Abraham Lincoln: God’s “Instrument”

Abstract

This paper examines one example of a spiritual hero, Abraham Lincoln, to reflect on issues about spiritual development, to connect spiritual development to character, and to indicate in what ways moral and religious development define and promote spiritual development. It uses Lincoln to show why spiritual maturity takes so long to develop and to show how spiritual development grows out of, rather than in parallel to, the many developments in our public and private lives. Finally, it shows the significance of being spiritual and why we should support spiritual development.

Keywords

• character
• virtue
• moral development
• democracy
• slavery
• faith