This coming Wednesday is Abraham Lincoln’s birth anniversary. In his Second Inaugural Address, as the President of a divided Union, he realized that people of faith were praying to the same God for different outcomes. Lincoln was humble enough to dare not equate God’s will with that of either side, saying, “The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

With this said, however, Lincoln saw the nation’s embrace or tolerance of slavery as an offense before God. He dated that offense to the beginning of the Colonial era so that it applied to both North and South. He admitted that slavery was predominantly a Southern institution, but the North abetted its inhumanity and therefore its immorality. Both were guilty before the Creator for treating enslaved people as possessions, not as people.

Lincoln acknowledged the hopes and prayers for a quick end to the war, but followed this immediately with the corrective: “Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

While not intending to diminish the absolute immorality of our nation’s sin of slavery, I would like to focus this Faith Matters column on Lincoln’s humbleness when invoking God in politics. I do so because Lincoln’s example is the anomaly that points out the contrast with the current manipulation of God, and more specifically of Jesus, for political purpose. God, as such, is not revelatory or challenging. God is relegated to acting simply as a nodding bobblehead doll. And in a bleaker scenario, the political manipulation of God is perilously medieval.

For example, I heard for the first time of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). I must be isolated in Massachusetts because a Denison University survey reports that about 40% of American Christians embrace the tenets of this movement, which are based on the establishment of Christ’s earthly kingdom at the expense of Satanic inspired notions of individual rights, religious liberty and the secular state. Some within this Christian movement refer to their opponents as “unhumans” who must be “crushed.”

“Unhumans” is akin to the language used by petty dictators to dehumanize opponents. “Crushed” is the intentional disregard by these NAR members of Jesus’ ministry and gospel. With words that are timeless and so very timely at this moment, Jesus reprimands the leaders of his day by saying, “‘You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’” (Mark 7:8) This refers to the repeated efforts made to appropriate and then tame the commandment of God. What is the commandment? The Gospels and the Epistles are clear. All the Law, the prophets and the gospel are condensed into a single commandment: love one another (John 13:34; Galatians 5:14; 1 John 4:20; and so beautifully in Luke 10:25-37).

Lincoln knew that for all the biblical references enslavers and enablers trumpeted to justify their abhorrent tradition, it was all a religious charade because it made a mockery of the fundamental Christian commandment – then and now and always to love one another.

Lincoln was humble enough to realize “The Almighty has His own purposes,” and would not, therefore, claim to be on God’s side even when the other side was so blatantly unchristian. We citizens need to appreciate again Lincoln’s humbleness. I too hope for the establishment of God’s reign on earth, but if the NAR and others of like mind profess that it must be forced upon people, and the “unhumans” who dissent must be “crushed,” then this implies such an uninspiring reign that it is not of God. It is a sad human tradition.

Prophets from Samuel to Nathan to Elijah to Amos to Jeremiah have needed to humble those who assumed their will equaled God’s will. Jesus continues this disruptive prophetic lineage. In the New Testament’s original Greek, there is a word for brotherly love, but the word used in the above citations is a New Testament creation. It is “agape.” It is a disinterested, generous, even unnatural love. It calls us above our human inclinations of brotherly love. Instead, agape is not a reactive love, but a proactive one. It calls us toward our higher selves made in the image and likeness of God.

Agape is the commandment of God proven in how we treat one another, especially the most vulnerable among us. It is the mercy and compassion lived broadly that ushers in the reign of God, not the earthly power that giggles at the thought of crushing the “unhuman.” The reign of God upends human pride so that in Jesus’ compelling words, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Like Lincoln, may we realize “The Almighty has His own purposes,” and be wary of those who are not as humble.

The First Congregational Church of Sunderland, United Church of Christ, has ministered to our local communities since 1717. Sunday Services begin at 11 a.m. The church’s website and Facebook page are found under First Congregational Church of Sunderland. The church’s phone number is 413-665-7987. If you wish to reach Rev. Randy Calvo, or join our book discussion on Feb. 26, or the Lenten Retreat on April 6, email randyc1897@gmail.com. Anthony Tracia directs our music program, and we have a bell choir. We are an official “Open and Affirming” congregation so when we say, “All are welcome here,” we mean it.