Not a Technical Christian: Abraham Lincoln's Religion

Publisher Marketing: Does the world really need another book on Abraham Lincoln? Probably not, but as long as a majority of Americans consider him to be America's greatest president and the enigma and charisma of his personality continues to draw interest, there will be other books - including this one. Will there be anything new in these additional works? Frankly, it will be hard to find something unknown about Lincoln. His story and his history have been hashed and rehashed to the point that authors are hard pressed to find anything new to give to scholars and buffs. The facts of Lincoln's life will not change and there are not many new historical sources coming to light with new information to tantalize and entice. So what does this work offer that has not been said or written before? Maybe not all that much and maybe a lot. There continues to be great disagreement regarding Lincoln's religious nature or his lack thereof. He has been painted as a closet atheist freethinker and as a closet Christian along with almost everything in between. Many words have been written with the goal of presenting the truth about Lincoln's religion. Many, if not most of those works, have started with the conclusion they wanted to be true (or thought might sell more books) and gone on to prove it. That is where this work will attempt to be different. This work on Lincoln is set with one goal, to look at the various thoughts and suppositions and theories about Lincoln's religious beliefs and to weigh them against what he said and did in order to let Lincoln speak about his religion rather than letting others with an agenda pigeon-hole him into theirs. And, naturally, this work will be thought a pigeon-holing by those who already have their pigeon hole and this work does not end up in the same hole.