Historical Revisionism Part 2

Submitted by BB King (United States), Jan 15, 2012 at 17:33

Ianus,

What credentials do you have as a scholar for me to trust you? Your latest conduct assures me that you are not a scholar but a revisionist.

You give as an example, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address to prove his affirmation of Christianity but it proves nothing. It could very well mean that Lincoln viewed the Bible as good literature and quoted from it just as Reagan used to quote from John Winthrop and Robert F. Kennedy used to quote Shakespeare.

Now let's turn to a scholar, something which you are not. Mark A. Noll of the University of Notre Dame:

"On the other hand, Lincoln never joined a church nor ever made a clear profession of standard Christian beliefs. While he read the Bible in the White House, he was not in the habit of saying grace before meals. Lincoln's friend Jesse Fell noted that the president "seldom communicated to anyone his views" on religion, and he went on to suggest that those views were not orthodox: "on the innate depravity of man, the character and office of the great head of the Church, the Atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the performance of miracles, the nature and design of . . . future rewards and punishments . . . and many other subjects, he held opinions utterly at variance with what are usually taught in the church." It is probable that Lincoln was turned against organized Christianity by his experiences as a young man in New Salem, Illinois, where excessive emotion and bitter sectarian quarrels marked yearly camp meetings and the ministry of traveling preachers. Yet although Lincoln was not a church member, he did ponder the eternal significance of his own circumstances, a personal life marked by tragedy (the early death of two sons) and difficulty (the occasional mental instability of his wife). And he took to heart the carnage of war over which he presided."

http://www.adherents.com/people/pl/Abraham_Lincoln.html

And regarding the Second Inaugural Address you quoted to prove Lincoln's affirmation of Christianity Noll has this to say:

"The source of Lincoln's Christian perception will probably always remain a mystery, but the unusual depth of that perception none can doubt. Nowhere was that depth more visible than in his Second Inaugural Address of March 1865"

So how can you rightfully call Lincoln a Christian when Noll claims that Lincoln's Christian perception is a mystery?

If you're not interested in facts but deception please don't waste my time. Come back with scholarly material not your white-washing of my country's history.

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