8/:8 Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union Hardcover – by Richard Carwardine (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
1865 RICHMOND BURNED.
The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln’s contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism
How did slavery figure in God’s plan? Was it the providential role of government to abolish this sin and build a righteous nation? Or did such a mission amount to “religious tyranny” and “pulpit politics,” in an effort to strip the southern states of their God-given rights? In 1861, in an already fracturing nation, the tensions surrounding this moral quandary cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, where anti slavery religious nationalists butted heads with conservative religious nationalists over their visions for America’s future.
At the center of this melee stood Abraham Lincoln, who would turn to his own faith for guidance, proclaiming more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since.These pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war.
Transcript
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| 0:23.6 | selectonline.com forward slash business to speak to the team. Professor Richard Carverdine, |
| 0:31.6 | the book is Righteous Strife. Professor Lincoln knew that the war was done when Lee surrendered at Appomattox |
| 0:39.8 | courthouse and he had a few days of relaxation. He made a speech on the front lawn of the |
| 0:44.7 | White House I believe and he mentioned that there was much work ahead. Now in that |
| 0:50.3 | crowd that night according to, was his assassin. |
| 1:00.5 | So leaving that tragedy to the side, what did Lincoln make of the end of the war? |
| 1:06.2 | Did he believe that he could knit this country back together after the slaughter? |
| 1:09.4 | Did he write it down in such a fashion? |
| 1:10.9 | I wish he had. I'm sorry. Did he convey it down in such a fashion? I wish he had. |
| 1:12.8 | I'm sorry. |
| 1:14.6 | Did he convey it to other pastors? |
| 1:17.0 | Because there were a lot of dialogue that last year. |
| 1:17.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:24.3 | I wish he had written it down in a form that we could consult today. |
| 1:33.6 | What is clear is that he understood that the task of reconstruction, of reuniting the nation, |
| 1:38.1 | was no easy feat, would be no easy feat. |
| 1:43.2 | And he made the start on that, he would recall in his second inaugural. |
| 1:54.0 | When instead of using it to rejoice at the near end of the war and to congratulate the troops, in fact, it's a sermon, a reflection on the war that's just been fought, how both sides in this war have prayed to the same God, |
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