American Civil Religion

1. American Civil Religion “The will of God prevails.” (Sociology 159)

2. Gettysburg Address • “We are met,” he says, “on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives so that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this.” • Conception, birth, death, redemption • Gave their lives • “But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or subtract.” • The ground is sanctified by the martyrdom of soldiers • “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” • Humility (123-127)

3. It is for us, the living, rather to be rededicated to the unfinished work that they have so far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; • that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

4. A renewal of dedication and surpassing “the fathers,” completing the work that they began • Human agency • Conception, birth, death, sacrifice, rebirth • This rebirth enables the living to draw increased devotion even as the dead gave the last of theirs; the living must go beyond what was given by the fallen, as the task remaining is one which only they can complete • Under God • Equality before God • “Perish from the earth” • By the time of his speech at Gettysburg Lincoln has come to define and affirm the nation by its dedication to the ideal of equality, by definition depicting the defenders of slavery as being alien to the American polity and opposed to its world-historical mission (127-129)

5. Democracy of the Fall • Political equality may or may not be present • Grounded in the recognition of a spiritual equality before God that is always present, whether or not it is recognized. • Humility is the appropriate recognition of this fact in terms of religion as equality is in terms of politics. Slavery is for Lincoln a denial of spiritual equality and an affront to God for which the nation as a whole is justly punished. • This civil religious insight on Lincoln’s part constitutes a new religious revelation, a new doctrine looking to transform the nation’s self-understanding • All of the States, both loyal and rebel, as belonging to a single moral community, but it is a community defined by shared moral failure • Jeremiad (134-135)

6. The Prophetic • The will of God is not to be understood but obeyed. • Lincoln speaks in a way that is at once Calvinist and Hebraic, with a permeating emphasis on the religious and political importance of covenant & community • The plans and desires of human beings are in his prophetic speech shown to be utterly impotent, though not meaningless, as God’s will moves events to their appointed outcomes • Shared powerlessness in combination with the shared burden of sin serves to render all humans spiritually equal. • Richmond on April 3, 1865, Lincoln to freed slave: “Don’t kneel to me. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty that you will enjoy hereafter.” (135-36)

7. The Prophetic • Weber: Prophets provide a “unified view of the world derived from a consciously integrated, meaningful attitude toward life.” • Deriving from “religious conception of the world as a cosmos which is challenged to produce somehow a ‘meaningful,’ ordered totality, the particular manifestations of which are to be evaluated according to this postulate. • Abraham Heschel on ancient Israel: “the countries of the world were full of abominations, violence, falsehood. Here was one land, cherished and chosen for transforming the world. This people’s failure was most serious.” • Describes exactly Lincoln’s understanding in his prophetic mode of the relationship between God and the United States. • Hoped that a chastened and repentant nation, humbled by the wrath of its God, would return to his favor, and that the punishments would come to an end. • Humility, contrition and forgiveness (136-137)

8. Aug. 12, 1961 • Recommending “a day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting, to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnities” • “it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God, to bow in humble submission to his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” • Style & phrasing taken from Puritans • “Fear of the Lord” Psalm 111:10 & Proverbs 9:10: those who heed the will of God will be preserved, while those who stray will be justly punished for their actions. At the same time, this divine will, and thus the divine justice by which punishment is meted out, exists on a plane so far removed from the human experience as to be incomprehensible to its recipients. (140-142)

9. A Day of Public Humiliation • “And whereas, when our own beloved Country, once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is particularly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him, and to pray for His mercy,—to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved…” • Abraham Heschel on Israelites: “few are guilty, all are responsible” • The United States has a divine mandate to pursue the political ideal of equality, a pursuit in which failure equates to the defiance of God’s will. • God does not in this view will a thing because it is just, it is just because God wills it. • Slavery as original sin, causing the nation to fall from a state of grace. • No pretension to innocence (142-144)

10. A Day of Public Humiliation • “I do earnestly recommend for all the People, and especially to all ministers and teacher of religion of all denominations, and to all heads of families, to observe and record that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship, in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings upon our Country.” • The judgment and mercy of God: • Hebrews 4:12, God’s judgment: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” • Hebrews 4:16 (cited by Lincoln) divine mercy: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (145)

11. Death of Willie Lincoln • February 20, 1862: fever from contaminated water • “My poor boy. He was too good for this earth. God has called him home. I know that he is much better off in heaven, but then we loved him so. It is hard, hard to have him die!” • “Why is it? Oh, why is it?” • Increased religiosity after this point? • Human impotence before the will of an inscrutable God. Where human desires and the divine will conflict, the divine will of necessity wins out regardless of the sincerity or even the goodness of those desires (147-148)

12. Meditation on the Divine Will • September, 1862, as Lincoln wrestled with abolition question • Purely private, never meant to be read • “The will of God prevails.” • NOT saying that the will of God is a thing that prevails, or that his will always overcomes the obstacles in its way • The will of God is that which prevails, which is to say that all that is is the direct result of God’s having willed it. • The inscrutable mind of God wills absolutely everything that should occur in history, for the good or ill of humans yet always in a perfect condition of divine justice. (151)

13. Meditation on the Divine Will • “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something altogether different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. • I am almost ready to say that this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”

14. Election of 1864 • Lincoln, McClellan, Fremont • Sherman on September 2 captured Atlanta and Grant contained Lee and his forces within the vicinity of Richmond. As Sherman set off on his March to the Sea, promising to “make Georgia howl,” the war suddenly appeared to be entering its final act. • The churches became engines of mobilization in the 1864 campaign, forming Union-Republican clubs and providing recruiters, organizers, and the resources of their associated aid agencies in what one commentator has described as arguably “the most complete fusing of religious crusade and political mobilization in America’s electoral experience. • Social cohesion and mobilization • Meaning and narrative • Civil religious language marks Lincoln as ‘one of us’ (164-167)

15. Civil Religion in the Grand Army of the Republic • Pennsylvania officer, 1863, “Every day I have a more religious feeling, that this war is a crusade for the good of mankind… I [cannot] bear to think of what my children would be if we were to permit this hell-begotten conspiracy to destroy this country” • A private, 6th Wisconsin battery of Sherman’s army: “In the evening a general discussion took place on ‘the nigger question,’ politics, etc. All agree on ‘Old Abe’ for president.” • After the election, in which the battery voted 75-0 for Lincoln, the same soldier wrote home thanking God that “the sin of slavery” would soon be gone, and said that “I can cheerfully bear all the discomforts of a soldier’s life for the overthrow of the monster evil.” • Quaker naval officer: “slavery is such a horrible blot on civilization, that I am convinced that the war will exterminate it and its supporters, and that it was brought about for that purpose by God.”

16. Civil Religion in the Grand Army of the Republic • Lieutenant in 59th Illinois, May 1863: “it is astonishing how things has changed in reference to freeing the Negros… It allwais has been plane to me that this rase must be freed befor god would recognise us… We bost of liberty and we should try to impart it to others… Thank god the chanes will soon be bursted… now I belive we are on gods side… now I can fight with a good heart.” • Lieutenant, 5th Iowa,1863: “the hand of God is in this, and that in spite of victories and advantages he will deny us Peace until we grant to others the liberties we ask for ourselves... and sweep every vestige of this cursed institution from our land.” • 5% Union soldiers KIA, 17% in McPherson’s sample • Civil religion to motivate higher levels of combat compliance (167-169)

17. Confederate Civil Religion • After the Confederate victory at Manassas, a Methodist minister at Yorkeville, SC proclaimed that God had surely marked the South as “the highest culmination of Christian civilization,” while the Texas Christian Advocate expressed gratitude that “the Southern people have been chosen as the witness and instrument of the triumph” of the providential plan. • John Adger, editor of the Southern Presbyterian Review: “a cruel, unjust, and wicked war of invasion upon free States … urged on, in great part, by infidel fanaticism.” The Southern error, he said, was to think “that God must surely bless the right.” God had allowed “the overthrow of that just cause” in order to “make evident… the direct hand of the Almighty. • Why less of a role for civil religion? • Secession definitionally rejected the strong sense of collective and national identity. American civil religion a tradition of national ideals & identity • Relative religious diversity of Democrats • Since Jackson, Democrats had striven to reduce government power in what they considered to be private spheres of life, including religion, morality, and economy. (fn. 49, 169-170)

18. Second Inaugural • Powerlessness of human effort • Spiritual equality  political humility, forgiveness • Moral preconditions for democracy • Spiritual unity of the US • Critical position on self, politics, the war • March 4, 1865

19. Second Inaugural • 4 years before, there was cause for extended remark. “Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the nation, little that is new could be presented.” • The binding power of history over the present • “The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.” • The present is uncertain, the future utterly opaque • The limits on human action

20. Second Inaugural • “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”

21. Second Inaugural • ‘All’ or ‘both’ said four times: emphasis on fundamental national unity • Passive voice: ‘While the inaugural address was being delivered’ • War emphasized, it is inevitable: ‘war’ said 7 times (9 if you count ‘it’)

22. Second Inaugural • ‘And the war came.’ • abolitionist Wendell Phillips, January 8, 1852: “Revolutions are not made; they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.” • But for Lincoln there is nothing natural here. It comes like lightning out of the sky.

23. Second Inaugural • “All knew that this [slave] interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.” • Slavery the war’s cause • South more responsible • But the plans of all have failed: • “Neither party expected for the war the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.”

24. Second Inaugural • Neither/neither/each: the sections are joined in their failure • Lincoln includes himself in this failure: his plans have had results that he never predicted • The results are ‘fundamental’, astounding. The US has been transformed. • Though he led, he was not in control any more than anyone else

25. Second Inaugural • “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not that we not be judged” • Shift to the present, here and now • Again, emphasis on unity • Genesis 3:23 “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” • The curse of God for disobedience • Slaveowners disobey God’s will

26. Second Inaugural • Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that ye be not judged” • From Sermon on the Mount • Suggests both the mercy and judgment of God • While the South bears more responsibility, the North is not without flaw. Universality of sin means that a people should always first criticize themselves. • Equality and forgiveness

27. Second Inaugural • “The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.” • God the major actor in the drama of the war • Both sides could not win • Neither side has truly gotten what it wanted • God’s will over all history, distinct from human plans and desires • Humans rendered equal in this way

28. Second Inaugural • ‘Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’ • Matt. 18:7 • God’s will controls history, nothing can go against the will of God. • Yet individuals remain responsible for their sins

29. Second Inaugural • “If we shall suppose that American Slavery is once of those offences which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?”

30. Second Inaugural • “American” Slavery was • An offence to God • Allowed by God • Willed by God to end now • North and South equally guilty before God, though not before humans • Divine justice vs. human justice • Perfection a dichotomous variable

31. Second Inaugural • “Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” • Humans can do nothing to alter God’s will. They must humble themselves and pray that God’s mercy is greater than his justice • Distilling moral & religious meaning from the bewildering events and destruction of the War • Shared moral community of Americans • Both guilty in their shared failure to uphold equality • Both powerless to resist the will of God • Transcendence of God • Not some tribal deity • His justice and purposes are very much different from those of humans.

32. Second Inaugural • “Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”

33. Second Inaugural • The US is guilty enough to deserve destruction • Slavery a mortal transgression against American obligation to equality • Affirms the perfection of divine justice over human claims to justice • Though the justice of God is inscrutable, it is nonetheless perfectly just • “three thousand years ago”: these ideas predate the US, & may outlast them by as much • Just as the war is not the product of human agency, neither will be its end

34. Second Inaugural • The judgments of the Lord • Psalm 19 • Lincoln must somehow act ethically • within a context beyond his comprehension • with outcomes that are impossible to firmly predict • and be judged by the inscrutable mind of God according to standards that he cannot fully understand •  humility as political good

35. Second Inaugural • “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in” • Forgiveness motivated by recognition of moral equality • Act firmly in the right, as God gives us to see it • Moral conviction & moral humility

36. Second Inaugural • “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” • Atonement between North & South • Atonement between America & its God • Political humility: don’t strive for utopia, strive for a better world • Equality demonstrated in a commitment to alleviated suffering • Care for widows & orphans a condition of minimal justice in the Bible

37. Second Inaugural • March 15, 1865 • “Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world.” • If God is always on your side, is he really there? • “It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever there is of humiliation there is in it, falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it.” • Why does the humiliation fall most directly on him?

38. Lincoln’s assassination six weeks after 2nd Inaugural • almost from the time that it was given, the Second Inaugural has been regarded within a narrative of martyrdom and national redemption. Narrative shaped by the content of his civil religious speech, and pre-existing martyrdom narrative within the abolitionist movement • Death on Good Friday, less than a week after Lee’s surrender, made analogies between Christ and the president unavoidable • Easter sermon, pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Troy, New York: “We, as a people, feel more than all others that we are bereaved. We had learned to love Mr. Lincoln… We looked up to him as our savior, our deliverer.” • Easter sermon, Rhode Island Congregational minister Leonard Swain: “one man has died for the people, in order that the whole nation might not perish,” Jesus & Gettysburg Address • America redeemed, cleansed, reborn unified • Whitman: “battles, martyrs, blood even assassination, should so condense— perhaps only really, lastingly condense—a Nationality” (188-190)