What We’re Reading

Joshua Zeitz, Lincoln’s God. Abraham Lincoln’s religious beliefs are always something of an anomaly. Some people, very deceitfully and misleadingly, like to parade Lincoln was an “unbeliever,” but an unbeliever in what? Christopher Hitchens, for instance, would routinely present Lincoln (alongside Jefferson) as essentially secular statesman, this is also shared by secular and anti-Christian historians who like to endlessly remind us about Lincoln’s early skepticism and apathetic deism from his Springfield days but hardly ever talk about Lincoln’s later religious transformation. Joshua Zeitz has offered an important corrective in his new book, Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a Nation and a President, highlighting how as Lincoln got older and suffered through the tribulations of the Civil War, his religious views did change as evidenced in his writings and eye-witness testimony of close associates and political allies. Zeitz, a veteran journalist and writer for mostly left-leaning publications, perhaps shocks a secular audience when he declares Lincoln was “the first evangelical president.” What Zeitz means is that Lincoln grew to rely on Evangelical support for abolition and to preserve the Union for the Civil War; additionally, Lincoln grew to rely on evangelical sentiment like its theology of grief and comfort to make sense of his personal losses and the losses of the nation. Was Lincoln an Evangelical in the “fundamentalist” sense? No, he remained uncommitted and skeptical of technical dogmatism even as he grew nearer to evangelical pieties and found comfort and strength in reading Scripture. Nevertheless, Lincoln’s God reveals how our most important president came nearer to Christianity, especially evangelicalism, later in life and during the trial and tribulation of the Civil War. It is a great book tracking Lincoln’s evolving religious belief, and why you should be skeptical of anyone, including “historians,” who attempt to paint an only secular portrait of Lincoln’s religious faith.

~ Paul Krause

Irving Babbit, Literature and the American College: Essays in Defense of the Humanities. Republished in 1986 by the National Humanities Institute, Irving Babbitt’s Literature and the American College (1908) addresses the nature of education in the modern age. Babbitt argues that the interdisciplinary arts of humanitas teach each person to put a check on her will and her appetite. Humanism, not humanitarianism, is essential to a true education in the humanities. For Babbitt, the humanities can only be restored if we come to an understanding of true humanism, which teaches us enduring truths about our human nature. The humanities have an enduring value because they help us cultivate virtue, right reason, and the moral imagination. They have enduring value as an intellectual means to an ethical end. The humanities, furthermore, immerse students in the great texts of the past, uniting them to that “unbroken chain of literary and intellectual tradition which extends from the ancient to the modern world.” This sense of historical continuity is an essential feature of education. Babbitt’s book, written in defense of the humanities, will be helpful for many who are interested in educational and humanistic renewal. With a lengthy introduction by Russell Kirk and a brief preface by Joseph Baldacchino, this republished edition in particular deserves a larger readership.

~ Darrell Falconburg

Rodney Howard-Browne and Paul L. Williams, The Killing of Uncle Sam. My fascination with the current world around us has brought me to fixate myself down a rabbit hole of grappling, arguing, understanding, and educating myself about the current state of our American government and whether there is merit to the so-called conspiracy theories that are often dismissed and mocked by the broader public. The Killing of Uncle Sam starts with the Morgan’s, Rothchild’s, and Vanderbilt’s to state how their significant wealth and power manipulated major corporations and natural resources to be placed in their hands. Banks, the railroad, oil, medicine, and others, are all led and coordinated by these three superior families. The book then tells readers that these families did not have essential proof of corrupt involvement(s) until after the Titanic sank, causing the creation of the world bank. Switching from these families, The Killing of Uncle Sam goes year by year to highlight how presidents, senators, congressmen, and activists are altering American history by filling the public with lies. The Killing of Uncle Sam may seem to be a long stretch of theories, but the arguments and evidence that Browne and Williams provide are, at times, persuasive and upsetting if true. Our hope in America today is to find the truth in the midst of controversy from our government and its web of lies which are slowly removing each American’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

~ Sarah Tillard

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