Lincoln's Battle with God: A President's Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America
4/5
()
About this ebook
Join New York Times bestselling author Stephen Mansfield as he dives into the incredible story of Abraham Lincoln's spiritual life and draws from it a deeper meaning that's sure to inspire us all.
Abraham Lincoln is, undoubtedly, among the most beloved of all U.S. presidents. He helped to abolish slavery, gave the world some of its most memorable speeches, and redefined the meaning of America. He did all of this with endless wisdom, compassion, and wit. Yet, throughout his life, Lincoln fought with God.
In his early years in Illinois, he rejected even the existence of God and became the village atheist. In time, this changed but still, he wrestled with the truth of the Bible, preachers, doctrines, the will of God, the providence of God, and then, finally, God's purposes in the Civil War. Still, on the day he was shot, Lincoln said he longed to go to Jerusalem to walk in the Savior's steps.
In this thrilling journey through a largely unknown part of American history, Mansfield traces Lincoln's exploring:
- Lincoln's lifelong spiritual journey
- The ways that Lincoln's faith shaped his presidency and beyond
- How Lincoln's struggle with faith can inspire modern believers
Let Lincoln's Battle with God show you Lincoln's life and legacy in a brand new light.
Stephen Mansfield
Stephen Mansfield is the New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln's Battle with God, The Faith of Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, Searching for God and Guinness, and Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Beverly.
Read more from Stephen Mansfield
The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paul Harvey's America: The Life, Art, and Faith of a Man Who Transformed Radio and Inspired a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faith of Barack Obama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Where Has Oprah Taken Us?: The Religious Influence of the World's Most Famous Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building Your Band of Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Healing Your Church Hurt: What To Do When You Still Love God But Have Been Wounded by His People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten Signs of a Leadership Crash Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeishas and the Floating World: Inside Tokyo's Yoshiwara Pleasure District Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Character and Greatness of Winston Churchill: Hero in a Time of Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJapanese Stone Gardens: Origins, Meaning, Form Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tokyo: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Japanese Gardens: The Best Gardens to Visit in Japan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings100 Tokyo Sights: Discover Tokyo's Hidden Gems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Lincoln's Battle with God
Related ebooks
Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage: Stories of Our Most Admired President Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51864: Lincoln at the Gates of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Family Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Final Word: Holding Tight to the Issues that Matter Most Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Martin Van Buren Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSamuel Adams: A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Tyler, the Accidental President Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Edition: Redeemer President Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reagan: The Inside Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln and the Fight for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coolidge: An American Enigma Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bonhoeffer Abridged: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Indispensable Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Biographies For You
Slash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nelson Mandela Biography: The Long Walk to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Enough Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gathering Storm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watergate: A New History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letter to a Bigot: Dead But Not Forgotten Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Lincoln's Battle with God
23 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5According to the author, Abraham Lincoln's father and mother (Thomas and Nancy) were members of a strict strain of the Baptist church, sometimes spoken of as “Hard Shell Baptists,” known for its primitiveness and belief in predestination. As Lincoln became a young man, living on his own in New Salem and Springfield, Illinois (1831-1840s), he reacted negatively toward established Christian institutions and the Bible as God's word. As Lincoln matured, married, fathered children, and experienced personal tragedies, he gradually fostered an approving attitude toward Christ and his church, although he never “joined” a church.I believe the author deserves an “A for Effort” in his attempt to describe Lincoln's religious influences through the various stages of his life up to its end. He cites numerous primary and secondary sources to document his claims.The author attempts to describe a potential influence that revivals associated with Barton W. Stone (pp. 18-24) may have had on Lincoln's parents when they lived in Kentucky, but it is really a guess. Stone, while a Presbyterian at the time of his famous Cane Ridge Revival in 1801, was struggling with the doctrine of predestination that the author maintains the Lincolns believed. After 1804, Stone was to be associated with the Christian Church or Church of Christ, and the Lincolns remained Baptists.The book is enhanced by a number of photos. The appendix includes copies of a number of famous speeches by Lincoln. There is a bibliography but no index.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every once in a while I pick up a non-fiction book that I can read without having to read something else after every chapter. This book was one of them. I felt no need to read another book at the same time.Learning how Lincoln went form an atheist to a believer in a short time, but on his own, was an experience. He was a tremendous man.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln's Battle with God follows the spiritual life of Lincoln from his earliest days to his death and the slow growth from being agnostic, if not out and out atheist to becoming a God-believing man. He never joined an organized church, but had close ties with several churchmen who were influential in his growth and development as a Christian. Much is repetitive, but the writing is clear and the book follows a chronologic time pattern. 3.5 stars
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The common perception of Abraham Lincoln is that he was a man whose lifelong, deeply held Christian faith gave him the courage to prosecute a long and bloody war to right one of mankind’s greatest wrongs: slavery. The facts, however, tell a different story about Lincoln’s long journey, a journey that, although it ultimately may have arrived at the same destination, involved numerous sidetracks and obstacles along the way.As Stephen Mansfield notes in Lincoln’s Battle with God (A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America):“He was a complicated soul, an innovative mind, and an oppressed spirit. He was raw and earthy and poetic. He could be ambitious and enraged and cold… We can hope to understand. Yet never can we confine him; never can we seek to make him conform.”Abraham Lincoln is, after all, a man who sporadically attended church services but never officially joined a church. During his presidency, he often spoke of God and made Biblical references in his public addresses, but almost never mentioned Jesus Christ directly. Many of the people of New Salem, Illinois, those who knew Lincoln longest and best, remained skeptical about his supposed Christian faith right up to the moment of his death. And because Lincoln was such a vocal anti-Christianity advocate when they knew him, who can blame them? Lincoln simply could not keep his personal convictions private – he never missed an opportunity to ridicule a preacher or to express his religious doubts (privately or publicly) to the more pious of his acquaintances. Citing an old Winston Churchill saying that, “a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject,” Mansfield stresses just how obsessed Lincoln was about debunking organized religion. His resulting anti-religion reputation cost Lincoln many a vote during his political life when preachers specifically asked their congregations to vote for his political opponents.But Lincoln was a tortured soul from the beginning, and his journey would be a long one. His mother died when he was nine years old, leaving the boy in the care (if you can call it that) of a wandering, but demanding father who saw his son more as slave labor than as a member of his family. And it did not help that Mr. Lincoln was a Christian of the most hypocritical sort, helping to nip the boy’s budding faith in the bud. Through the years, Lincoln would lose others close to him, including two young sons, and would suffer from regular (and sometimes near suicidal) bouts with depression. And just when America was most severely tested, Lincoln was forced by his incompetent Generals to redefine the presidential role of Commander-in-Chief, a role for which he was not prepared. By war’s end, Lincoln had come to believe that God was playing a direct role in what was happening on the battlefield, that the country must pay a heavy price for its past sins before God would allow the killing to stop. Although his evolutionary religious journey, almost complete, was cut short by an assassin’s bullet, the man who died in Washington was far different from the one who lived in Illinois.Lincoln’s Battle with God is an eye-opener, particularly as regards Lincoln’s days in New Salem - a reminder that the real Abraham Lincoln is no less amazing a man than the mythical one.Rated at: 4.0
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An honest look at Lincoln’s faith. He was neither as atheist as some would believe nor as Christian