Faith of Our Fathers
It was the first time I had stood at the Lincoln Memorial since I was a teenager. This time I was there with my grown son. It was his first time in our nation’s capitol. We both were pretty awed. I was struck by the majesty of the memorial to our 16th president and I was stunned by the majesty and grace of his words. A quote from his second inaugural address, inscripted on the wall to my right, compelled me to look up the entire speech when I returned home.
He spoke to the issue that had brought a splendid nation to the brink of ruin. His brief address was framed in the context of slavery “which all knew…was somehow the cause of the war,” he said. “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let is perish.” Neither side expected the war to be as protracted or profound as it turned out to be. Neither expected the cause of the war to end before the conflict itself. “Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding,” he continued. “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.
“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” Though the Civil War was grinding ever so slowly to a close, these words were spoken when the grip of the conflict still clutched at the throat of the nation. Half a million Americans—more than in all other wars in American history combined—had killed each other. Good and great Americans on both sides were no longer around to contribute to the re-building of a torn and wracked nation. Yet Lincoln saw in the lives of all Americans, a bent toward a common God; a confused bent at times…and misguided…that lead to divergent petitions and purposes. Though he saw slavery as evil, the striking thing about Lincoln was that he did not see those who endorsed slavery as evil.
What a different America with different leaders we have today. We live in a time of general prosperity and peace. So much ought to be accomplished in such a state, but as in Lincoln’s time, there is a compelling moral issue that is the epicenter of a great schism in this country. The abortion issue has created great enemies among us; warring sides that verbally (and otherwise) assault each other at every turn. It’s a huge issue. Yet somehow we as Christians must find God’s way in it…as we must in all issues. His way is that of loving the person while confronting the sin. For God, the way and how we walk it, are more important than being right doctrinally. Absent leaders of the magnitude of Lincoln in our Christian ranks, it falls to us as foot soldiers to carry the banner of compassion into the battle of important issues; to address those issues as Christ would. If we don’t, the world will see a church of zealots, different only in magnitude from Northern Ireland, the Middle East, the Crusades and even the Spanish Inquisition. It is the same wind that blows across all who know they are right and whose cause it is to assure that the right answer prevails.
The world needs to see the extraordinary…a “peculiar” people…different from it…Lincolnesque; bearing a torch in the darkness, bringing wisdom to chaos; offering forgiveness in the pain.
Brenda Cox, 2000
From: The Journey, January 2003
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