Lincoln was persistently troubled by Christians who considered themselves absolutely right.
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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal
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I just concluded Episode 3 of Frontline's five part "God In America" - a surpassingly good production. Episode 1 reveals Anne Hutchinson as progenitor of The Tea Party. Episode 2 focuses the spread of evangelical Christianity into The Bible Belt... followed by bitter contempt for Catholic immigrants more beholden to the Roman Church than the "exceptional" American state. Episode 3 reveals a side of Lincoln previously unknown to me - how this witty, melancholic man engaged The Civil War, the emancipation of slaves, and following beloved Willie's death, his new "sense" of God and how God "informed" The Civil War. http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/
Willie, left
Tad, right
Mary Todd Lincoln
"The Lincoln Photo Album"
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