Now and again the subject of Abraham Lincoln’s religion arises. We have sometimes been told that he had a Free Will Baptist background. Recently reprinted (and available on Amazon) is a little book from 1909, Abraham Lincoln’s Religion, by Madison C. Peters. The reprint adds to the original title these words: His Parents Were Free Will Baptists in Kentucky. The book does not justify that claim. All Peters said (page 17) was that Lincoln’s “mother and father were Free-Will Baptists in Kentucky.” And that is not correct. Lincoln’s parents attended a Separate Baptist church in Kentucky, and the Separate Baptists never were part of the Free Will Baptist denomination. True, some of them—especially after the merger of the Separate and Regular Baptists in Virginia in 1787—were “free will” in their sentiments, at least in their view of predestination and the atonement. But it is also true that many Separate Baptists were Calvinistic. Knowing what theology of salvation Lincoln’s parents personally held is not possible. They would have attended churches near them, whether they agreed with all their articles of faith or not. Peters also reports that they were in a predestinarian church when they relocated to Indiana. Anyone interested in the subject would … Continue reading Was Abraham Lincoln a Free Will Baptist?