The jury is still out on whether or not Abraham Lincoln was a believer. Historians have debated the very real inconsistencies of his life---the things he said publicly, the intimacies of his personal practices, and his handling of the war and the issues troubling the nation at the time, and their final assessment is a very definitive, we don't know!
It is true that he never joined a church, was not baptized, and hardly ever spoke of the Lord Jesus. From these we can certainly assume absence of personal faith. While he did speak often of God and reference the Heavenly Father in his writings, they appear to be more deistic than Christian. Still, that final judgment isn't ours and we can admire him for being a great leader for the day. If you want to enter the debate about his personal faith you can read a Christianity Today article here. It doesn't settle the argument but does raise some great questions about a person that most Americans identify as one of our greatest presidents.
Lincoln said, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is be to on God's side for God is always right."
This is profound, a fitting lesson for the Independence Day weekend, a question that lingers this very day in the chambers of the American heart, a pinpoint of accuracy in the blend of our corporate identity. Are we on God's side? Depends on who you ask, I suppose! You see, the character of our corporate identity has been diluted by the admixture of pluralistic beliefs and values. The American God of the twentieth century is a tree or polar ice cap to the extreme environmentalists, the almighty dollar to the materialists, Allah to the Muslim, Jehovah to the Jewish population, an unknown deity to the wicans, you know who to the satanists, eros to the pleasure seeker, and on down the line, the line being as long as the human imagination.
Of course, it wasn't like that among the founders, our national spiritual identity. Revisionists read the original source documents of our history through tunnel-vision lenses, refusing to let America's first citizens speak for themselves. Maybe there were an enlightened few who were deists, a few free thinkers here and there. But, they were mostly bold Christians. Their God would have been the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus. Faith was important to them. That faith was predominantly Christian. Don't let a bunch of historians with hidden agendas tell you different.
Being on God's side is a real question for pop religionists in America. Before answering, however, we need to clarify the God we're talking about. He is not a nebulous, unknown supreme being with generic characteristics and syncretized traits. He is the Lord God of the universe, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, revealed in the the sixty-six books of the Bible, and manifest most completely in the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
So, before you answer this question, be sure about the God we're talking about.
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