Remember When?

None of us is old enough to remember from our own life experiences, but surely you can’t have grown up in the United States since April 12 and 13, 1861 without knowing the church has faced monumental social-crisis moments before. Those were the dates that Fort Sumter was fired on by the South Carolina militia to begin the Civil War, or the War Between the States as some prefer.

This issue then of course was slavery. Oddly, as it seems from our vantage point in history, the church was divided on the subject. Many pulpits in the north declared slavery an abomination, while southern pulpits were prone to see slavery as somehow God’s intended purpose for Africans. From our vantage point in time, it seems impossible that anyone could have argued that the Bible approves of slavery. That’s about as impossible an idea as the idea that the Bible approves of same-sex marriages.

I write all of that not because I think no one has thought about it yet, but because of something I read about Abraham Lincoln in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. I have read disputing views about Lincoln’s faith and honestly don’t know what the answer to the “was he a disciple of Jesus?” question would be. But what I do know is that he was right about the evil nature of slavery and his approach to dealing with it is amazingly like the Bible calls us to deal with challenging issues.

In one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of the early 1850s, Goodwin quotes a reporter, Horace White, who describes Lincoln like this: “Then the inspiration that possessed him took possession of his hearers also. His speaking went to the heart because it came from the heart. I have heard celebrated orators who could start thunders of applause without changing any man’s opinion. Mr. Lincoln’s eloquence was the higher type, which produced conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker himself.” (page 165)  In all the textbooks on preaching I’ve ever read, up to and including Tim Keller’s excellent new book, Preaching, I’m not sure I have ever read a better definition of pathos as an important part of one’s oratorical tool box.

A part of that “from the heart reality” for Lincoln was his approach to what he viewed as a grievously important social issue – slavery. Here’s how Goodwin describes him: “By appealing to the moral and philosophical foundation work of the nation, Lincoln hoped to provide common ground on which good men in both the North and South could stand.” (page 167) Goodwin summarizes Lincoln’s approach by saying, “Unlike the majority of antislavery orators, who denounced the South and castigated slaveowners as corrupt and un-Christian, Lincoln pointedly denied fundamental differences between Northerners and Southerners. He argued that ‘they are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. . . I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.’” (page 167)

I don’t think you can make an argument that Lincoln thought slavery was anything less than a serious moral issue that needed to be solved. Yet, he apparently thinks solving such issues involves trying to understand where the opposite side of the issue lives. Can you imagine if both politicians and preachers today would stop the shouting for a moment about same-sex marriages and say to each other: “We don’t agree, but let’s have a civil conversation.” I know there would be people who still wouldn’t listen to how I view the teaching of Scripture, but I don’t see where they are listening now!

One other thing I learned in Goodwin’s account and commentary on these debates was the contrast in approach between Douglas, making a pro-slavery argument, and Lincoln, making an anti-slavery argument. Here’s what she says: “While Douglas simply asserted his points as self-evident, Lincoln embedded his argument in a narrative history, transporting his listeners back to their roots as a people, to the founding of the nation – a story that still retained its power to arouse strong emotion and thoughtful attention.” (page 165) 

Understood in the context of this part of her book, Goodwin is simply saying that rather than giving the proverbial “seven reasons slavery is wrong” story, Lincoln appealed to The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States to insist that the idea of slavery was out of character with the ideals upon which this country was founded. The Illinois Daily Journal said “that the overall effect was strikingly original and ‘most effective.’” (page 165)

For some time now, people like Gabe Lyons (The Next Christians) and David KInnaman (UnChristian and You Lost Me) and others have suggested that a part of the reason evangelical Christians seem to be losing ground in our culture is because we have preached a “truncated gospel” – that is, we have, like Douglas, “asserted our points as self-evident” rather than, like Lincoln, “embedded our argument in a narrative history.”

As noted above, I don’t know what sort of faith Lincoln had. But it does seem to me that his approach sounds rather biblical. Rather than widespread condemnation, he sought to understand predicaments. Rather than a list of reasons as to why slavery was wrong, he appealed to a narrative of how the United States came into existence to ask the all-important question “Is slavery consistent with our founding ideals?”

Didn’t Jesus model an approach to life that while not condoning sin, at least seemed to understand the predicament people were in? And isn’t it much easier to talk about serious moral issues in the context of the entire Bible’s narrative, than to just isolate a text or two that says “this is wrong?” Isn’t that similar to what Paul himself does in the opening chapters of Romans itself? 

I know we ended up fighting the Civil War over this issue – at least at some level – and I am certainly not suggesting that was a good solution to the problem or that it was Lincoln’s fault. But in the broader context of American history, I think it is pretty fair to say that Lincoln’s approach worked – eventually even for those who might have helped light the fuses on the canons on the Charleston Battery that fired on Fort Sumter.

No one can suggest that the issue of same-sex marriage is inherently more serious than was the issue of slavery. In fact, the slavery issue raises its ugly head on the pages of the New Testament itself – and amazingly, Paul seems to think it is important to understand the predicament, appeal to our bigger narrative, and work toward the solution.

If we did that with the current moral dilemma about marriage, I wonder how long it would be before the problem could be solved?  Or have we so lost our confidence that the gospel is the power of God until salvation, that we just keep shouting? Didn't I read that somewhere in Romans?