July 29, Dallas Gingles, assistant dean of hybrid education and associate professor in the Perkins School of Theology at SMU Dallas, for a commentary positing that the country needs a leader today with the wisdom and religious guideposts of Abraham Lincoln. Published in the Dallas Morning News under the heading We need a Lincoln right now: https://tinyurl.com/mtyt7tjd
I teach ethics and theology at Southern Methodist University, and this fall I’m offering a course on Presidential Rhetoric and Political Theology. Beginning with Lincoln’s second inaugural address, we’ll examine the ways presidents have used theological themes as a way of helping explain the nation to itself.
I’ve been thinking about this topic for at least the past decade, but listening to this year’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, I was struck by how important this tradition is to our shared self-understanding as a country, and about how impoverished we are because neither Biden nor Trump truly inhabits it. Whether Vice President Kamala Harris better embodies the Lincoln paradigm remains to be seen.