Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in LaRue County, Kentucky, where the members of the Lincoln family were greatly respected. They remained active in the Separate Baptist Church. After the family relocated to Spencer County in Indiana, they attended the Little Pigeon Baptist Church, once again becoming pillars in the church community. According to an October 31, 1921, New York Times article, dateline Lincoln City, Ind., Oct. 30, the Assistant Attorney General Thomas B. McGregor of the State of Kentucky offered records showing that the Lincolns were Baptists.
Presbyterian in Illinois and Washington, D.C.
The NYT article also indicates that there are no records showing that the Lincolns continued their Baptist affiliation after they relocated to Illinois, but they did attend the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Illinois.
According to Mark A. Noll, Abraham Lincoln likely became disenchanted with organized religion in New Salem, Illinois, where he might have witnessed infighting and hypocrisy among the church community.
Pastor Phineas D. Gurley
After his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln and his family regularly attended The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., where the president met the highly accomplished pastor, Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, who became a spiritual mentor to the president.
Lincoln also attended the mid-week prayer meeting held at the church, where he and Gurley discussed the Bible and Christianity. As the president wrestled with spiritual issues including God’s purpose in allowing the chaos of war, he turned to Gurley for guidance.
Gurley conveyed to the president his understanding that God achieves His divine purpose through the evil as well as through the righteous, and that ultimately faith is man’s greatest accomplishment while trying to decipher the mystery of God.
Lincoln even consulted Gurley when he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, yet most historians have given short shrift to Gurley’s influence on Lincoln.
Gurley’s Spiritual Guidance
Gurley offered spiritual guidance and comfort to the family during Lincoln’s presidency. About Gurley, Lincoln remarked, “I like Gurley . . . when I go to church, I like to hear the Gospel.” In 1862, Pastor Gurley officiated at the funeral of the Lincolns’ son, William. On April 15, 1865, Gurley led the final prayer service after Lincoln’s assassination.
Gurley escorted Lincoln’s body to Illinois in the funeral train that followed the 1861 route taken by Lincoln from Springfield, IL, to Washington, DC. Pastor Gurley officiated at the White House funeral service.
Abraham Lincoln’s Spirituality in Speeches
Ultimately, an individual’s spirituality is not dependent on church membership and attendance. While those activities can enhance one’s spiritual life, they can never cause it and certainly can never be the primary force behind the soul’s spiritual awakening.
For President Lincoln, his early involvement with the Baptists and Presbyterians in his native Kentucky, his later home state of Indiana, and his further relocation to Illinois set a tone and direction for his later spiritual growth. His relationship with Pastor Gurley further influenced his development.
That Abraham Lincoln was guided by an inner spiritually strong faith is evident in his speeches. In his Second Inaugural Address, regarding the issue of which side in the war between the North and South was right with God, he averred, “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 to 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 be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”
Lincoln invokes scripture to resolve the strangeness of the issue of one child of God asking for God’s aid at the expense of another child of God, and he finally leaves those “purposes” to “the Almighty,” a reflection of the counsel garnered from his consultations with Pastor Gurley.
Most Famous Speech: The Gettysburg Address
In possibly the most famous speech ever delivered, The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s spirituality shines through in every line. Specifically, the last line offers evidence of the speaker’s attunement with his spiritual nature: “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 gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
The key terms in this one sentence reveal the deep spiritual significance of this address: dedicated, honored, devotion, nation under God. The optimism of this speech comes from a deep abiding spiritual force. The nation was locked in a bitter struggle with its very existence at stake. Yet this president had the courage, insight, and faith to utter these uplifting and inspiring words.
On the Lord’s Side
A widespread anecdote offers a further reminder of Lincoln’s spiritual nature. Writing in Six Months in the White House with Abraham Lincoln,two years after Lincoln’s death, Francis B. Carpenter reported that to a clergyman who told Lincoln that he hoped the Lord was on our side, the president responded, "I am not at all concerned about that; for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."
Sources
- New York Times, Says Record Shows Lincoln as Baptist,October 31, 1921.
- Mark A. Noll, The Religious Affiliation of President Abraham Lincoln, Religious Affiliation of History's 100 Most Influential People.
- New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Lincoln, NYAPC, and the Civil War.
- Mr. Lincoln and Friends, Phineas D. Gurley.
- Bartleby.com, Second Inaugural Address.
- American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, The Gettysburg Address.
- Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months in the White House with Abraham Lincoln, Hurd and Houghton, 1867
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
Join the Conversation