Comments on: Lessons from Lincoln http://www.article6blog.com/2008/04/09/lessons-from-lincoln/ Religion in the 2008 Presidential Campaign: Commentary by an Evangelical Christian and a Mormon Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:42:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: coltakashi http://www.article6blog.com/2008/04/09/lessons-from-lincoln/#comment-12529 coltakashi Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:04:38 +0000 http://www.article6blog.com/2008/04/09/lessons-from-lincoln/#comment-12529 In Lincoln's day, Huckabee's denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, was offering religious arguments supporting slavery and its members were almost entirely Democrats and supporters of secession. It is odd that part of the attack on Mitt Romney by Huckabee partisans was the claim that he and the LDS Church were racist because of the policy against black ordination that they had ended in 1978. The notion that if you or your ancestors ever once discriminated on grounds of race, you can never be forgiven for it, is rather odd, coming from people (a) whose own ancestors and church supported the institution of slavery, (b) who supported legal discrimination into the 1960s, (c) who maintained segregated churches in many locations into the 1980s, and (d) who proclaim as their main message that God can forgive even egregious sinners through the grace of Christ. Where is the forgiveness of the penitent? The Lincoln Memorial has engraved on the two interior walls the text of the Gettysburg Address, on one side, and of his Second Inaugural Address, given just a few days before his assassination, on the other. The only words most people know from the Second Inaugural are the concluding ones about "malice toeward none". Leading up to it is Lincoln's pondering about the fact that both sides in the Civil Ward invoked the blessings of God on their own cause, and his speculation that the consequences of the war for both sides were the judgment and justice of God for the terrible sin of allowing and profiting from slavery. It is a bold statement about America's accountability to God for the way it treats its inhabitants, and it echoes the many statements in the Book of Mormon that the nations in the Americas have a special duty to God to live righteously. Lincoln was a contemporary of Joseph Smith when both lived in Illinois. I do not know if he ever read the Book of Mormon as he rode his horse around the judicial circuit. But if he did, those statements in the book may have found purchase in his own pessimistic view of humanity. In Lincoln’s day, Huckabee’s denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, was offering religious arguments supporting slavery and its members were almost entirely Democrats and supporters of secession.

It is odd that part of the attack on Mitt Romney by Huckabee partisans was the claim that he and the LDS Church were racist because of the policy against black ordination that they had ended in 1978. The notion that if you or your ancestors ever once discriminated on grounds of race, you can never be forgiven for it, is rather odd, coming from people (a) whose own ancestors and church supported the institution of slavery, (b) who supported legal discrimination into the 1960s, (c) who maintained segregated churches in many locations into the 1980s, and (d) who proclaim as their main message that God can forgive even egregious sinners through the grace of Christ. Where is the forgiveness of the penitent?

The Lincoln Memorial has engraved on the two interior walls the text of the Gettysburg Address, on one side, and of his Second Inaugural Address, given just a few days before his assassination, on the other. The only words most people know from the Second Inaugural are the concluding ones about “malice toeward none”. Leading up to it is Lincoln’s pondering about the fact that both sides in the Civil Ward invoked the blessings of God on their own cause, and his speculation that the consequences of the war for both sides were the judgment and justice of God for the terrible sin of allowing and profiting from slavery. It is a bold statement about America’s accountability to God for the way it treats its inhabitants, and it echoes the many statements in the Book of Mormon that the nations in the Americas have a special duty to God to live righteously. Lincoln was a contemporary of Joseph Smith when both lived in Illinois. I do not know if he ever read the Book of Mormon as he rode his horse around the judicial circuit. But if he did, those statements in the book may have found purchase in his own pessimistic view of humanity.

]]> By: conservativeinbama http://www.article6blog.com/2008/04/09/lessons-from-lincoln/#comment-12521 conservativeinbama Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:29:59 +0000 http://www.article6blog.com/2008/04/09/lessons-from-lincoln/#comment-12521 I guess one of the things on Huckabee's list of "Getting the Constitution in line with God's Standards" would be eliminating Article VI's No Religious Test for Public Office provisions. Nixon was a Quaker, would he have been able to get nominated? I'm thinking No. I guess one of the things on Huckabee’s list of “Getting the Constitution in line with God’s Standards” would be eliminating Article VI’s No Religious Test for Public Office provisions.

Nixon was a Quaker, would he have been able to get nominated? I’m thinking No.

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