(This is meant as food for thought... it’s not a question unless you think it is and want to answer)
This came to my mind as I have landed on various info pertaining to Predestination and the correct biblical understanding of THE ELECT... (who are they) and where some web-links from my own inquiry have taken me... For instance... as I must consider ‘fruits’ from that doctrine from an historical perspective.
Is Manifest Destiny a result of the logic of a predestined elect? Is it a true or twisted version of a predestined elect? New covenant? As in Christian American expansion, subjugation of non-elect peoples, Native Americans, Blacks, Arabs, Third world etc. Is it fair to ask? If not, why not? Does/Will the Manifest Destiny resemble ‘the New Order’ as the Founding Fathers envisioned... and I know some are writing books/making movies containing degrees of truth (and propaganda) as well concerning Masonic history... But truthfully the founding of America was a combination of Masonic and Christian ideals.
Up until this point concerning doctrine... as in eternal salvation... physical earthly implications of the elect hadn't crossed my mind; but of course it has to come in as relevant.
(one such article...)
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/joshua/manifest.htmlAmerica the New Israel
"We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us...," the Puritan John Winthrop wrote. The Puritans who disembarked in Massachusetts in 1620 believed they were establishing the New Israel. Indeed, the whole colonial enterprise was believed to have been guided by God. "God hath opened this passage unto us," Alexander Whitaker preached from Virginia in 1613, "and led us by the hand unto this work."
Promised Land imagery figured prominently in shaping English colonial thought. The pilgrims identified themselves with the ancient Hebrews. They viewed the New World as the New Canaan. They were God's chosen people headed for the Promised Land. Other colonists believed they, too, had been divinely called. The settlers in Virginia were, John Rolf said, "a peculiar people, marked and chosen by the finger of God."
This self-image of being God's Chosen People called to establish the New Israel became an integral theme in America's self-interpretation. During the revolutionary period, it emerged with new force. "We cannot but acknowledge that God hath graciously patronized our cause and taken us under his special care, as he did his ancient covenant people," Samuel Langdon preached at Concord, New Hampshire in 1788. George Washington was the "American Joshua," and "Never was the possession of arms used with more glory, or in a better cause, since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun," Ezra Stiles urged in Connecticut in 1783. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wanted Promised Land images for the new nation's Great Seal. Franklin proposed Moses dividing the Red (Reed) Sea with Pharaoh's army being overwhelmed by the closing waters. Jefferson urged a representation of the Israelites being led in the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Later, in his second inaugural address (1805), Jefferson again recalled the Promised Land. "I shall need...the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life."
