Did Abraham Lincoln believe in God? Was he a Christian?
In his New Salem days, Lincoln didn’t leave many clues about his views on Sabbatarianism, or on religion in general. His father had been a member of the Little Pigeon Creek Baptist church, and Lincoln must have been exposed to doctrines like predestination at an early age, but he never joined the Baptist church. New Salem had many believers, but no churches, so Lincoln’s failure to belong was not obvious. We know that it was at this time in his life that
Lincoln read Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, and probably the works of Voltaire and other Enlightenment skeptics. By the time he moved to Springfield in 1837, he had begun to develop his unique world view, a mixture of skepticism and providential fatalism that would continue to mature and evolve throughout his life.
Wasn’t he secretly baptized when he was older?
No, nor was he planning to convert to (fill in the church of your choice) on Easter Sunday, 1865, only to be tragically murdered on the preceding Good Friday.
The answers to questions about Lincoln’s church membership are not the ones that most people are hoping to hear. He was never a member of the church you attend, or any church. His religious beliefs were dynamic, complex, and powerful, but not conventional. He wasn’t a Baptist, despite being raised in a Baptist tradition. He wasn’t a Presbyterian, although he attended Presbyterian services much of his adult life. He was not a Catholic, contrary to rumors started by the ravings of Reverend Charles Chiniquy, who published a bizarre diatribe called Fifty Years in the Church of Rome (1886), which accused Catholics of claiming that Lincoln had been born into their Church.
According to Mrs. Lincoln, who ought to have known, he was not even a Christian. Many stories have circulated about Lincoln being secretly baptized, or planning to be, but they are all unsubstantiated.
