We live in a time where many people of all faiths are choosing to wear their religious feelings on their sleeve. This is great for selling headlines but perhaps, not so good for us as a society that seeks some level of harmony with our necessary cohabitation. Abraham Lincoln lived in a similar time. His martyrdom fit a narrative for many—he died on Good Friday—and he as well as the cause he supported would be tied strongly to evangelical beliefs related to sacrifice, atonement, a new start, America as the New Canaan—-something of Christian prophecy. The irony? By those that new him throughout his life, he was clearly a non-believer, not even a Christian, by either the iron-clad definitions of 1865 or our more permissive modern definitions. Lincoln’s God by Joshua Zeitz lays out this history in detail and it is quite a story.
Our Country: The original colonials were of two stripes: the Church of England’s followers and “Puritans.” By 1690, the generations growing up following Plymouth Rock and Jamestown changed: by the late 1690’s New England had an estimated 15% of the population formally affiliated with a church. In Virginia 85% of children were not baptized. Immigration to the colonies between 1690 and the revolution found many backgrounds and religions transforming this landscape. From this came Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Lutherans, Mennonites, Moravians, and Hanoverian Catholics as well as Methodist, Huguenots, and Sephardic Jews. By 1776 no one church accounted for more than 20% of the total in the thirteen colonies.
The Founding Fathers were not unified in their beliefs but several stood out as non-traditional regarding their spiritual beliefs. Many were termed Deists. Leading up to the Civil War many would label them for all practical purposes, atheists. The arguments about the role religion was to have in the context of the Constitution lose their traction when they depend on individual beliefs of leaders in those early years. Our common culture and history are more important when evolving roles for religious belief intersecting with political action.
The Second Great Awakening: The first great religious “awakening” occurred during rapid growth and political instability— before the nation formed. It was a flashy but short-lived movement related to religious feeling and chabnge. The Second Great Awakening was unique in the United States from the 1790’s to the1830’s. Evangelical Protestantism experienced unprecedented growth. By 1850 40% of whites belonged to a church and many had spouses (like Lincoln) that attended (Mary’s) church, sometimes. Methodist episcopal would grow dramatically the 20 years before the civil war. “The promise of sanctification deliverance and personal relationship with Christ proved a resonant source of faith, stability, and community in a changing world.” Estimates suggest that by the Civil War, 50% of the population was evangelical to some degree. A Methodist from England noted….." and Christianity touches and influences the entire social and political state. It is not meant that every individual is a pious Christian, but that the spirit of the evangelical system is in sufficient power to give to religious opinion and sentiment the complete ascendant in society.” The common elements of this new evangelism: faith in trinitarian God, humans are born depraved, sinful, and condemned. Through repentance and faith, one could achieve regeneration and find salvation in the moment of final judgement. “Born Again” was born.
The focus was one-on-one soul saving and salvation. This was not initially a system that focussed on political systems.
Prior to the second great awakening, blacks were not systemically Christianized; they joined in with this movement—in the back or in the galleries of Southern Churches and when not tolerated in the North, they started their own congregations. The Democratization of the political systems in the US found a parallel in these evangelical congregations: people had a sense of reading the Bible and deciding for themselves……which was far afield from the original Episcopalians and Puritans.
With time, the rural congregations organized in growing towns and cities. Churches were now associated with publishing houses, infrastructure like churches and schools, and outreach activities that require organization. These churches became woven into social and political life of their states.
Political and Social Change in turn changed the Churches: Modern evangelicals do have a valid point—-regardless of the intentions or beliefs of the “founders” —after the second great awakening, it was clear to observers from Europe that the Civic virtues as they related to government and its institutions were linked by citizens to God’s blessings. “…a political orator never closes a preparatory address without invoking or returning thanks to the Almighty; a minister, when he ascends the pulpit, always begins by reminding his audience of their duties as citizens and the happiness they enjoy in living under wise institution. It may be said that this mixture of political morality and the theology extends through all the actions of the Americans, a tincture of gravity and profound conviction.”
The Road to War: The expanding evangelical movement was linked to abolition. Most evangelical Christians in the 1840’s were not abolitionists, but the vast majority of abolitionists were evangelical Christians. To be antislavery did not necessarily embrace abolition. The vast majority of anti-slave northerners regarded it as poor policy, inimical to economic as well as social progress, and encouraged antidemocratic tendencies. Many with this opinion were racists and did not want to co-exist with blacks—they wanted to restrict slavery and thought it would whither away if contained. Many favored colonization schemes and resettlement for blacks outside of the US. They did not and could not anticipate a day when whites and blacks would coexist as equals in the US. Abolitionists were different: They did not favor the gradual elimination of slavery but immediate cessation and many favored equality in the law. Slaveholding was sinful to them—to gradually eliminate whoring, gambling, drinking, or murder were equally absurd to them.
Abolitionists who organized, published tracts and aimed them at individuals. Conversion was a one-on-one-experience with personal salvation in mind. Those who attempted legal actions were usually stopped. Gag orders in Congress precluded the subject of abolition. Post offices were raided (with covert support of employees) to destroy mailed antislavery tracts. Public meetings sometimes ended in violence and death for those presenting abolitionist beliefs. A librarian in Charleston South Carolina, originally from New York, when asked if she favored abolition, admitted that she did and was jailed for uttering this sentiment. For the apologists of slavery, the evangelical abolitionists were regarded as we might regard ISIS—militant, hyper-religious, and violent. Actions taken against them were legitimate and defensive.
Southern Christians relied on the Bible to support slavery.
Black churches in the North marveled at how a minister who wielded a whip six days a week could preach love on Sundays. Frederick Douglas argued that political action and potentially violence were going to be required. His was, in the early 1850’s, a minority point of view. The notion that slavery was a sin gained momentum and as a consequence, churches split: The Presbyterian church split specifically over slavery, not dogma. Methodists and Baptists split into Northern and Southern factions. This allowed Northern churches to compromise no more—-they could now exclude members who did not explicitly embrace an antislavery stance.
The catalyst that made the war inevitable was the Kansas Nebraska act. Abolitionists and Evangelicals mobilized massively in response to this as the expansion of slavery across the nation was now possible. Abraham Lincoln became politically active over this change and he was on fire: “….The Slave-breeders and slave traders are a small odious and detested class among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you and are as completely your masters as you are masters of your own negroes.”
The Civil War: In the North, the war and the losses that came from it hardened the Evangelical point of view: the nation was supposed to be the New Canaan. As God’s chosen people, the US was, through its institutions and culture to lead the way to a thousand years of peace before the second coming. For having sinned (slavery), the nation was going to pay a high price to atone—and the thousand year clock would not start until it was abolished. As leader of the nation, Abraham Lincoln had to manage the practical aspects of both rule and a war—-and he had to wrestle with this narrative while not being a man of Christian Faith.
Lincoln: Lincoln’s parents were Calvinists. They believed in pre-destination and that no human activity would change your after-death fate re heaven or hell. They were fatalistic and some of this can be found in Lincoln’s thinking late in life. He did not believe God favored the North or the South; his will was unknowable and we need to struggle on hoping for the best. As a youth, he mocked organized religion and was in conflict with his father over this. As a young adult, becoming educated he regarded the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress as foundational literature and common reference points but not a divine source of truth. John Todd Stuart (a relative of mine!) went so far as to say Lincoln was an infidel especially when young and went “further against Christian beliefs—doctrine and principles than any man I ever heard…..” Lincoln complained early in his career that he lost an election because the religious knew him as an unbeliever and labeled him a Deist.
As the 1850’s unwound and the antislavery movement grew, Lincoln was instrumental in building the Illinois Republican Party—the political manifestation of the antislavery movement.. Some of the most talented leaders were evangelical and their words were heard and they viewed politics and religion as inseparable undertakings. This was an important base within the Republican Party. Lincoln studiously presented secular points of view on the slavery issue when running for office both against Douglas (for senate) and later for President. This point of view accepted the “sin” of slavery if restricted and the union remained intact. Once secession occurred, he had to adapt to the political realities as well as changes that come with great loss.
On his way to Washington DC, as president-elect, he gave 100 speeches which included uncharacteristic (for him) phrasing: “…the providence of God… that God who has never forsaken his people….the Divine power without whose aid we can do nothing…..” He may not have shared Christian faith but he acknowledged it and used it for what he regarded as a supreme moral cause. “I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty and of this, his almost chosen people.”
Given this base, wanting emancipation now, he struggled with the practical issue of that being a minority view in the North. There were border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland) that might join the South if emancipation became the guiding argument for the war. John C Fremont when in control of Missouri, unilaterally freed all the slaves under his control. Lincoln had him reverse this with this political consideration in mind. He took criticism for that stand. A general in control of southern coastal land freed the local slaves publicly. Lincoln was in conflict with this and suggested, “I wanted him to do it, but not say it.”
Two years into the war, his administration and the Union cause was struggling. His cabinet famously was full of people who thought they should have been president. His generals were not making progress. Casualties in this first modern American war far outstripped anyone’s predictions and the grief was palpable. Lincoln lost a beloved son (Willie) and became despondent and depressed. He already had a perspective that eventually (750,000 ) casualties, all with loving families were an outcome of this struggle. His thinking and public imagery changed: “…the duty of nations as well as of men…to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that these nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” His audience is clear but he also was assuming a role that blended this with his mission as president.
His language with his wife, his cabinet, and speeches reflected imagery that resonated with hardening evangelical beliefs. Slavery was a sin; as such, this was a religious war. God would exact a price.
The Gettysburg address was short: the imagery is intentionally religious: Instead of saying, “eighty-seven years ago”, he say, “Four score…”, this language is found in the Old Testament. He uses the words “dedicate,” “consecrate,” and “hallow this ground,“ phrases found in the King James Bible as is, “shall not perish from this earth.” The speech speaks of a new birth which resonated with the concept of born-again. The speech for Southerners and Northern Democrats suggested he believed the war was to end slavery (this was not mentioned in the speech) and to that point officially, it was to maintain the old government, constitution and Union. The majority of Northern Christians disagreed. The war for them was about slavery and its end.
Methodists in 1863 would assert, “it is an enormous sin against God and humanity for any person to oppose the Constitutional Government of the US.” Lincoln was not sure God was taking sides but that that we should humble ourselves before Him and pray for his mercy as his administration did what it could to do right as it was understood …… Jefferson Davis invoked God to give a Southern victory. Lincoln would state often that God’s purpose was different from the purpose of either party…..A doubting Thomas to the end.
The price of the war and the organization of society to sustain it hardened opinions and it made for evangelicals an integrated point of view with respect to church and state. They stood together. The Old Testament views of God’s Will and the price to be paid for sin was the majority view. Soldiers in the field would come to take this point of view. The army functionally became abolitionist even when racist attitudes were the norm —for the sins of the slaveholding society and the costs being born because of it made it more despicable than that of any specific racial point of view. Even when they felt blacks were not their equals, white soldiers from the North felt pity for what had happened to them.
The Emancipation Proclamation was popular in the army. Lincoln was popular with the army. The election of 1864 found many thinking the Democrats would win and their platform was to negotiate a peace and allow slavery to stand as under the constitution. A few Union victories, just in time, and absentee votes from the army in the field gave Lincoln an unexpected lopsided victory.
Lincoln strong-armed the 13th amendment through congress before he died. His second inaugural address was as impressive as it was unique: lIke the Gettysberg address, it was short (701 words, the shortest since Washington’s second inaugural). It was full of religious imagery: Frederick Douglas would comment that the speech was more like a sermon than a state paper. God is mentioned 14 times and referenced prayer 3 times. Lincoln’s public persona had completed a transition with respect to his language and his apparent beliefs.
Lincoln died on Good Friday; evangelicals made much of that. His work done, God called him home. His death would accentuate the Old Testament visions that would play out in the South after the war. The New Testament which was a guiding form of religion that Lincoln admired would not be the blueprint for reconstruction as it may have been had he lived. There is irony that an unbeliever would become a Christian martyr in the hearts of many and Lincoln is remembered for many of the short terse rich passages filled with religious imagery—imagery that likely reflected the loss and orientation he genuinely felt, and which filled the political needs ever present in his very practical mind.
The last chapter of the book is called, “The Unraveling.” The war changed evangelical thinking—and it helped reconcile people to the horrors of the first American modern war. Religious thoughts: Blacks were freed after great national sacrifice and they commonly felt Biblical relief. Clergymen viewed politics as the natural extension of the ministry. The old testament linked white and black. In the South, God had forsaken the cause so the churches became introspective back to 1:1 soul saving. Moving forward, presidents would use religious imagery and religious causes would find political expression: prohibition, labor reform, and vice laws.
Religion, as the years moved on, had a place that prior to the war would not have been possible as liberal theology found Christians/Churches advocating for labor rights, anti- corruption movements in politics and business. The Social Gospel was one brand of protestantism—-conservatives would work for temperance, criminalizing contraception, prostitution, abortion and porn. State intervention was active for such movements. Time and immigration in the later 19th century diluted Northern religious consensus. Public schools became less religious and advancements in knowledge led to conflict regarding education not aligned with the Inerrancy of the Bible, unquestioned for many in the decades after the war.
The notion that the Bible may be allegorical and valid as such remains in conflict with those who choose to see it as, “the word,” and inerrant. And so it goes.
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