ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE PULPIT: 4/8 Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union Hardcover – by Richard Carwardine (Author)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE PULPIT: 
4/8  Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln's Union Hardcover – by  Richard Carwardine (Author)

1860

The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln’s contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism

How did slavery figure in God’s plan? Was it the providential role of government to abolish this sin and build a righteous nation? Or did such a mission amount to “religious tyranny” and “pulpit politics,” in an effort to strip the southern states of their God-given rights? In 1861, in an already fracturing nation, the tensions surrounding this moral quandary cracked the United States in half, and even formed rifts within the North itself, where anti slavery religious nationalists butted heads with conservative religious nationalists over their visions for America’s future.

At the center of this melee stood Abraham Lincoln, who would turn to his own faith for guidance, proclaiming more days of national fasting and thanksgiving than any other president before or since.These pauses for spiritual reflection provided the inspirational rhetoric and ideological fuel that sustained the war.