Lincoln and religion

[Rob Wick]

So, with the news that a new book on Lincoln and religion will soon be available, i would like to get member's opinions on where they place Lincoln in terms of his religious belief. Of course, Mary Todd Lincoln told William Herndon that Lincoln was not a technical Christian, but toward the end of his life, there can be no doubt that Lincoln was very spiritual, if not overly religious.

In full disclosure, I approach this with a worldview on my own part of agnosticism bordering on outright atheism. That said, I've never accepted that Lincoln was an outright atheist himself. There certainly is enough evidence to suggest that he was a skeptic in his early years, but I'm not sure that he fits the pattern of someone who doesn't accept that God exists. In my progression from skeptic to disbelief, I went through several different stages that at any point could have gone either way, and I imagine Lincoln's progression was much the same.

Once, during a presentation at the Conference on Illinois History on Lincoln and religion, I asked the presenter to ponder just what Lincoln's view of religion would have been if he had never been elected president and had died in his bed as an old man. The presenter could only say that such a question would be speculative and therefore he couldn't answer it. So I will. I sincerely believe that had Lincoln never been elected president, and had he not oversaw the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, I believe he would not have been as spiritual as he became, but I still don't believe he would have embraced outright atheism, although it would have been interesting to know what Lincoln thought of Robert Ingersoll, who will be the subject of a biography by Susan Jacoby in January 2013.

Best
Rob