Abraham Lincoln's personality . f eternal consequences be-ween him and his Maker, it is moremportant to consider Lincolns faith ast applied to issues of public life. The spiritual testimony of the ma-ure Lincoln is contained in his great-est speech, the Second Inaugural Ad-dress. This profoundest and most deep-y moving of all American politicaldocuments is really a sermon on a ser-es of biblical texts. In March of 1865,/vith the war grinding to its close, Lin-:oln was trying to make sense of it all. The catastrophe that had overtakenthe whole nation, North and South,was more overwhelming than
Abraham Lincoln's personality . f eternal consequences be-ween him and his Maker, it is moremportant to consider Lincolns faith ast applied to issues of public life. The spiritual testimony of the ma-ure Lincoln is contained in his great-est speech, the Second Inaugural Ad-dress. This profoundest and most deep-y moving of all American politicaldocuments is really a sermon on a ser-es of biblical texts. In March of 1865,/vith the war grinding to its close, Lin-:oln was trying to make sense of it all. The catastrophe that had overtakenthe whole nation, North and South,was more overwhelming than anyonehad imagined. People were strugglingto understand why it had happened,how a good God, in whom nearly ev-eryone on both sides still believed,could have allowed it. Lincolns answer, forged out of hisown suffering, his years of anxiety andtoil, reaffirmed both the goodness andseverity of God: The Almighty has His own unto the world because of of-fences! For it must needs be that Faith and the Countrys Father TT3. George Washington was not an orthodoxChristian, as some have claimed, nor anorthodox deist, as others have proposed. Hispersonal theology, based on his own under-standing of the Bible and his reading of manyEnlightenment thinkers of his time, was mostlikely broadly Unitarian, as was that of mostdeists of his time. Concerning revealed reli-gion and systematic theology, these deistswere either privately skeptical (as Washingtonmay have been), philosophically curious (likeThomas Jefferson) or belligerently argumenta-tive (like Thomas Paine). But they all believedin God and generally in life after death. As faras Washington was concerned, God was theCreator of the universe, and human affairswere guided by providence, the Almighty Be-ing, the Great Author or the Invisible Hand(terms often used by Washington). He highly respected the teachings of Jesus but upheldthe right of every religious group—Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews—to freedomof worship
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