Losing the Original American Exceptionalism

“That self-awareness really was exceptional. But we have now lost anything resembling such humility, and have replaced it with Ozymandian pride, and are the laughing stock of the angels crammed into the balcony of the celestial matinee, who have seen then empires rise and fall, and it is not even lunch yet.”‘

Mere Christendom, p. 202

Divided From the Start

“These culture wars have been with us from the very foundation of our nation. They are not something new that erupted when the first hippies started to disrupt Berkeley. From the very beginning, we have had men like Patrick Henry wanting America to take her place among the nations of Christendom. And also from the very beginning, we have had men like Thomas Paine, who wanted something much more like the French Revolution.”

Mere Christendom, pp. 187-188