On the literary front, I've discovered that in matters of theology I may be something of a watered-down Lincolnite. There are certain affinities. This is from the excellent Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President by Allen C. Guelzo:
...Lincoln's moralism, far from puzzling, was driven precisely because he was "wholly wanting" in "piety." It was the mark of many Victorian unbelievers who came from pious Protestant households...to imbibe from those households a puritanical demand for earnestness and relentless truthfulness and then turn it on their own Christianity. Duty became the moral surrogate of religion. And often, it was the very high-mindedness of their honesty which led them to reject Christianity as untrue or lapse into unbelief if they felt they could not honestly describe themselves as Christians. The ethics of Protestant Christianity outlasted its theology, and almost as a compensation for the absence of faith, "infidels" like Lincoln redoubled their own pursuit of conscientiousness.So very American no? There was much more to Lincoln as a religious figure of course and it's important to note that talk of Lincoln's infidel ways and lack of piety refer specifically to his general disinterest in Christological ideas. Old Abe had little use for any specific creeds, rather, it was all about God, the inscrutable creator. More, perhaps, later.
