Lincoln & God: Scepticism to Spiritualism

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He's the best president that the United States has ever had ... at least according to one 2021 C-span study.

But how did Lincoln's religious views affect his life and leadership? In this episode, Don is joined by Joshua Zeitz, author of 'Lincoln's God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation'.

We hear about Lincoln's journey from scepticism to spiritualism, and the growth of connections between politics and the church in the United States.

Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Siobhan Dale. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

Transcript

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0:00.0	After a long miserable slog to make camp a few miles from the front, we await our new orders, passing time pasting mud into the gaps of the log-walled
0:16.2	hut we now occupy, trying to keep ourselves warm. Between meals of hard tack and salt pork, we clean lice off each other's uniforms and gather for services in the makeshift chapel.
0:29.0	I've watched our comrades baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
0:34.7	Ghost, only to fold dead the very next day.
0:38.3	Pity that poor pastor who writes his letters home to the mothers, assuring them that their sons had accepted our Savior
0:44.2	Jesus Christ in their final hours.
0:47.0	What a comfort that must be.
0:49.2	According to the pastor, this is all by God's design, that we are frozen to the bone, eating pitiful rations, and fighting
0:56.1	an uncivil war that for today at least feels futile, unwinnable.
1:00.5	I guess I'd rather put my faith in the divine leadership of Mr Abe Lincoln who's really calling the shots
1:07.4	If I'm going to heaven or to hell
1:09.8	Best I know who sent me there. Hello, this is American History Hit, and I'm your host, Don Wildman. Thanks for listening.
1:27.0	On the show today, we're going to take a look at Abraham Lincoln's life and presidency in very specific terms of his spirituality.
1:35.0	This has always been a fertile realm in which to consider the man given the complicated
1:40.6	and contradictory elements of his personality.
1:43.9	On one hand he begins life at a distance from Christianity, but then it later emerges in his life,
1:49.2	personally and professionally, and all against a backdrop of spiritual revivalism in the United States in the decades leading up to and including the Civil War.
1:59.0	These were heady times in a still young nation with cataclysmic changes afoot, socially, culturally,
2:06.1	and of course politically, not to mention a rising standoff between the states.
2:11.4	In this crucible of conflicting forces and evangelical fervor among many
2:16.4	Christians was born that in so many ways was a reaction to the traditions of
2:20.7	stern puritanical Protestantism that had dominated American spirit. traditions of
	...

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