From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

The Jews have often been criticized for their belief that they are the Chosen People, but their critics have often been guilty of the same kind of denial that fueled the diatribes against idolatry in biblical times. …  Western Christians have been particularly prone to the flattering belief that they are God’s elect.  During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Crusaders justified their holy wars against Jews & Muslims by calling themselves the new Chosen People … Calvinist theologies of election have been largely instrumental in encouraging Americans to believe that they are God’s own nation.  As in Josiah’s Kingdom of Judah, such a belief is likely to flourish at a time of political insecurity when people are haunted by the fear of their destruction.  It is for this reason, perhaps, that it has gained a new lease of life in the various forms of fundamentalism that are rife among Jews, Christians and Muslims [today]. A personal God like Yahweh can be manipulated to shore up the beleaguered self in this way, as an impersonal deity like Brahman can not.