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Lincoln's Christianity Lincoln’s Christianity has always been a strange topic of discussion. Many web sites use his quotes to support atheist or deist beliefs, while several other use his quotes to support his Christian beliefs. About all historians will agree on is that he was skeptical about Christianity while behaving in a very charitable and Christian manner. Abraham Lincoln was raised by a Baptist father, and the Bible was likely one of the first books in which he was in contact. He did read it as a child ... that much is known. But throughout his teens and well into his 40’s, he did not regularly attend church. Nor did he have any high faith in the afterlife. He apparently was a fan of Thomas Paine’s religious writings according to one source. At one point, he actually wrote a short manuscript arguing against the divinity of Christ. He was persuaded to burn this manuscript by his more politically savvy friends. During his congressional campaign of 1846, he was accused of being a Deist (while almost technically true, Deism was a dirty word at that time. A Deist would be a religious “infidel.”). He denied this vigorously suggesting that although he did not belong to any one church, he had a high regard for the Bible and all Christian faiths. This apparently was true. He could quote the Bible rather easily, and had a good memory for Psalms. Still, he was compelled to write something to counter the bad publicity of that campaign [below] To the Voters of the Seventh Congressional District. FELLOW CITIZENS: I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, or the community in which he may live. If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me. A. Lincoln, July 31, 1846 One historian has suggested that Lincoln undoubtedly came across several travelling ministers while working as a lawyer on circuit, saw their inherent squabbles, and found nothing that attracted him to organized religion. One of his friends did suggest Lincoln’s views on Atonement and other standard Protestant views were “unorthodox,” although Lincoln rarely ever discussed his religious views to anyone and no one can say for certain what precisely his views were. All through his life, death remained something he found sad and unfathomable. He never took solace in his religious beliefs while grieving over the deaths of loved ones. Nor did everyday practices have any hold over him. For example, he never said grace before meals – common for the Victorian times. He is reported to have rejected all miracles, and in particular rejected the mystical White House séances of his wife after their son Willy died (he never said this to his wife of course). As president, he was pre-occupied with the war and had little to say on the subject during the first two years of the presidency although it was not uncommon for him to be reading the Bible while in the White House. From what biographers can tell, however, Lincoln did begin to use more religious language in his writings by 1863. Many of his formal letters printed for circulation to the newspapers contained more religious references than in previous years. His 1864 Second Inaugural Address is considered his most openly Christian document. The short, but widely acclaimed document is considered a masterpiece of prose. The second half of this document I have copied and pasted here: …” Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” In essence, this document brings to light a belief of Lincoln’s that he himself was merely part of a much grander plan. Late in his presidency, Lincoln mentioned more than once that he no control over events, indeed that they had control over him. It is not believed that Lincoln went through any conversion process while in the White House. If he did, he never told a soul and never behaved as such – even though it might have been politically wise to do so. Perhaps his rather sudden outlook on the spiritual pre-determination of events was to allow for another responsibility other than his to be behind almost 200,000 deaths of the Civil War. Yet, there is nothing in writings or sayings to suggest that he didn’t feel exactly what he wrote. Religious historian Mark Noll probably summed it up best: It is one of the great ironies of the history of Christianity in America that the most profoundly religious analysis of the nation's deepest trauma came not from a clergyman or a theologian but from a politician who was self-taught in the ways of both God and humanity. Ref: David Donald's "Lincoln" |