 I grew up believing that Lincoln was a benevolent man who ended slavery and preserved the union. Imagine my shock when as an adult, free of the history books I was taught, someone challenged this view of Lincoln on the basis of the principles of self-government, States rights, and liberty. I am not a close-minded person. I function on the basis of the principles of truth and am always willing to hear a case. Moreover, I will alter my view upon presentation of evidence. I think it is because I am aware of a Power higher than myself to whom I answer. Therefore, I always believe I must agree, in principle and in truth, with Him. I now see Lincoln as a man who destroyed the principles of liberty resulting in the enslavement of the entire nation rather than setting just some free. Thank you for your article. I did read it in it's entirety. It stated facts of which I was previously unaware in actions that he took while President.
Mr. DiLorenzo, I would ask that you consider something. The Puritans who came to this land originally were by majority Calvinist in their doctrine. Thus, they believed in the Sovereignty of God in Divine Providence. They believed they were saved wholly by grace void of personal merit in selection, thus election, to salvation. They did not believe man was the captain of his own soul, was saved by an act of his own free will rather than gracious revelation of Jesus by God's Sovereign grace upon them.
Then, probably through the influence of John Wesley, arminiasm began to take root (though he preached primarily in England as I understand it - he did come to America perhaps in 1736 for a year or two). After that, Charles Finney preached salvation wholly by man's will in the 1820's and actively preached and influenced the American church up through the period of the Civil War and beyond. Finney is categorized by myself and many others as an apostate who believed wholly in man. I will not further expound on that matter.
My point would be that previously the majority of Christian society in the USA had believed in God as their omnipotent King and Sovereign. More and more Christians came to believe that God had given all power to the will of man to "bring the kingdom". Therefore "they" must "do for God" what God was impotent to do having given all power to the will of man. This is heresy, very simply, and it produces very evil fruits. Such heresy, I would say, have produced the evil fruit of neoconism. They produce, also, the errors of those who attempt to "bring the kingdom" by the ways of man, wars, tyranny, government oppression, and statism through man's strength and power. I cannot "detail" this position in a short comment. However, I would awaken you to these facts.
I believe a discussion of Christian fundamentalism that has produced the evil fruits of which you speak should attribute the character defects in the church and nation in faith in the will of man rather than the Sovereignty of God. I do not consider this "Puritanism". I consider it the heresy of arminiasm.
You see, no longer did man have faith in God and regard men as equals to be respected allowing God to do His own Sovereign work in their lives. Suddenly, man was the "agent" of bringing the kingdom, and bringing the power of the kingdom to bear by the force of his own will. This leads to believing the use of Government in tyranny is "necessary" and "beneficial" as men, by their own power and in their own strengths, force their will. Through false doctrine, the forcing of one man's will against another suddenly appears to be "God's will being done through man" for God has made man's will the power of all good and salvation. This leads to statism and all the errors we see around us in Christians who have gone off on a pride-filled tangent. A little leaven leaveneth the whole loaf.
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