Hi Mark,

my intention was to try to argue that Winthrop's passage doesn't in
fact offer itself up to interpretations of Eurosocialism, whatever else
it does. I'm not sure about wanting to claim it even, although it does
become interesting as you say that this is the oft-quoted excerpt. I've
just read through the entire sermon. My over-riding impression is of a
desire that the statuys quo between rich and poore be not disturbed;
that this status quo comes not from man but from God;

that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be
all knitt more nearly together in the Bonds of brotherly affection.
 From hence it appears plainly that noe man is made more honourable than
another or more wealthy &c., out of any particular and singular respect
to himselfe, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of
the creature, man.

Whatsoever wee did, or ought to have, done, when wee liued in England,
the same must wee doe, and more allsoe, where wee goe. That which the
most in theire churches mainetaine as truthe in profession onely, wee
must bring into familiar and constant practise; as in this duty of
loue, wee must loue brotherly without dissimulation, wee must loue one
another with a pure hearte fervently. Wee must beare one anothers
burthens. We must not looke onely on our owne things, but allsoe on the
things of our brethren.

It certainly is a highly contested turf. There are apparently (although
I've only found a couple as yet) of documented instances in which
politicians as diverse in their ideology as John Adams, Abraham
Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale and Bill
Clinton have borrowed Winthrop’s vision, each of them giving it his own
spin.

Three of the recent Democratic candidates pitched to their audiences
some version of the Puritan’s ideal. John Forbes Kerry--distantly
related to Winthrop on his mother’s side--described for a New Hampshire
audience an America of 'rising hope and true community . . . we have
moved closer to the America we can become – for our own people, for the
country, and for all the world.' Wesley Kanne Clark’s idea of a 'New
American Patriotism' borrows heavily from Winthrop’s idea of Christian
charity as it envisions the nation 'once again . . . a beacon of hope
and a source of inspiration for people everywhere.'

Howard Dean, like Reagan, quoted directly from 'A Model of Christian
Charity' when announcing his candidacy. 'We shall be as one,' he said
in Burlington, Vt., last June [2003]. 'We must delight in each other,
make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together,
labor and suffer together, always living before our eyes our Commission
and Community in our work. ... It is that ideal, the ideal of the
American community, that we seek to restore,' he concluded.

Reagan's 'shining city upon a hill' conflates "You are the light of the
world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and
put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the
house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." -- Jesus, from
the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:14-16.

with

  "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes
of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our
God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His
present help from us, we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy
servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses . . ."
--John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella, 1630

just pushing it around a while longer, since you (and Richard) got me
really interested in what it might have to offer

love and love
cris