This book examines the history of the belief that the United States is a “chosen nation” that enjoys a special relationship to God. Beginning in the seventeenth century and ending with the 2024 presidential election, the book reveals that this conviction has been an enduring feature of American religion and politics for more than two hundred years. Ever since the founding of the British colonies, American Christianity and American nationalism have been deeply intertwined. I hope to answer several questions. How have Americans conceived of the nation in sacred terms? Why has this language proven to be so persistent? And how has the celebration of the nation’s “chosenness” affected American Christianity? As a historian, I am particularly interested in tracing how the belief in American “chosenness” has developed and changed over time. Though large numbers of Americans have agreed that the nation is a model for the rest of the world, they have offered competing visions of its sacred destiny. While some have celebrated the United States as a beacon of democracy, religious freedom, and equality, others have argued that the United States was founded to be a White, Christian nation. The book is aimed at readers who want to understand how and why we have arrived at our own historical moment.