to americans in general, its addressed to historians not in a specialized sense but those with interest in history who like to know why things are the way they are. Where did our political rhetoric come from, where did the habits of speech come from and the book is addressed indirectly to christians, a variety of christians. So what what does it mean when your nation, american christians, what does it mean when your nation has taken a phrase, not with bad intentions but has taken a phrase out of the gospel of matthew, a phrase made famous by jesus, apply it to the church, used by the church for more than a thousand years and then the nation state takes it on as part of its own identity and it does so so successfully that its common for it to be attributed to John Winthrop. It was attributed to John Winthrop and not to jesus. My challenge is for christians to think seriously what are the implications when part of your own possession, part of your scripture is taken by the nation and used for purposes and thats part of our civil religion debate in america. Did you have any input on the cover showing washington, d. C. , landmarks built on a tower fan . I did. I had more input on this than any previous book and im glad you ask that. There was another proposal out there that that i pleaded with the publisher, publisher primarily in britain and he talked about the title of the book and what would connect with the british audience as well as american audience. Their first proposal was brilliant. Image of jesus delivering the sermon on the mount with the head of Ronald Reagan in an American Flag and he sent in pdf, this is your marketing people understand the book perfectly. This is genius but i cant possibly, this is so seems unpatriotic. I cant possibly go with this cover. Building, sand castle, this metaphor and imagine and we used this quite a while. The omnibus in the crack there captured the sense that this metaphor itself is unstable and that it might even point to a certain instability in american and political rhetoric and its in michigan who teaches in Political Science and author of this book in search of city of a hill the making and unmaking. This is cspan2. Okay, welcome. Those of you still piling in to be seated as quickly as possible. I want to get going because we have a timely panel with three outstanding authors on very important topics. So welcome to the best lawth school in brooklyn. [laughter] those who live here know its the only law school in brooklyn but its the biggest burro in great u. S. A this law school is increasingly known for being a center forfo learning how to use law for the betterman of people and this Panel Addresses very important aspects of what needs to be done. Im just going to jump right in and introduce our first author who some of you may have heard before. So hes the author of a brandnew book. This copy was delivered downstairs, available as the other books are downstairs after the session. Its breaking through power. Easier than we think by ralph nader. [applause][applaus before there was bernie,fo before there was occupy, before there was a community organizationer who ran fors president , but after there was ralph nader. He is as we all know the iconic champion of consumer rights. His pioneering best seller back in the 60s, led directly to safety act and not to mention a privacy case that we still study in my class about trying to invade privacy in order to discredit him. He was also instrumental in the creation of osha, National Traffic Safety Administration and in addition to saving countless lives and saving people from injury, he has sponsored and initiated aju creation of dozens ofia citizenaction groups whichhe teach us and remind us that it is possible to make companiesf and government accountable. So with that, i will ask mr. Nader to very briefly talk about his book and maybe be responsive to this question. So whats going on . I mean, now in the world did we get to this state that you describe in your book and is it too late to do something about it, and if so, what can we do w all in five minutes . Thank you, nick. Thank the participants and people in the audience. I want to start out with exhortation, major changes for justice never took more than 1 or less representing majority of opinion or what Abraham Lincoln called public sentiments. Apart from the civil war the Abolition Movement against slavery, the womens vieght to vote movement, the farmer Labor Movement in the last part of the 19th century and coming into the 20th century all the variousok r changes never took more than 1 , congressional districts rolling up sleeves and getting engaged in the ways that they want to focus. So this is what we have to start with because the demoralized and the rest rascals and thats what frank and roosevelt warned about in 1938 when he sent a message to congress to create a commission to study concentrated corporate power. He said whenever government is controlled by private economic power, thats fascism. That was 1938. We now have this connection between wall street and washington, between Big Companies and washington where the public shut out. The elections this year illustrated, we have an electoral process that has left the citizen groups, the Civil Community off limits. Imagine, its like its own bubble, has left democracy off limits which means turned this into spectators. Many of us dont realize it. We are supposed to be participants by and for the people, twe people, remember that . Jefferson called us participants not spectators. We look at tv, we watch trump and we watch hillary, we watch the circus and we say, look, its great, its fun, its hate ful debtorruation of deterioration and the perpetrators are clear. Money greeces greases the wheel. The enablers are us. First of all, we dont show up you can talk to High School Students you say who are you, their names, parents, they say they are swimmers, book lovers but 20 minutes later someone