That’s what the church is for.
But, Flynn gets this imagery wrong because he goes beyond what both Winthrop and Reagan seem to allude to in his suggestion that God had America in mind as the last best hope for the world, the city on a hill. And, he calls upon the churches in America to come together to make that happen — to make America the city on the hill that Matthew wrote about when he quoted Jesus and that Winthrop spoke of in 1630 and that Reagan called us to in the 1980s. That is a Christian Nationalist view of a Divine purpose for America that is not at all what Jesus had in mind when he said that his followers, what would soon be the church, would be the city on a hill because they would reflect his light (the light of Jesus and the gospel) to a watching world in desperate need of that light everywhere.
You don’t have to be a Christian or believe in God at all to think it important to understand what this biblical imagery actually entails. But, I am a Christian and I think it inappropriate to co-opt words that were clearly meant for those who follow and believe in Jesus to then be applied to a nation-state 2000 years later made up of people from all religions or no religion at all. That isn’t what America is and it isn’t what Christianity teaches either. The church exists in society, but it isn’t the whole of society because there will always be people who do not believe in or follow Jesus, as much as I would like everyone to do so. And yet, we must all live peaceably together.
It isn’t a knock on America to say that it cannot be the biblical city on a hill. America can and should be a good country and an example to other nations, and that is what I believe Reagan meant by the term. But, America isn’t the church and the church isn’t America. If the church properly follows Jesus, the light that it reflects can help illuminate America and help it be a better country. But we shouldn’t get things confused about who is who.
We can misuse biblical imagery in our national dialogue. It happens a lot. But, we really shouldn’t go back and ascribe our misuse to the original intent found in the Bible.