American national identity rests on a White Protestant chosen-people myth.

Evidence

This White Protestant notion of Manifest Destiny has since animated America’s national identity. Indeed, more than half a century after the United States won its independence from Britain, Herman Melville succinctly articulated what his compatriots have believed since the nation’s founding: “We Americans are peculiar, chosen people, the Israel of our time. We bear the ark of the liberties of the world. God has predestined, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls.” — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 201

Categorization

• XREF: Melville’s quote echoes the settler-colonial chosenness narrative that also appears in discussions of Manifest Destiny elsewhere in this reading list. — connects to: White Protestants seek state favoritism as their dominance erodes. — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 228