A Word on Words; 4133; Stephen Mansfield

and now from nashville public television's stood in the way of celebrating authors literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs singing follow welcome once again to word on words my guest today is a new york times bestselling author while a generation's most respected voices on religion and culture stephen mansfield first came to national attention with the faith of george w bush which led within the source for all the stones acclaimed film w stephen wrote the face of the american soldier after being embedded with us troops in iraq is here recently to talk about modernizing america and today we're going to talk about lincoln's battle with god examines one of the most beloved presidents his strong understand god his purposes in the civil war stephen welcome by great to have you you know abraham lincoln in the movie and so i'm boiling something that

everybody's attention and on he's but you know he is religious life doesn't really a margin that you get the sense from the movie that this was while the toughest politicians who've ever served you two wheeler and dealer becomes a moment when he says get me the votes that's where the thirteenth amendment bought i went to that i learned a lot from that movie i thought i knew everything there was to know call center on end now you come along and kill me a lot of violence that the movie didn't and that nobody has really dealt with him do before i knew of course that he had been accused of being a day is tuesday agnostic years to being an atheist by his enemies in politics but i never paid much attention through how much truth there was so that i thought well no

you go to church on sunday and so you know you took the rap levitated you reinvent locally he was an absolute mess skeptic with regard with regard to the divinity of christ with regard to europe goes soft minded and very open about it that's what made you end of this book i was intrigued by the gap between the way historically written what was awful scene on the page you read for the first and second inaugural address you read his own scribbling is his meditations on the vine will that weighs on the presidency this is a man who's grappling with the hot and yet most scholarly treatments for businesses they are or treat it as his political coding and and then of course the other extreme is your shore of the lake religious extremists attack make young america's most religious president or most christian or morse

buddhist or hindu were where whoever's writing its they see people seem to remake him in their image and the opposite is a progression of some sort is not what he was but what they've become that was the question i wanted to answer and i was just i just want to find the truth and i as i got into it i found the journey was the issue of a salary or some sort of modern contemporary the way we talk these days but you can't really nail lincoln down as having achieved a destination because the assassin's bullet cut that journey short but he definitely progressed beyond his atheist youth and became i think legitimately what we see in the second inaugural address which is a man who as who has made peace with the big the judgments of god and sort of a biblical sensible that journey is fascinating to me what what happened out of that come about and that's why one directed by you know i get a sense first thought you know make a huge secret about it that that is follow

a pretty hardcore and other religious tone and yet the common than stephen both were devout believers but affected she does early hit him hard the fact that his father is such a hard rock religion those turns him off and i don't have any sense that there is any belief there the case as you present the story and i'm sure i actually don't have any sense that there is any real belief there and beyond that he can be skeptical and and i love satirical us about it yes and he's very open about us to open probably serve average only reason for politics or the strike what would have been the thing that is wonderful about lincoln is also what gets him in trouble this great experience of education that will celebrate the rebbe reading by

firelight they be consuming volumes the walking for miles well as us it covers of education america where we were restored rates have been without it at the same time you don't have the conflicting views you don't have scholarship you don't have a debate so he swallowed whole thomas paine and edward given decline falling slowly and all of these religious skeptics once he began anybody hadn't had a little motivation they didn't like his father and his father was very much roiled an overheated revivals of the frontier so he rejected all of that ended sort of basic kind of thomas paine sort of skepticism well later he would come back around with somebody equally intellectual and yet a traditional christian would answer those concerns but he will provide a decade especially the more the new salem years of his life when he was known as the village atheist so when you come to the editor is funneling and in the size of the continental congress it's inevitable that he's going to hit us other delays

all over his public statements is that ho that at least an agnostic probably anything and he gets hit with this now i thought his statement made him during that campaign oh i would say it's the songs it is hot hot hot as well that is not what i would say is on his blog it's clear that he understand the political reality of where he has to go fast and and then you know he's running against a fellow who is himself pretty hard rock critic because it is right out of a concert or an end and end lincoln's response to own doesn't really labeling as a lawyer was simply says you know don't misunderstand me you know i understand the scriptures and then down he'll lead you to believe he believes that

he writes it's the one place in the book where set the cup caught like analyze it said he's in your earlier on he became such a skeptic as you recall he actually wrote a little blue booklet on skype skepticism so taking on jesus and then his friend grab it burned it out on a well but by the time we come down to an issue of the perry speaking of the issues what to call hand the bill this was political and he just simply says i have never criticize the christian religion i had never criticize the nomination well no wait that's you add do politicians bands at that moment but a cause was somewhat good and he was running against a man who really was bashing him about well it was that's exactly right and he did what he had to do then there comes the next moment this is as i read your candidate becomes the next moment you know he's he's he's worried about the child's calendar you know and very interesting

progression of disease he leaves congress his father in law has passed away he's up his father was dead his techie taking care of that all the probate issues and he answered his father was like read and read really wonderful book on christian apologize of it and get one over on the stamp on whether you're christian or not it still comes from a good solid intellectual attend to have caught in brooklyn but the detail that he'd never been exposed to some of the lead goes back and that they are about what happens to be from springfield where lincoln as he knows the man just annoyed written a book it's a cup of the boat gets to the man that his four year old son goes into a fifty two a day illness and which ultimately does and lincoln you know we we don't underestimate the fact that lincoln battled depression all of his life and his serious depression and you point that out very well as to suicide aires and talks about the findings in their lot of angelenos hs and the major us internet and against every time he felt that there was so much to it so i was haunted by the thought of rain falling on raids all of my life and it's a bet that that's attempted

so he knows he's about three percent of the darkness he's raised before with the death of their son and that's when this reverend smith who had written this book called that the christians the feds stepped in the elegant answer skepticism but also open to his grace sure and the fact that the fact that he has written the book and the owners and they will ask as a sensory petrides reliant on you wonder though he had been so strong in one way and now suddenly indiana is the second thoughts and third roads until gradually you get a sense that is not the reverend smith tried are trying to convert them in this says here i am and here's what i believe and here's my experience in and in some ways you know that experience was not unlike his journey was not unlike the jury lincoln was going through his right that's exactly right and i think what's also important is that lincoln had come off the frontier

and villages were more intellectual people thought that but it wasn't rounded you know you're gonna hear both views you were going to have a debate you had a book group and everybody agreed about what was being said and so it the sale and there were a lot of religious skeptics over were told by herndon who all sat around part of the ceremony his friend says dr porter its own growth is the most was by robert mcteer afterwards and and he says they just that's all the talk about spain and then those sorts of our lives says religiously skeptical books will then he moves into springfield ways and a larger intellectual environment the ministers are better world a better trained it was running for the legislature are people with theological degrees so now it's beginning to have that religious skepticism countered and begins to have questions plus he's also gone to congress and to people of a different stripe they're so all of that brings him to the kind of moment it's always attorney moment for abraham lincoln and that's a death and grief it's always a moment of turning for him but this is the big one this is the one that turns him from pretty much acknowledged her agnostic a religious skeptic

to a man in pursuit of god in sum it up partly from that moment on eating fifty death with the death of a son from that woman and he is he has accepted the existence of a god now he's trying to figure out what kind of god and what that means for the rest of the country as we get into the cell in some ways it's a silent journey is not a poacher except that his encounters with reverend smith are not secret writing and the and you know i couldn't tell after he dies it's as if everybody was not approved he was a believer this wonderful state and they're from a woman who is a friend of his in which you just says well i know he was really let me tell you what he said about the scriptures everything we said about jesus now i don't know how much of that is hurting its invention or how much

of that is grounded in fact clearly christians wanted to embrace and they wanted to make it appear that he had embraced this is the problem is much of what we think we know about lincoln is remembered decades later though the code that you're mentioning art history almost two after three pages long and this woman says iraq i remember when i smoked a related twenty years ago and that it uses three pages for well maybe it's really decide it's it's hard to know you have to pull it all all of them some of them most famous stories about lincoln come decades later from a ninety seven year old man who was there so five minutes like this moment is at the best source because he was closer to an end yet on religion for those of us who study lincoln's religion even heard later said well i probably overdid it that's exactly what it into wedges the step they say you have to be careful about all stages i wonder whether herndon is trying to do the same thing that i think she might have tried to do you gotta make him appear to be more of a believer then he actually was at that early time i actually went

to the way he was actually angry about that so when you were painting him as christ tried and later he says now that he didn't go to church and he did this on that towards immigrants life was up again needing to get into character assassination lot of stories that will turn it was a hard drinker and me on our alliances storytelling so on so so it's it's hard sometimes to get a job when you take the total consensus of what you hear from all the friends and people at different times is likely beginning it though the view that lincoln was a space that atheist at one point and at least at the south and then he ends up again i'd have the point where i like to think it is the second inaugural address which is the great american sentiment political sermon and you have to justify that journey somehow you have to unless you just don't make it crass politics of it are mandatory won a second term his son's moving their deal the country you have to conclude that the second hour of just him window dressing with religion and i don't think that that i think it's sincere or something to fill the gap between the atheist days and the second inaugural and that's

what allows you just joining me i'm talking to humans feel about his latest book in lincoln's battle with god and it was about oh it was it was not just been a journey he was at war with himself isn't so his animus toward the church of one other things attached about lincoln's journey is the journey it says forever the jury that i see amongst the young today what god did they want religion of some kind that want spiritual empowering they're not real happy about churches and pastors and what they call organized religion or that was very much linking he had watch churches blowup over dancing you watched her to walk over drinking he had watched her to law over liturgy he was fed up with all that and even turned off to his father's revival with the religion so he wanted faith are from the institution and you just kind of couldn't do it in that day and i'm president you know yeah and it's not so i went to the appendix and i read the book and lamb and i've gone through

the war with him and i know the port he has been a known while he was an absolute skeptic amanda it was a non believer russia's annoyance only it's almost a satirical tone when he talks about the scriptures early autumn it's not till i get to the end no one that you get to the employee appendix and again again again you come up with the first inaugural god's their second inaugural how god is really their own big on the emancipation proclamation and god is there his thanksgiving proclamation brought is their bunks and then the proclamation appoint a national forest i mean i have you know it's sad it's quite clear that there was a transformation i think so i think i think the most profound transformation is between the first

and the second inaugural address and when they conversed and the officer won the first in the first and only simply mention this reliance on the almighty well right it is a bit more traditional bow type of a certain long as you're saying it's trying some things change i mean the first inaugural it's interesting because he he studied technologies gabi still believes events are human hands he says into your hands my departed letters i think that phrase is so powerful he spent essentially saying man can decide this thing it's not too late for years later we know the union could hardly buy victory you know nothing with the way lincoln wanted to the sweat hours in the navy telegraph office hoping for good news here generals would lose battles because he didn't cross rivers before sundown you know insane and so finally realize this this war and this is of course what is a great meditation on the decline will as this war is not in human hands god has visited this war upon the nation for it sounds and now we must we must deal with his judgments plus a readjustment of the

largest or the second inaugural so by the second inaugural he no longer valid as human control of the earth events he believes god has visited the word judgment and we need to acknowledge that and he'll the country lined up the nation's wounds it is a profound transformation for years and it comes because of the absolute bludgeoning of his own soul through the civil war the unholy usual inspiration we don't think about him and spiritual experience has a point we talk about emancipation you get the sense well maybe we all have some superficial understanding what a woody was about that i always look for nothing about religion one where i always thought you know is a fellow who he knows that you know slavery and he knows that he's got to find a way to let's play

you know frederick douglass comes to say and the douglas for gives his opinion about the men but you know what you come away with is a real lincoln knew slavery was one of the emancipation proclamation was the very least he could do they have had a lot of money on it was a law just thought it was in some ways in some ways it was not absolute emancipation for all black people know it was over the war powers act was only so much he could do that's why the big push for thirty the memos of course you know you take your booklet lincoln's battle with god and you know there's a spiritual force at work here yes there was a question about his sights on something that i'm just imagining gideon wells and some injuries both are sitting in the cabinet room yet both taking notes are these are summer mostly about a quarter of the generation lincoln walks in and says i've been discussing with you this idea of

inspiration but i made a covenant with god we won some strategic metals until god we did it i'm going to do exactly and the song says i cut a deal with god and then that if he gave his victory right i'm going to give them inspiration it's a little seventies was a tradition that we heard you write you said that you don't and repeated and both men write down both versions services well documented things in his administration and the new issues it always trying to do is remove what's the summer not slavery to get caught not to be mad anymore and that's really what he's trying to trying to appease the divine raft on the issue of slavery so the guy with his hand a judgment that's literally what he's trying to reason it is almost a prophetic priestly role in a sense is some would say trying to do with god in this matter he knows it isn't free all the slaves he can do a lot of the wars about the deep freeze some of them maybe go out with his hands to his fantasies and that that's about the re interpretation of the concentration this paper

found but it's right there in the cab and notes written by men who have to talk about it or research that you know i landed you begin with a sense of where he began you know i did what i did was i decided i'd read so much over the years and has always been an investor with another side of springfield and ayesha decide to sit down with the senior scholar stare and i said i'm glad it's something i've never done before i'm going to write this book i'm going to dig in deeper help me i'm not writing about these issues i want you so how we go deeper and they and they were they really didn't i brought in some quarters about i don't wanna wanna site one quote that says one of these areas angrily substantiation for colored we spent our they spent hours with me and that and then i went away i read i read i read my travel that arm and that's what allowed to maybe get beyond the surface for some folks are beyond what some folks do when it comes to the issue of

religion isn't a lot of easy quote a lot of things that had the sort of boil to the surface our culture which you have to go you have to drill down a little further you have to get what his friends of certainty that the reflections of people but on the political debate it's not quite as easy as you think you might thank you where a person is religious leanings given moments in it is not like we have a five point scale to really unusual in today have a bland the league it was a very smart man he was reading a lot of things he read a great deal and physics and have theories and all that was mixed so you have to just let him speak and not try to make him one of angelic or make him an atheist or make anyone think and so i've i think i've read maybe older more wisely not because i'm wiser but because the scholars the second of the second inaugural again if you read his son of that first statement in the congressional race well you know he's really rings question

yeah absolutely no question un and then you come to those that whole list of our own documents in the bonuses and you get the first inaugural anything well the mention is there he really changed our is you playing games isn't just protecting himself politically in those that dangerous it is politically right oh but on sunday it's a second inaugural you know and those are so minor and he saw these all wrapped up in it i mean he has made a religious transformation a legacy question afterwards after the second inaugural he said to a friend i this will not be a very popular speech friends of what he said because people do not like being shown the difference between god's purposes and there's their mind to the second inaugural is our third the length of the first inaugural it but i don't think it has any two hardly any to sue

words very simple very pure lot of citations richer and lincoln and to say he doesn't care would be overstatement but he wants to get up say what he has to say and step down he does he is expected to be puppies not to say we want you know and celebrate and dance on south korea so to speak and he is short direct firm and he sits down and i that doesn't some political to me it sounds like a man with a message that birding is hard here loads of he sits down on the he got rich for that for that spin the press just took him apart and you knew they would so none of this sounds like a politician playing for his legacy or using religion as window dressing in steady ish he throws hard and fast and the day he steps off the stage of course is dead within months i think the second inaugural has to be a given that lincoln wrote his own speeches i think it has to be the definitive statement of whirling consultant you know everybody talks about gettysburg address and you can see him sitting there knowing inevitability of this with the declamation to have our interview i

sit on a model and an end and gets up again and go it's unclear but the fact that he's there to yes yes in fact that on this and this is this is the company's culture of us on the trip but but there is a fairly substantially well substantiated story they stay up at night he was wrestling some sentence wasn't quite right he couldn't quite get it right and it was that he had not said under got two wars under id id say that the cells without under god that sounds like the kind of things this kind of statements toward people have a lot on that just happens to be true as best we can sell and it comes at a time when we know he has made a turn and that's right there had been the big transformation isn't plays yes he's come from nowhere to somewhere but we have a culture that i come very much from sort of billy graham conversion moment of turning culture at the altar and we're so we want we want the event may we want them at the altar we want the moment of turning just you just search for in vain of lincoln's life there's not the one moment and as we know in our own culture enough there's often not the one

moment people make transitions they make journeys i can't find the altar experience with lincoln which you definitely see the change and i think that's the power of the story well thanks for coming back on what's the next book i'm working on a book on men all these books out there in the culture about what use are men in nome man are passing from the scene all mary price on our graph that a little bit welcome back thanks so much to spend with boys joining me today and i think all of you for joining us and johnson and all over world words the breeding season