Resident Theologian
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Anonymous Americans
Perhaps someone else has made this connection before, but it seems to me that there is a secularized form of Rahner's so-called "anonymous Christians" at work in American political discourse. It has right and left variations, but the theme is the same: In principle, the world is always already America; persons from other places, citizens of other nations, are Americans in embryo: the potential merely needs to be made actual. In this way non-Americans are in fact anonymous Americans, Americans without knowing it, Americans of the heart: related to and defined by America simply in virtue of who they are and how they live. And though they may lack this knowledge, we Americans, we explicit, public Americans—we know it on their behalf.
On the right, this takes the form of speaking as if other countries are good places to live just to the extent that they approximate the American way of life; so that any person or family beyond America's borders would, if given the chance to become American (without cost, risk, etc.), take the opportunity in a heartbeat. The American polity lies at the end of history, toward which horizon all the nations stream to receive instruction and pay homage.
On the left, this takes the form of speaking as if people from other countries are, in an almost metaphysical sense, already American, and thus owed, indeed entitled, to all the civic, social, legal, and other rights and privileges bestowed upon "official" Americans. If segments of the right envision open borders for the sake of freer movement of ideas and capital, segments of the left imagine open borders nominally as the elimination of the divisions enacted in the nation-state system, but effectively as the Americanization of the world: all are Americans, proleptically speaking; it just so happens that only a small portion of them have formal documentation to prove it at the moment.
No wonder that Americanists right and left so often unite in foreign adventurism, whether of the imperial or the humanitarian variety. Anonymous Americans around the world are living under conditions of great deprivation, definitionally speaking: they are expats of an ontological variety, exiled in advance of the great homecoming. No wonder, too, that the adventurism takes on the veneer of the Great Commission. Not only evangelization but eschatological in-gathering is the driving vision, the basis and the motivation for actions abroad rooted in faith, that is, the substance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen.
On the last day, the great sorting will occur. But instead of Matthew 25, more often it is Isaiah 2, Micah 4, and Revelation 22 that fill out the picture of the End. The dazzling light of final freedom will disclose the hearts of the people, and the people's hearts will be, to a person, American. Even if—especially if—they never had a clue.
On the right, this takes the form of speaking as if other countries are good places to live just to the extent that they approximate the American way of life; so that any person or family beyond America's borders would, if given the chance to become American (without cost, risk, etc.), take the opportunity in a heartbeat. The American polity lies at the end of history, toward which horizon all the nations stream to receive instruction and pay homage.
On the left, this takes the form of speaking as if people from other countries are, in an almost metaphysical sense, already American, and thus owed, indeed entitled, to all the civic, social, legal, and other rights and privileges bestowed upon "official" Americans. If segments of the right envision open borders for the sake of freer movement of ideas and capital, segments of the left imagine open borders nominally as the elimination of the divisions enacted in the nation-state system, but effectively as the Americanization of the world: all are Americans, proleptically speaking; it just so happens that only a small portion of them have formal documentation to prove it at the moment.
No wonder that Americanists right and left so often unite in foreign adventurism, whether of the imperial or the humanitarian variety. Anonymous Americans around the world are living under conditions of great deprivation, definitionally speaking: they are expats of an ontological variety, exiled in advance of the great homecoming. No wonder, too, that the adventurism takes on the veneer of the Great Commission. Not only evangelization but eschatological in-gathering is the driving vision, the basis and the motivation for actions abroad rooted in faith, that is, the substance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen.
On the last day, the great sorting will occur. But instead of Matthew 25, more often it is Isaiah 2, Micah 4, and Revelation 22 that fill out the picture of the End. The dazzling light of final freedom will disclose the hearts of the people, and the people's hearts will be, to a person, American. Even if—especially if—they never had a clue.