Abe Lincoln Probably Couldn’t Be Elected in Today’s Theocratic U.S.

Long lost letter discusses Lincoln's religious beliefs

I missed this earlier in the week. From The Independent UK:

A three-page letter highlighting the 16th president’s unconventional relationship with the Almighty has just been put on sale. It offers a possible insight into why he was never baptised, did not attend a church and, in defiance of political protocol of the era, would refuse to publicly discuss his spiritual beliefs. Such was his reluctance to embrace piety that, if he were standing for office today, there is a good chance he would be unelectable.

In the letter, William Herndon, “a legal partner and close friend” of Lincoln’s before he was elected President, wrote:

he is, or was, a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary, supernatural inspiration or revelation,” it reads, before detailing the president’s spiritual evolution in the years after Herndon met him in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s.

“At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this, he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent. I speak knowing what I say. He was a noble man – a good great man for all this.”

I wonder if Michelle Bachmann knows about this?