TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

Americanism is profoundly Christian in its inspiration and worldview. It is profoundly Biblical. “We are the children of Abraham,” a seventeenth-century American Puritan reminded his fellow citizens.

Many things influence human behavior, and I don’t claim to understand all of them. I have had the most experience with the early New England Puritans' influence on how Americans act and react to the ...