Sometimes the U.S. is called an “empire” but only in the sense that its economic and military have global influence. There were in the 19th century American Christians who embraced American “empire,” however defined, as a providential opportunity to expand Protestant democracy and Protestant missions. There were also late 19th and early 20th century voices, often more Darwinian than Christian, that glorified wars of expansion as a form of pseudo-Christian masculinity. That perspective largely died with World War I.
It would be a mistake for American Christians to embrace territorial expansion as intrinsic to American greatness. Nations are great based on prosperity, political stability and military might, mediated by justice, not by their geographic size. The Dutch and the British rose to greatness in the 16th and 17th centuries, even though small nations, based on their economic prowess, global commercial trade, naval prowess, and stable political institutions. They ultimately acquired vast overseas colonies, which arguably drained their wealth, and which they lost in the 20th century. Of course, the original great nation, Israel, never was geographically large but its influence bestrides human history.
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