What Does “A City Upon a Hill” Mean?

As Mark A. Signorelli notes , most people—especially conservatives—misunderstand what the reference “a city upon a hill” means:

Conservatives are awfully fond of referring to America as a “city upon a hill;” it would be a wonderful thing if they actually made some attempt to understand what that image is supposed to signify.  When it is used by contemporary conservatives, it is invariably intended to invoke notions of “American exceptionalism.”  The preeminence of a city built on a hilltop is interpreted as a kind of superiority, as though it were nation set above other nations, and even above the ordinary historical forces that beset other nations.  A city on a hill thus becomes an apt symbol for a country which enjoys an indisputable superiority in wealth and military power, implying a sort of vaguely providential sanction upon that wealth and power.  The reference to this image by conservatives almost always carries connotations of national self-congratulation, and almost always serves to enhance that most distinctively liberal attitude – complacency.

But this is not at all what John Winthrop meant when he first applied that image to the Pilgrim settlers, in his famous sermon of 1630.  What he wrote was as follows:  “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 be made a story and byword through the world.”  Winthrop intended the preeminence of a city on a hill to signify not the inherent superiority of the Plymouth settlement, but its notoriety .

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