Fruit

In a recent essay on the Circa History Guild website, historian Richard Freeman wrote regarding the Christian faith of Abraham Lincoln. His conclusions concerning the religious convictions of Mr. Lincoln would have been considered revisionist by some historians of an earlier age. There were those whose evaluations of the 16th President read like the ancient hagiographies written about the martyrs and saints of the church.  Father Abraham was born with a halo, if not wings, in a log cabin built with his own hands. His apotheosis as the greatest of all men has been trumpeted in book after book, year after year. Other historians, of rather Southern conviction, consigned “that man” to Dante’s seventh circle in hades and did not deem him worthy of anything less than an auto de fe (burning heretics at the stake). And, of course, there are modern day adherents of both schools of thought.

The ultimate spiritual condition of a man of the past is ultimately known only to God, but Christians have long applied to living people the biblical injunction to examine a man’s life to see what sort of “good works” he has produced. Christian testimony to one’s own faith is important, but both Jesus Christ himself and the Apostles of the New Testament encouraged the church to examine the behavioral evidence of true faith-”by their fruits ye shall know them.” I don’t intend to exegete the doctrines of justification or sanctification here but merely address the historical interest such considerations have produced regarding famous men of the past.

It wasn’t long after he was off the scene that historians and preachers began declaiming on the Christian faith of George Washington.  Many historians in the 20th and 21st century have declared President Washington a man of the “Enlightenment” and a devotee of Unitarian skepticism. Respected academic historians specializing in that era have fallen all over themselves to “prove” that Christians have no claim on the Great Founding Father. They suggest that the Protestant historians of the first hundred years after George Washington’s demise were engaging in a-historical wishful thinking if they believed Washington was a true-believing Christian. In the 2006 book George Washington’s Sacred Fire Dr. Peter Lillback examined in minute detail the life of Washington from primary sources, especially his own words, and then addressed the points raised by the skeptics. He concluded that not only was the personal testimony of Washington thoroughly Christian, but his actions and life gave clear and unambiguous evidence of a man of solid biblical Faith. Dr. Lillback is up against a huge wall of skepticism among the modern historical cogniscenti.

Abraham Lincoln’s hostility to personal acceptance of the Christian message throughout much of his life seemed clear to some of his contemporaries.  The testimony of his law partner, James Herndon, was especially pointed on the issue of Lincoln’s lack of faith, especially in his early years. As Merrill Peterson stated, “Lincoln’s soul answered to reason over love, to head over heart. His creed was the secular creed of the Enlightenment as embodied in the thoughts of deists like Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson.”(Lincoln In American Memory, p.226) Robert G. Ingersoll claimed that much of the evidence given to prove Lincoln’s faith, were “pious falsehoods.” He argued that the President’s public pronouncements invoking the blessings of God were simply cleaver concessions to general public opinion. Any biblical allusions were just part of his (cynical?) strategy for acquiring political power.

After the death of the Lincoln’s beloved twelve year old son Willie, Mrs. Lincoln introduced mediums into the White House and held séances trying to communicate with her dead child. The President attended those gatherings; nothing in his personal world view would prohibit trying anything to assuage his grief. His enemies saw such concessions as clear evidence of an unregenerate heart.

Other critics who were (and are) skeptical of any real faith in the life of Abraham Lincoln, claim that he was just a ruthless politician, conducting an unnecessary war against former citizens of his own country, resulting in more than 600,000 deaths and the attending oceans of grief. He suspended Constitutional liberties, had thousands of his own countrymen thrown into prison without trial, and sanctioned the barbarism of generals like William T. Sherman, all evidence that his actions as President were contrary to those of a Christian. The implications extended to those who put him in power and sanctioned his actions-the Grace of the Gospel was nowhere in sight.

I would suggest that none of the above arguments impinge on the thesis propounded by Richard Freeman, that Abraham Lincoln became a Christian late in the Civil War. The test of a Christian is both his verbal profession and his deeds. It does appear from testimony by several friends and preachers that Mr. Lincoln did finally believe in Christ the Savior. At least one man close to the President recorded that off-color jokes told in his presence now came in for rebuke. He is known to have made a number of conciliatory statements, both public and private, toward his enemies; his self-deprecating humility on more than one occasion is certainly consistent with a Christian life. He himself claimed to spend time on his knees in prayer and he did attend worship services. Criticism that he never actually joined a church proves little regarding his faith. He did not presume on the providence of God but did assert his belief in that doctrine. One hopes that “with malice toward none, with charity toward all” came from a heart in tune with his battlefield opponent, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, that “I am just a sinner saved by grace.”

Bill Potter