Trying Out "American Scripture" with the Gettysburg Address

Why this text is an ideal way to try out the core faith250 methodology.

In 1863, America was many things to many people, but it was definitely not unified around any core premises. When Lincoln stood up to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” after the two-hour keynote at the Gettysburg cemetery dedication ceremony, he rewrote the American narrative. The battlefield itself gruesomely demonstrated the consequence of that disunity. And as Lincoln ran for his second term in the shadow of that Northern victory, his vision extended over the solemn graves to the post-war horizon.

I visited Gettysburg this year for the 162nd anniversary of the delivery of the Gettysburg Address with three multi-faith colleagues in a pilgrimage sponsored by Interfaith America. What we heard from the excellent speakers, and what we felt in the mostly rural Pennsylvania crowd, was a striking echo of our nation’s need for unity. From the dais and in the seats, the fear of our fractures was palpable.

faith250 is meant to help heal that disunity. To help spread the word about this program, we have created a sample session for any clergy to try out our core methodology—the spiritual study of a document we can unify around as American Scripture. The instructions and handout for this sampler can be accessed with the button below, and it can be used in any way you see fit. It is designed for flexibility, so that individual clerics and their communities can feel in our souls the way that we share powerful, inspiring civic words from our national history.

The purpose of studying American Scripture is for groups of people to see how our national story is bigger than our contemporary political divisions. To do that we need to encounter how that story has been shaped in the past and experience how we participate in shaping it in conversation today. The Gettysburg Address is an ideal way to try this out, because in only 272 words, Lincoln is creating a unifying narrative for a broken America. Starting with how the nation was “conceived” and ending with the open question that government of, by, and for the people “shall not perish from the earth,” he places listeners firmly inside the lifecycle of the country.

We remain in that lifecycle. The charge Lincoln presented in 1863 is still real and sits before us. We encourage you to try out the sampler, and feel the way this can open up meaningful conversations in all types of communities (red, blue, purple, bitterly divided, solidly in a bubble, totally avoidant, or all of the above). If you like it, head over to our guide for starting a faith250 cluster in your local community.