Show Notes
On this episode of Nuance, Case is joined by Dr. Tracy McKenzie, professor of history at Wheaton College. Together they discuss the importance of understanding the past through a Christian lens. They delve into the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and the nature of government in relation to human virtue. Dr. McKenzie emphasizes the need for Christians to engage with history thoughtfully, and to consider the insights from non-Christian cultures as well. They explore moments of common grace in historical events and the complexities of justice and political engagement. The conversation concludes with a reflection on the importance of historical consciousness for Christians.
Episode Resources:
The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830825746
A Little Book for New Historians: Why and How to Study History 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830853464
We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830852964
https://roberttracymckenzie.com/
www.wheaton.edu
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://collaborativeorlando.com/
Get to know Case: https://collaborativeorlando.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
From the town square of Wheaton, Illinois, you can see the iconic spire of Blanchard Hall rising above the landscape at Wheaton College, a proud symbol of the school’s history and values. It’s a campus filled with a commitment to faith, intellectual exploration, and the liberal arts, all designed to cultivate minds and souls with a purpose, a purpose that extends far beyond its walls. Now this view from the town square isn’t just a perspective on a physical campus. It’s a window into a place of learning that causes us to see education as a path to transformation, both personal and communal. As a premier institution in higher education, Wheaton has long held fast to its mission of preparing graduates to engage the world thoughtfully and faithfully. Founded in 1860, the college has dedicated itself to producing graduates who are thoughtful leaders, deeply grounded in faith and committed to serving both the church and society. Well, so today, as we look across the campus from the town square, we are going to be reminded, especially by our guest, of how Wheaton integrates Christian values into every field of study, from the sciences to the humanities, creating a unique space where faith and learning are deeply intertwined. And friends, that is one of our goals and hopes for the greater work of the Collaborative, and even in and through this podcast, that we are seeing how our Christian faith interacts with our work. And so today we’re talking to one of Wheaton’s top professors, Dr. Tracy McKenzie, a distinguished professor of history. Tracy, welcome and thank you for joining me.
Tracy McKenzie
Case, it’s just a privilege to be with you.
Case Thorp
Well, I think you’re our first guest from the lauded Halls of Wheaton. I hope not our last.
Tracy McKenzie
That’s an honor, I appreciate that very much.
Case Thorp
Many years ago I was there and I remember there’s the Billy Graham Museum. Yes, is it still there?
Tracy McKenzie
Still there right across the street from my office.
Case Thorp
And then at the end, you walk into sort of a room like heaven with a glass floor and clouds and lights going up. It’s really cool. Well, a word to our viewers and friends. I want to welcome you to Nuance, where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp and always encourage you like subscribe, share. It really helps us to grow our audience, which is growing. That’s good.
Well, let me tell you about our guest. So Dr. Tracy McKenzie, as I mentioned, is this distinguished professor of history at Wheaton. He holds the Arthur Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning and has received the college’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Before joining Wheaton, he earned his PhD at Vanderbilt and served for 22 years at the University of Washington. Tracy’s initial research focused on the American South during the Civil War, where he published notable award-winning books through both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. Dr. McKenzie shifted his focus at Wheaton to exploring U.S. history through a Christian perspective, aiming to help others think Christianly about the past. Tracy, I love that word, Christianly. We’re going to explore that. Well, as a former president of the Conference on Faith and History, he views his work as a vocation to remember and share historical insights with the church.
Publications include The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History. I know that’s one of his more popular books you might enjoy. And a little book for new historians. And then We the Fallen People, the Founders and the Future of American Democracy. Tracy is currently working on a new book tentatively titled The Almighty Has His Own Purposes: Abraham Lincoln and American Civil Religion. He is married to his wife of 38 years named Robin. They have two of their three grown children, Callie and Margaret are alumni of Wheaton. All right, Tracy, so the third, tell us about the third child.
Tracy McKenzie
Black sheep of the family, I guess. Actually went into the Marine Corps now as a flourishing emergency room nurse.
Case Thorp
Okay, well, that’s great service in the Marine Corps. Okay, so on that lauded biography, tell me what I missed. What would you like to add? What do people need to know?
Tracy McKenzie
You hit all the high points and it was very flattering. Emphasizes my sense of calling. I do feel called to remember and to remind, and I just consider it a privilege. I believe that we were created as beings who live in historical contexts, and I love the idea of trying to help Americans generally, but Christians specifically, remember our past faithfully, wisely, and use that, adverb you picked up on, Christianly.
Case Thorp
Well, we’re recording this just before the ‘24 election and in the heat of the political season. When folks seek to go back to our founding fathers and define the degree to which they were Christian or not, deists or not, could you speak into that conversation real quick? And why do you think it’s such a hot topic for us today?
Tracy McKenzie
Well, it is a hot topic, Case. Let me just share that when someone, you know, when I’m speaking at a church or some other venue and someone comes up to me and says, you know, talk to me about the faith of the founders. I don’t say this, but I always think it under my breath. I’m thinking, why is it that you want to know? And one of the things I think is true is that in our particular politically polarized moment, we often think of the answer to that question as relevant to contemporary political debates. So if all the founders were born again believers, we see that as an argument really for the centrality of faith in public life. If they were deists, we see that as an argument for a strong separation of faith from political affairs. And so I’m skeptical right off the bat. Why do you want to know? Is it because you’re wanting to learn or is it because you’re wanting to use the past for an argument?
With regard to the question itself, I’ll just, I’ll be brief and you can ask for more if you want, but here’s the bottom line. The leading founders of our country rarely spoke or wrote about their personal religious beliefs. So we’re often, when we’re addressing that question, we’re having to speculate, we’re trying to fill in, brush in the gaps. And I’m just not so sure that it’s a very fruitful conversation because in the end, we just cannot be sure.
One of the reasons I wrote We The Fallen People is because I think our founding fathers did share their views extensively about their understanding of the human condition and human nature. And so I think that’s a rich area. And so I’ve tried to redirect the conversation to say, can we hear our founders in the way they described us as opposed to what they may have thought about God.
Case Thorp
Sure. Well, and their whole design for government was to manage human sin because they knew power was underneath the surface of every person. And how do you appropriately manage that for a community of a nation?
Tracy McKenzie
Yeah, so one of my favorite quotes from that period is from James Madison, one of the leading contributors to the Constitution. He asked this rhetorical question, what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? And he goes on to say, if men were angels, no government would be necessary if we were angels. So the founders absolutely thought for government to flourish over the long haul, it had to take human nature into account.
Case Thorp
Yeah, yeah. And similarly, I believe it was John Adams that said democracy only works for a good and virtuous people. Was that Adams?
Tracy McKenzie
He said something to that effect, actually, it was during his presidency at a gathering of a militia unit. One of the things that, one of the things I’ll just jump in there, that Adams quote gets used a lot. And I think just sort of as we read the Bible, we don’t want to necessarily pull out a particular verse and take it out of its context. It’s easy to do that in history as well. And Adams, at the same time that he’s saying our government requires virtue, is also saying in different contexts that Americans aren’t very virtuous. So one of the things that we lose sight of when we take those quotes out of context, is when the founders were lauding virtue, it was often their effort to promote it when they didn’t see it very widely. And so they’re doing two things in the creation of the Constitution. They are trying to exhort Americans to virtue, which they would have defined as denying oneself for the good of the whole community. They’re trying to promote virtue and at the same time, they are never taking it for granted. They’re never assuming that citizens will be widely virtuous. So they don’t create the constitution for a virtuous people. They create the constitution for people who are not virtuous, all the while hoping that individuals might rise above their self-interest and be more concerned about the general welfare.
Case Thorp
Well, I certainly know. I use that quote and I am using it with a perspective that we’re losing virtue in society that we need. Now, and I know we’re way off on our questions originally planned. Jefferson is the one who brings about universal education, I believe, and wasn’t that for his conviction that we’ve got to educate people and form the virtues in order for them to be able to govern themselves?
Tracy McKenzie
So I will push back a little bit again. So Jefferson does introduce a proposal before he is president of United States when he is more focused on Virginia for the education of a kind of elite few any given year who would not be able to afford education. He wasn’t really putting in a proposal for what we would recognize as sort of general education, which is much more a product of the mid 1800s, not the late 1700s. Jefferson, like the founders generally, did believe that an educated citizenry was important. One of the reasons, and I’m taking you maybe far afield, but our founders actually didn’t favor popular election of the president. And so the constitution doesn’t really call for that.
And the explanation is largely, they thought, well, I’ll back up and say they didn’t anticipate political parties. So they thought that people would decide among candidates, not based upon any political affiliation, you’d have to know something about the character and the values and the beliefs of each individual. And they said, you know, in the late 1700s, where there’s only a handful of newspapers in the country, you know, how in the world is just the typical person going to know enough?
And so for that reason, they were really leery of opening up that election to the whole population.
Case Thorp
Mm-hmm. And hence the electoral college, wanting people who are in the inner circle, not for exclusionary reasons, but because of being more in the know.
Tell me why you specialize in this work. Like what drew you to this very unique combination of faith and history?
Tracy McKenzie
Well, so I was drawn to history at a very early age. And that was largely because of family members who captivated me with their stories. Growing up in the South, I learned that there had been this amazing monumental event in the 1860s that had happened in my part of the world. And I was totally captivated by that. So I’ve been interested in history really from childhood.
The connection with faith came later. I attended secular elementary, high school, college, graduate school. I was a person of faith. I was a Christian, but I didn’t know anyone who approached history from a Christian perspective really. And it just wasn’t on my radar. And it was actually after I was teaching at the University of Washington and actually it was awarded tenure. And I was thinking, how am I going to do this for another 30 years before I can afford to retire?
And it was very unfulfilling. I felt that in that secular environment, I was sort of regularly not addressing the deepest questions, the ones that most sort of connected with my heart.
Case Thorp
And when, when you say it was very unfulfilling, you mean just sort of general history studies research.
Tracy McKenzie
So yes, I’m sorry. Yes, teaching in that secular environment, chasing the questions that the academy academic scholars said, these are the ones that we’re excited about. And then I would sit down next to someone in a church service and realize that the questions that I was focusing on weren’t remotely interesting to my fellow parishioners in a church context. And that was what was so very unfulfilling. I wanted to change that. And over the last couple decades I’ve gradually been trying to do that.
Case Thorp
What was your first foray into such a different field?
Tracy McKenzie
So at first it was really me sort of struggling to figure out how might I be a different teacher, but before I was thinking about research and writing, how could I do something differently in the classroom where my faith would not be just entirely checked at the door and I would be largely indistinguishable from my colleagues who weren’t of religious faith. And I found it very difficult. I tried to pose questions that I thought had eternal significance. One of the things I would often do when we would encounter a claim by some historical figure, I would just stop and ask my class, is that true? And I found that just asking whether an intellectual claim is true was very counter-cultural. I mean, we were trying to say, where does it come from? What’s he trying to accomplish? But the idea of is it true was almost scandalous. But of course, in a secular classroom, there are limits to how far you can dig deeply in answering that question.
Case Thorp
Sure, And so you then found you were limited perhaps and you needed to move to an institution that meshed with these values.
Tracy McKenzie
Well, so, I mean, again, it comes down to calling. And I would always stress that the University of Washington in many ways was a wonderful environment to work in. I just more and more began to feel this tug in my heart to be able to connect with the church. I wanted to teach young people about how to remember the past faithfully. I wanted to speak to adults about how to remember the past faithfully. And I could have done that in limited ways in the University of Washington.
But since coming to Wheaton, every day I sort of lean into that sense of calling. It’s a glorious thing. There’s a certain sense in which I have much more academic freedom here at this Christian institution than I had at the secular one. And that’s the way I would put it. Every day I’m leaning in, I’m bringing all of me into the classroom, I’m bringing all of me into the archive. And that is, that’s a luxury, it’s a priceless gift.
Case Thorp
Now imagine some of our listeners might think, okay, thinking Christianly in history, it’s all about the faith of the leaders. But I would imagine you’re looking at it in a bigger way than that.
Tracy McKenzie
I am. I mean, one of the questions you might ask is about the faith of any particular historical figure, and that’s not a wrong question to ask, but it is a limited understanding, I think, of what it means to think Christianly about the past. So oftentimes when folks think about a Christian doing history, they do just assume, you’re focusing on the role of Christianity or key Christians. I want to say no.
We’re thinking about all of human experience. We’re trying to understand that human experience in light of what we believe scripture reveals about God and about his creation. So to give the example again of the founders, I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about whether the founders were Christian or not. As I said, I don’t think they reveal that very explicitly, but I’ll turn to something like: Why do they justify separation of powers and checks and balances in the Constitution? And I see that they’re grounding that on the understanding of human nature. And I can absolutely take those claims, go to scripture and say, is this consistent with what I think the Bible teaches or is this not? And so that would be an example of regardless of what is motivating them to think a certain way about human nature. As a Christian, should I be willing to embrace and celebrate their views or should I hold them at arm’s length?
Case Thorp
Now in the West, the Christian mindset and worldview is so pervasive that I could see how it is a huge influence, especially in bringing the founders to perspectives that we would hold. I often remind non-believers today that if it weren’t for the Christian worldview, we wouldn’t necessarily have values for human rights and the abolition of slavery, et cetera.
Have you looked at non-Christian cultures and then thought about them in the sweep of history?
Tracy McKenzie
That’s a great question, Case, and it would be a wonderful thing to do. I’ll just confess here, I’m not really qualified to do that, and that’s why I have not done that in my life. My own sense is that it is important always to be open. One of the ways I’ve put it, there’s this theologian named Rowan Williams who says there are always gifts to be received from the past.
You would study a non-Christian culture again with sort of with those open hands with the idea there are gifts to be received from this. Not necessarily that we spend all our time saying that particular culture belief is Christian or that is not, but really sort of wrestling in the areas of difference about different cultures and rather than measuring those cultures immediately against our own values, be willing to say what would that culture think of us?
Or how does that culture help us to see our own values in a new light, maybe from a new perspective? Here I think of Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12 where says, don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. We’re constantly being shaped by the culture in which we live and work and encounters with very different cultures, sometimes exposed to us the way that we’re being shaped by our own culture, really without even being aware of.
So even though I haven’t done what you’ve recommended, I heartily endorse that as a valuable thing.
Case Thorp
Well, and we’re big fans here of the theological concept of common grace, the ways in which we see God’s goodness in other places and non explicitly church, Christian or biblical forms. I think it’s quite a statement that Solomon includes in the Proverbs chapter 30 and part of 31 that are from Egyptian culture. And he was wanting to compile God’s truth, whether that came through the covenant people or whether it was found in other places. And that is often an eye-opener in my world. Well, thinking Christianly then about the past, are you avoiding leaning into or just very cognizant of claims on God’s sweep through history?
Tracy McKenzie
So what you’re describing claims about God’s work in history, historians have a term typically for that. They call that providentialism or providential claims. And that’s something we wrestle with a lot in my classes here at Wheaton. Many of my students, and I would argue maybe many Christians generally who are interested in history, believe that the litmus test of real Christian historical reflection is saying something about what God is doing in any particular age.
And I actually disagree with that. I think it’s very important for us to take seriously the providence of God. I would actually say the more seriously we take God’s providential oversight in human affairs, the less helpful it is for us to think through history in any particular moment. So let me explain what I mean. If the scripture says that God is working out all things according to the counsel of his will, and we take that seriously, meaning all things, we can’t explain, say, the causes of World War II in a helpful way with that because the answer is, well, God willed it. And that’s the answer for every event in all of human history. And so what historians typically do, even historians of faith, is we’re really thinking about the intermediate means that God uses to work out his plan. So we would approach the Second World War asking about the particular powers involved and what’s going on there and what are their objectives and so on. As a believer, I would say absolutely God is sovereign over all things. Oftentimes when Christians make claims about what God is doing, they’re not just saying that God is sovereign. They’re saying, I know what God’s plan is in this moment. I really know why God raised up this particular leader or that particular movement or gave that aside victory in battle. And there I come back, my go-to verse always is from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 29, the Bible says that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, only those things which are revealed belong to us. And so you always ask yourself what has been revealed. And the scripture of course reveals to us God’s purposes. If you read 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, we learn why God is raising up certain kings and bringing down others. But I don’t think embedded in that is the promise that apart from divine revelation, we know the answers to that in history that’s not part of the special revelation of Scripture.
Case Thorp
But I think a lot of times people overlook the role of brokenness and sin in this world that sometimes leaders make choices that are against God’s will and it messes things up. So Tracy, how would you respond to that very famous quote of Martin Luther King Jr. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Was he right on that?
Tracy McKenzie
Yeah, that’s a good question. And I’m just going to say right now, I don’t know.
I think that’s a question perhaps, I know it has a theological dimension. I’m not absolutely certain that it’s a question that the Bible clearly speaks to or that Christians have to agree on. It strikes me as an eschatological question, a question about what we believe about the direction of human history before the consummation of the kingdom. And I know that there Christians, you know, I respect very much on both sides of those debates.
I have conversations with my students, one just yesterday I was sitting in on, about the 20th century. Was the 20th century a century of progress or not? And it sort of depends upon what you’re looking at. But if, I mean, you know, it’s the deadliest century as far as we know in human history. So it’s hard pressed to say, yes, there were advances in some areas, there were probably regression in others. So I think it’s a super complicated question.
Case Thorp
Well, and I would see truth in his statement, as you say, eschatologically, that Jesus will return and justice will reign. I don’t know that it necessarily means that Western Christian values, democracy, thriving economy are only going to get better and better and better. That there won’t be hiccups along the way. Well, talk to me because you love teaching so much in the classroom. What do you see in your students today? Where are they spot on, where are they lacking, struggling, particular to this cultural moment?
Tracy McKenzie
Okay, so that’s a good question. And oftentimes when things I think of as a teacher is asked, I’m not always sure. I don’t think I know the hearts of my students so well, right? I mean, in some sense, they’re inscrutable to me. Also I would say that the students who come to Wheaton may not be representative of typical college students. They are typically pretty highly motivated and quite earnest and often with a real sense of calling to sort of go out and change the world in some positive way.
Beyond that, having said that, there is a sense in which even in this sort of unusual environment, we still see some of the signs of polarization that we’re seeing in the society generally. Some sense of what, that we’re maybe facing a kind of existential moment and that this is a kind of crossroads that has enormous implications for the future. And so the challenge, I think, as an educator, is to help students remember what they believe is true, where their hope lies, and to always trying to bring back their current moment into the larger story that we want to fold our lives into. A story in which God is sovereign, in which we know how the story ends, although we don’t know the details in between.
Case Thorp
Well, I find myself, particularly as an evangelical, at that edge, that line where I know who I am in the kingdom. I know who ultimately sits on the throne and therefore I can appropriately place politics and the election of individuals within a stable mind frame and world. And yet I’m on that edge of that line, okay, when is there prophetic voice and to what end?
Talk to us about American history. Do you see parallel moments? For instance, Martin Luther King, he crossed that line. And the temperance movement was led by Christian women who were advocating for poor children whose parents were struggling with alcoholism. What can we learn from moments in American history for that line between reorienting God’s place on throne but also moving into prophetic moments?
Tracy McKenzie
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think God’s call to love neighbor and to sort of lean into his ways never goes away. And so we are going to see those moments where individuals have, like a king, have stood up individually, courageously, almost always against the even of the Christian majority.
We see those moments. I think there’s a tension, I guess, that we’re called to, which is to seek to make, well, we talk about for Christ and his kingdom to promote the kingdom of God on earth, and at the same time to recognize that that has to unfold according to God’s timing. And so that requires wisdom, and I just think it’s things that Christians are going to disagree upon. So when someone says sort of prophetically, something about the significance of this moment, I think we have to be open to the possibility that it is true and open to the possibility that this is not something God has revealed. I believe that the wisdom of particular reform movements, for example, is always clearer from hindsight, if that makes sense.
One of the things that concerns me so much about our church, I mean the Christian church generally in America today, is that we fall into the trap of believing that a particular political position is in fact an indicator of the authenticity of someone’s faith. And I think that’s a dangerous place to be. It may be a place we need to be at times, but I think it’s a dangerous place nonetheless.
Case Thorp
Why is it dangerous?
Tracy McKenzie
One, because it can ultimately lead to us adding to the gospel. We can conclude that there’s a certain political position that absolutely is essential to a life of obedience. And if we don’t find that explicitly in scripture, I think we’ve crossed the line where we’re adding to the gospel.
Case Thorp
Boy, that’s great. That’s great. We’re big at our church on saying don’t add to the gospel or that particularly in membership in the church, it’s about confession of faith in Christ. It’s not confession plus. And so I have so many as a pastor come to me and say, how can I possibly think my friend in that political party believes in Jesus?
And when you put it that way, it’s encouraging. Evangelicalism’s role in American history has certainly been powerful and had its ups and downs. What could we learn for this moment based on previous experiences?
Tracy McKenzie
Well, yeah, that’s a great question in case it’s one that I’ve wrestled with. And I’ll just say right off the bat, it’s complicated and there’s a lot to say, but let me share one thing that comes to mind. The book that I wrote, We the Fallen People, focuses on the early decades of American democracy. And one of the voices that I try to bring to the conversation is a very prominent figure from the 19th century that we don’t remember as wealth anymore. And that’s the French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville, was the author of this book, Democracy in America, which I still believe is one of the most important books ever written about the United States. And Tocqueville comes to the United States right in the middle of what we remember today as the second great awakening. And so this is a period of great revival. Churches are just exploding and their size and…
Case Thorp
And camp meeting, the camp meeting movement is very much part of my practice today.
Tracy McKenzie
Well, fascinating, fascinating. So yeah, we think about those big Cambridge revivals and so forth in the late 1700s on in the early 1800s and then revivalists like Charles Finney and others. So it’s a period of great expansion of the church.
Case Thorp
Whitfield. No, he was first grade awakening. George Whitfield was the first grade awakening. That’s right. Second.
Tracy McKenzie
Whitfield was first, that’s right. So anyway, when Tocqueville was traveling in America, he is so impressed by the vitality of Christianity. And almost everyone he talks to says it plays a really critical role, not just in the faith sphere, but in American politics and other aspects of American life. But one of the questions that he’s asking his interviewees, and he interviews more than 200 individuals, many of them clergy, he’s saying, what do you attribute the vitality of American Christianity to?
I mean, he hasn’t seen that in France. He hasn’t seen that in England where he had visited. And the answer they’re coming back with over and over and over again is separation of church and state. And he unpacks that. And we know that that’s a loaded phrase today. It can mean lots of different things. It did not mean to Tocqueville or to his conversation partners that you can’t put the 10 commandments on the schoolroom wall or anything like that. But when he asked them to sort of, you know, parse out what they meant, he was saying that one, clergy were keeping their distance from organized politics. They were aggressively trying to keep organized politics at arm’s length. And secondly, they were preaching from the pulpit that one’s salvation was not dependent upon one’s political views. And so in terms of a pattern there, I think that’s something at least for American Christians today to think seriously about. And again, it’s gonna be something that we probably need to give grace to one another and be willing to disagree over. But hearing Tocqueville’s taking it seriously, wrestling with it, wouldn’t be a waste of our time.
Case Thorp
So good. This is very helpful in terms of even me pastorally helping folks to put this in the right framework. I think folks are looking for a framework that then they can go and use with the various candidates and policies. That’s our approach at our church that we do preach politics. We don’t preach policy. And by politics, we mean be robust citizens and change your community and be involved in the polis.
But then we’ll give you the tools for you to make that decision. Okay. Tell me about this book you’re working on. The Almighty Has His Own Purposes, Abraham Lincoln and American Civil Religion. What’s your premise and what brought you to this idea?
Tracy McKenzie
So I’m just always looking for ways to connect with Christians who are interested both in history and in our particular current moment and trying to sort of think along with them about how to glean wisdom from the past. The quote that I use for the title, The Almighty Has His Own Purposes, is a line from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. It’s the speech that he gives. It’s just a wonderful, rich, speech and he gives it about five weeks before his assassination. So this is just shortly before the close of the civil war. And what he says in that speech among other things is that both sides, meaning both the North and the South, both had read the same Bible, both had prayed to the same God, but the prayers of neither had been answered fully. And that’s a remarkable thing if you think about it at the end of a war or almost the end of a war that had claimed the equivalent proportionally to our population today of over eight million lives. At the end of such a war, the president of the victorious side would say, let’s not fool ourselves and think that God was holy on one side or the other. That may be what God, well, absolutely. And let me say also, courage, because no one is wanting to say that at the time. And for him to say, let’s be honest about this, what God has been doing transcends any political party, any region of the country, and we need to acknowledge that and really worship with that in mind. So that’s the insight that really is at the heart that I’m wanting to bring. And I just want to sort of help readers see how unique that is.
And I share a lot. I mean, he came in for all kinds of criticism at the time. The newspapers were just raking him over the coals for this. And I think it’s helpful. It helps our humility to be reminded that something that today we would revere as one of the most magnificent speeches in American history was widely, widely ridiculed at the time.
Case Thorp
I bet. Well, and I think he had the wisdom to know, like George H.W. Bush did when the wall fell for communism, this is not a time to gloat and to fan the flames of victory because it will only lead to more oppression, revenge, et cetera, in Reconstruction.
Tracy McKenzie
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a very good analogy. And so the other thing that you get from that speech is the very famous portion that we remember with malice toward none, with charity for all, that’s a real plea for a kind of loving embrace of one’s enemy.
Case Thorp
Now, this is a question I’ve always wanted to have a historian speak into. Was Lincoln a Presbyterian or not? And what I’ve read is he had his name on that role, but his personal piety is just not very much known.
Tracy McKenzie
So great question. So I actually have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out anything I can about Lincoln’s faith. One of the things that sort of is amusing is that particularly after his death, there’s probably at least seven or eight denominations all sort of claim him. they have different stories and I joke the most common sort of testimonial about Lincoln’s faith would have a title something like, you know, I knew Lincoln, although nobody knew that I knew Lincoln. And here’s what he told me that one time when no one else was around, you know? And so there are all these claims. The claim that Lincoln may have been a Presbyterian, I think is stronger, maybe than any other denominational claim, in that it’s clear that his wife was a member, officially a member of the Presbyterian Church in Springfield. They attended a Presbyterian church pretty regularly in Washington during his presidency.
But if you look at Lincoln’s private writings or the testimony of individuals who did probably know him fairly well, it’s just very difficult to say with confidence that he would have claimed a personal relationship or a saving faith in Christ as Savior. He’s not an atheist, there’s no doubt. He believes in a God that is sovereign. He could not have given the second inaugural…
Case Thorp
Well, that speech. Well, you see, you see Providence, you see total depravity.
Tracy McKenzie
Not believing that.
Yeah, yeah, no, so there’s no way that we present him as secular, but the question of whether he had, if he believed that a loving God could personally have a relationship with him leading to his eternal salvation, I just don’t think we have enough to go on.
Case Thorp
And so what I hear you saying is we don’t even have to enough to go on in those who knew him spoke with him.
Tracy McKenzie
His wife says almost nothing about this. His son, he had four sons too, which died very young, but his oldest son, who is in his twenties at his father’s death, says he never heard his father say anything about the Trinity, for example. He had no idea what his father thought. And so it’s a situation, if Lincoln was indeed a born-again Christian, whether he would use that language or not, if he was a regenerate Christian, he didn’t tell his family.
Case Thorp
Where was his funeral?
Tracy McKenzie
So, you know, there’s a memorial service actually in Washington, D.C., but then there’s this long train journey across to Springfield. And then really, I guess you would say the official sort of commemoration and interring is in Springfield.
Case Thorp
Okay, okay. Well, Tracy, in our closing moments, I love to ask folks this question, but I think we’ve kind of heard the answer to this question, but where do you feel God’s pleasure in your work?
Tracy McKenzie
What a wonderful question and wonderful thing to sort of reflect on. You know, I would say by vocation, I’m a teacher, which means I love to be in the classroom. I write in part as an extension of my teaching. I think of it as just a different way to teach. I love the opportunity to speak to churches. So I’m probably never more sort of enjoying that sense of calling than when I’m standing up in front of an audience sharing something that I think is really exciting.
Case Thorp
Mm, amen. I’m right there with you. I mean, I’m obviously in the church, not the academy, but I feel like I write in order to teach better, to be more equipped when I go into those teaching moments.
Tracy McKenzie
I can totally relate to that.
Case Thorp
What final word might you have to folks as they think about how they might think Christianly about both their individual past but our culture’s past?
Tracy McKenzie
Here I guess I would just say each of us, here’s the historian speaking, God created us as historical beings. We don’t often think of that, but he created us to live in time. And what that means is that each of us inhabits a particular historical context. One of the ways I’ve heard this expressed is each of us is born into a world and in that process, a world is born into us. So we are being shaped by a particular culture.
So I actually, I’m gonna make a hard case that part of living faithfully, particularly for Christians is trying to live as a Christ follower. I think historical perspective is so important to that. It helps us to see the way in which our culture is influencing us in ways that we’re not even aware of. And so I’m a big sort of evangelist for historical consciousness as is not an option for the Christian, but actually a very necessary tool.
Case Thorp
Well, listeners, I just want to encourage you to continue to engage in Tracy’s work. You can go to his website, tracymckenzie.com. He is often a speaker at various churches and conferences and retreats to share what he has learned and to encourage people in their walk with the Lord. Check out his book, We the Fallen People, the Founders and the Future of American Democracy.
We’ll put in our show notes and link to that and his other works. And Tracy, we look forward to this next book. When do you think it might be out?
Tracy McKenzie
Not as soon as I wish, probably a year after next to be very honest. I hope to finish it in the coming year, but then it’ll take a little while to publish.
Case Thorp
Okay. Well, if you’re so willing, maybe we’ll have you back then and you can go deeper in that work with us.
Tracy McKenzie
I’d be delighted. It’s just been a joy talking with you, Case. Thank you for having me.
Case Thorp
Thank you so much. Well, friends, thank you for joining us again. Please like, share, comment. It really helps us to get out the word. Leave a review wherever you may get your podcasts. You can go to collaborativeorlando.com for all sorts of content. Sign up with us and get a free 31 day Faith and Work prompt journal, a way to work through the theology and ideas of faith and work while in dialogue with the Lord. You can also find us across the social media platforms.
Don’t forget Nuance Formed for Faithfulness, a weekly 10 minute devotional for the working Christian that follows the liturgical calendar. I want to thank our sponsor for today, Craig and Becky Rohde. I’m Case Thorp and God’s blessings on you.
