Monthly Archives: July 2014

What if Lincoln Survived his assassination?

How would American history have changed if the presidents were different?

One of my favorite past times is alternative history, and while some of it can be rather bizarre, even ridiculous, the art and practice itself is not altogether unprofitable.  About a year ago, just for fun, I decided to create an alternative list of American presidents-that is, men who either ran for president and lost, or men who expressed a desire to run, but did not for various reasons.  My intention was to put very little time into the exercise and create a list that was only a page or two long.  Well, thirty-eight pages later, I had an entire alternative history for the American presidency as well as an alternative history of national and international events.  Recently, the idea hit me that it might be fun occasionally to present portions of that history on my blog.  If you know a lot about American history, no doubt, you will find this interesting.  If you don’t know much about our national past, well, this might be a fun way to start learning about it.

Obviously, there is no way for me to put my entire history into one, two or three blogs.  And as there are other topics I still wish to blog about (some historical and others not), I may interrupt this series from time to time with other more timely and more serious subjects.  But every now and then, we all need to have a little fun.  And this exercise is purely for fun, sort of.

Please feel free to offer your own thoughts, observations, etc, in the comment section.  It is always enjoyable to have a friendly discussion regarding these things.  All I would ask is keep the tone civil and respectful, and I am sure we will have lots of fun.  So without further introduction, here is the beginning of my alternative history of the American Presidency.

An Alternative History of the American Presidents:

In my history, the first 15 presidents remain unchanged as in the original timeline (abbreviated OT for the rest of these posts).  If you don’t remember their names, you can look them up on any list of presidents.

1860-Republican Abraham Lincoln is elected president in a four man race, defeating two Democratic candidates and one candidate from the short-lived Constitutional Union Party.  As a result, the Southern States secede, and the War between the States begins the same as in the OT.

*The Key Point of Divergence in my timeline occurs in 1865 when Lincoln survives his assassination. John Wilkes Booth’s bullet grazes his head, taking off part of his ear instead of actually penetrating the skull.  The wound is serious, but he will survive and in the weeks following the shooting, his popularity will reach an all time high, even among some Southerners.

(Key note: Medically speaking, it was not possible for Lincoln to have survived the wound he received in the OT.  The shot to the back of his head was mortal from the moment the bullet penetrated his skull because it passed through on the left side his brain and was lodged behind his left eye.  Most likely, Lincoln never knew what hit him, and passed out almost immediately.  The possibility of his survival is almost nil. But such details would ruin our story, so by a miracle, Lincoln survives, and American history is forever changed.)

What sort of impact did Lincoln’s survival of his assassination attempt have upon his own life, the Republican Party, and the course of American history?

That question is what this alternative history is all about.

Next time: Lincoln’s second term and his growing political alienation from the Republican Party; and how the Republican Party became a bitter minority party for most of the nineteenth century.

A Biblical Response to the Post-Modern World

(This post is Part 3 of a series on the rise of the Postmodern world and its impact on Biblical Protestantism.  This post offers Biblical insight to the theological and spiritual changes we are witnessing in our day and how we ought to view them through the lens of Scripture.  These essays are an exploration of the continual impact of Postmodern thought upon Biblical Christianity.)

 

Naturally, when discussing such shifts in theological and philosophical thinking, the question among true Bible-believing Christians arises: what can we do about this new shift in the history of religion in the world?  The Bible provides a very simple answer to that question: NOTHING.  We cannot stop such religious and philosophical shifts which are simply part of the global rebellion of mankind against God and His sovereign rule.  Indeed, God does not expect us to start, stop or change the broad flow of human history.  One of the sad commentaries regarding current Evangelical thought and theology is that far too many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are still living under the old New England Puritan and later Edwardsian pang of conscience that it is the Church’s responsibility both to change history and to usher in Christ’s kingdom.  The scripture is very clear: God is sovereign over the course and direction of human events, and God alone changes and directs the flow of time and historical development.  The duty of the Christian is simple: be faithful to God’s commands in the Holy Scripture no matter what may happen.  Hence, many a saint has spoken wisely, “Duty is mine, consequences are God’s.”  And a true Protestant, indeed a true Calvinist, would assert that in all circumstances of providence, our first duty in all of life is to trust God and to submit to His all wise and all sovereign will.

Having stated these observations, let us now turn the real question regarding this new shift in theology and thought in the Western world. The right question we should ask is not what is happening (descriptive) or what can we do about the present crisis of thought and theology (proactive), but rather the question we ought to ask is this:

What does the Scripture say about such a crisis of theology?  And how are we to view such a crisis in light of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ?

These are the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves in the query concerning an understanding of the times in which we live.  Indeed, every Christian in every age ought to ask this one question.  What does the scripture say about my times and circumstances?  Between the constant badgering of the secularist and the age old question of the devil himself, too many Christians have allowed themselves to think that the Bible does not address their time and circumstances. But in fact, the Bible does talk about different times and seasons, and through His word, Christ offers instruction for His church in all such times and occasions.  With this perspective in the mind, the question we ought to ask in such times of crisis is this:

How am I to view the current shift of theology and thought that is occurring, especially considering the overall traumatic effects it is having upon our economic, political, social, cultural, national and international circumstances?

Without a doubt, in our life time we will witness the total collapse of Protestantism as we have known it for the last five centuries.  But with the outward collapse of such a movement or an absence of a clear outward profession of faith, does that mean that the church of Jesus Christ shall cease to exist?  On the contrary, the scripture patently declares otherwise!  Christ will build His church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it!  That is the sure promise from Christ himself.  But that promise does not mean there will not be rises and falls in the history of the church until Christ returns.  So then, that fact being acknowledged, the proper question for us to consider is what should our duty be when faced with the traumatic shift of thought that is occurring in our day, and what can we as followers of Jesus Christ do to prepare for new world which we and our descendants may face: a world in which the Protestant havens we have known no longer exist and we are left in a theologically and ecclesiastically desolate wilderness.  It is this question that I hope to address in the essays to come.

Postmodernism and the Death of Protestantism

(The following post is Part 2 of a three part series that I began in the previous post entitled, 9/11 and the death of the Modern.  While the first part focused on the philosophical and secular impact 9/11 to the Postmodern age, this section focuses on the theological impact of Postmodernism, particularly on Protestantism.  A third post will follow this one offering some concluding remarks.)

 

The more sobering reality of the epistemological revolution occurring in our day is not just that the Modern has fallen prey to the supplanting forces of the Postmodern, but that at the same time, the last gasps of a Post-Protestant Christianity are also quickly succumbing to the same principles of Postmodern thinking.  And when carefully examined, the principles of the Modern, the Postmodern, and the growing Post-Protestant Christianity are not only virtually identical, but these principles which they espouse are the same principles of religion adhered to by the Roman Church.  Thus, the sobering fact of this shift that we are witnessing in the opening years of the 21st century is the very the reversal of the Protestant Reformation, not just in theological terms as occurred in the 20th century, but also in ecclesiastical, cultural, social, economic and political terms.  Even secular historians acknowledge the Protestant Reformation transformed Europe and the United States into the great dominating social, cultural and political powers of the 18th and 19th centuries-often referred to as the great ‘Golden Age’ of the West.  But in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Modern destroyed the theology of the Reformation, creating instead the secular dispiriting dystopia of the 20th century. And as we proceed into the 21st century, having realized the emptiness of Modernism, humanity has embraced a new religion for its times, Post-modernism.

The consequence of this shift is even more frightening than that of the Protestant to the Modern, because while the Modern destroyed the theology of the Reformation which under girded the Western world, the Post-modern is actually destroying the outward institutions of Protestantism-including everything from the organized Protestant church to the rejection of constitutional representative government by the rule of law.  And all of this is happening as a result of the church’s and society’s embrace of the new Post-modern religion with its faith in human faith and its worship of the human ego.  And unless there is a swift and sudden reversal of these trends, we will very likely in our life times witness the complete and total collapse of those very institutions that we as Evangelical Protestants have all taken for granted for the last five centuries.  And all of this simply because of the great theological paradigm shift we are watching work itself out in our time.

Now as an aside, I should point out, not all professing Christians in our time are grieved by this shift.  In fact, there are many who profess to be Christians who would welcome the death of Protestantism as the next step in an Hegelian-like step of ecclesiastical progress that will once again unite Christendom into one institutional church.  And depending one’s theology and religious views, such an even might be a welcome triumph.  But as most of you already know, this author does not welcome the apparent death of Protestantism as a good thing for the true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  But I digress on that point, and will visit perhaps some time in the future.

Suffice to say this: As the modern age collapses into the ethereal smokey age of the Postmodern era (age sounds too sophisticated for our time), the radical change in philosophical thinking is also impacting the course of theology and church history in just as radical a change as our secular world.  And we cannot truly appreciate this change without understanding both the secular and religious elements of this epistemological revelation.