Like most heroes, Abraham Lincoln has been obscured by the gauze of myth and the lure of legend. More books have been written about him than any other American.
No president is more steadfastly revered or readily recognized. The unschooled farmers son, tall and gawky, with outsized ears, brooding eyes and weathered face, stands out within the pantheon of presidents. We think we know him well.
Yet for all the words and worship devoted to Lincoln, he remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. He was an unstable blend of contrasting elements and warring emotions. A homely hero remarkable for his folksy humor and profound reflections, he struggled all his life with turbulent moods and nagging doubts.
While managing a terrible Civil War, he experienced personal tragedy (the loss of a second child and a wife plagued by mental instability) and chronic depression. What kept him from unraveling was a principled pragmatism and godly foundation that endowed his life with purpose and ambiguity.
Abraham Lincoln was a deeply spiritual man who never embraced organized religion. Dogma repelled him. He preferred to embody his beliefs rather than recite them. His father and stepmother were hardshell (Calvinist) Baptists who exposed their children to the passions of backwoods religion in Kentucky and Indiana.
Such unquestioning faith was not for young Lincoln, however. While serving as the postmaster in New Salem, Ill., the freethinking Lincoln looked with disdain on the emotional excesses of circuit-riding evangelists and the sectarian quarrels of local Christian churches.
Lincoln never joined a church and shied away from creeds and rituals. His friend Jesse Fell noted that Lincoln seldom discussed religion, and when he did discuss theological issues, his views were unorthodox on the innate depravity of man, the character and office of the great head of the Church, the Atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the performance of miracles, [and] the nature and design of . . . future rewards and punishments.
Ministers often charged Lincoln with religious infidelity. In 1846 he responded to critics by declaring: That I am not a member of any Christian Church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures. Such a distinction did little to satisfy evangelical Christians. When Lincoln ran for president in 1860, 20 of the 23 ministers in his hometown of Springfield opposed his candidacy because of his failure to profess the Christian faith.
Lincoln took no joy in his skepticism. He often wished that I was more devout than I am. His absence of belief did not lead to irreverence. Lincolns struggle with the mystery of the unseen gave ballast to his outlook. While alienated by confessional church life, Lincoln steadfastly believed that a divine purpose was at work shaping human events. The Bible was his favorite book, and his speeches and letters were sprinkled with biblical allusions and phrases.
A righteous God found no more effective champion than the 16th president. In his second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1865, a weary but resolute Lincoln longed for peace. Fondly do we hope fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. He wondered aloud why the war had lasted so long and been so brutal. The Almighty, he acknowledged, has his own purposes.
Lincoln noted the paradoxical irony of both sides in the Civil War reading the same Bible, praying to the same God and appealing for divine support against the other. The God of judgment, however, would not be misled or denied. If God willed that the war continue until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.