Today - Lincoln's Birthday Celebration at Springfield, IL Church

from http://lincolnschurch.org/

Lincoln's Birthday Worship Celebration


Sunday, February 13, 2011

Featured guest speaker — Dr. Stewart Winger, Associate Professor of History, Illinois State University
Program and Continental Breakfast
"Niagara, Gettysburg, and Lincoln’s Poetic Reclamation of the Bible and Christian Thought"
8:30 a.m.
in Cook Lounge
Worship Celebration
"Sin and Confession in Lincoln"
10:30 a.m.
in the Sanctuary
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Historian Mark Noll have both claimed that of all the religious voices who attempted to come to terms with the cataclysmic American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s was by far the deepest and the most theologically profound, in spite of the fact that Lincoln was not, by the standards of the day, an orthodox, conventional, “technical” Christian. Why? Both Niebuhr and Noll struggled to explain this paradox. But could it be that because Lincoln did not read the Bible literally, he was for that very reason more open to its power?
Perhaps we can learn from Lincoln. As Christians, we should consider whether our literal-mindedness just might prevent us from finding a richer and deeper involvement with our tradition. The annual Lincoln’s Birthday worship celebration at First Presbyterian Church, held Sunday, February 13, will offer the community the chance to explore these questions further.