Abraham Lincoln's Religion

This work is a summary and analysis of Abraham Lincoln's religion. This study begins with a description of the earliest relations Mr. Lincoln had with religion, his parents' dedication to a sect known as the ""Separate Baptists."" By late adolescence, Lincoln began to reject his parents' faith, and he appears to have been a religious skeptic until his marriage to Mary Todd. After his marriage, he attended Protestant services with his wife and family, but there was little evidence that he was deeply religious in that time. Lincoln knew the Scriptures quite well, but it was not until the death of his two sons, Eddie in 1850 and Willie in 1862, that as the sixteenth president put it, ""He became more intensely concerned with God's Plan for human kind.""
""Steve Vicchio has given us a new and unique analysis of Abraham Lincoln's religious beliefs and practices, how they affected his life and presidency, and through him the entire nation. Especially in our contemporary world, these are important and too-often neglected questions that Steve brings forcefully to life.""
--John Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006)
""One of the paradoxes of Lincoln's career is that while his rhetoric is widely acknowledged as saturated in the Bible, he rejected all specific denominations and had strong skeptical tendencies. Stephen Vicchio takes a fresh approach to this paradox by undertaking a painstaking analysis of Lincoln's speeches, reading them with the eyes of a trained theologian. As a result he provides us with a fine account of Lincoln's religion.""
--Christopher Kelly, Department of Political Science, Boston College
Stephen J. Vicchio was Professor of Philosophy at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore before retirement. He is the author or editor of two dozen books, including The Image of the Biblical Job, Biblical Figures in the Islamic Faith, and Jefferson's Religion, all published by Wipf & Stock.