The
Battle Hymn Refuted
by David O.
Jones
The “Battle Hymn of the
Republic” occupies a prominent position not only within the program of
nearly every nationalistic celebration, but also has become a part of many
Christian services. Admittedly, the anthem sounds good, but it is far from
being a “hymn” in the traditional sense of the word. Many Christians
understand its stirring words to provide an image of a victorious Church,
but that is just not so! The connotations of a spiritualized patriotism
which have endeared it to many, result from a mistaken and cursory reading
of the song.
By
definition, a hymn is a song which incorporates theological truth into its
text. Wonderful examples of Christian hymns are “A Mighty Fortress Is
Our God,” “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and “How Firm a
Foundation.” But despite its author’s use of biblical phrasing, the
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” is not about Christ “marching”
against sin and the Church being “victorious” over evil. The
theological truths which it expresses are anti-Christian and anti-biblical,
thus it should never be sung by a Christian congregation.
The “Battle Hymn of the
Republic” was written in the fall of 1861. While in Washington, D.C.
with her husband, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe watched troops marching off to war
singing “John Brown’s Body.” She
determined to write a more inspiring war song to what was a good melody.
First published in the Atlantic Monthly, she received five dollars for her
literary effort.
Born into a prominent New York
City family, Julia Ward was raised in a conservative, Christian home. As a
young woman she rebelled against her parents’ strong Calvinism and
ultimately married the Boston reformer, Dr. Samuel G. Howe. She adopted
the tenants of Transcendentalism, then Unitarianism, and it was in that
light that the “Battle Hymn” was written.
The
Transcendentalists became the core of the radical abolitionist movement.
Dr. Howe, as well as their Boston pastor, the Reverend Theodore Parker
were two members of the “Secret Six” who financed and armed the
anti-slavery terrorist John Brown. After his murderous rampage in Kansas
and at Harper’s Ferry, Mrs. Howe lamented, “John Brown’s death will
be holy and glorious. John Brown will glorify the gallows like Jesus
glorified the cross.”
The “Battle Hymn of the
Republic” can only be understood within the framework of the
Transcendentalist-Unitarian creed. The first verse reads:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword.
His truth is marching on.
Mrs. Howe applied the apocalyptic
judgment of the Revelation (14:17-20 & 19:15) to the Confederate
nation. She pictured the Union army not only as that instrument which
would cause Southern blood to flow out upon the earth, but also the Union
army as the very expression of His Word (sword) itself. The
Transcendentalist-Unitarians believed that the evil in man could be rooted
out by governmental action. The South was evil and was thus deserving of
judgment of the most extreme nature—its own Armageddon.
The second verse follows the same
theme by presenting the Union army as the abode of their vengeful God.
I have seen Him in the watch fires
of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.
The third verse is so contrary of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that
many hymnals leave it out altogether.
I have read the fiery gospel writ
in burnished rows of steel.
As ye deal with My contempters,
so with you My grace shall deal;
Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his
heel.
Since God is marching on.
Mrs. Howe proclaimed a gospel of
judgment pictured by rows of affixed bayonets. Taking God’s promise of
deliverance from Genesis 3:15, she applied it not to Christ, but to the
Union soldier who would receive God’s grace by killing Southerners. This
was certainly a different gospel; the kind of which the Apostle Paul said,
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you
than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8)
Verse four returns to the prose of the Apocalypse with trumpet and
judgment seat imagery:
He has sounded forth the
trumpet that shall never sound retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of
men before His judgment seat.
O be swift, my soul, to answer
Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
The problem again is that civil
warfare was the instrument being promoted for determining the hearts of
men. A man’s positive response to the call for enlistment in the Union
army was the action which would reveal their standing before God.
The fifth and final verse gives the ultimate expression of the
warped and anti-biblical theology which possessed the radical
abolitionists.
In the beauty of the lilies,
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that
transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men
free,
While God is marching on.
To Julia Ward Howe the work of
Christ was incomplete. It was up to men through civil government to bring
about a utopian society. She
was quoted in her biography, “Not until the Civil War did I officially
join the Unitarian church and accept the fact the Christ was merely a
great teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and
power than any other man.” (emphasis mine)
The “Battle Hymn” theme has nothing to do with Christianity or
God. It is a political-patriotic song about the destruction of the South,
written in religious terminology. It is a clever product. Howe
deliberately created the idea that the North was doing God’s work. It
paints a picture of a vengeful God destroying His enemies—the South, and
elevating the North’s cause to that of a “holy war.” In doing so,
Howe portrayed the South and its people as evil and the enemy of God.
Outrageous, but it worked.
As a Unitarian, Julia Ward Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine
that man is characteristically good and he can redeem himself by his own
merits without any help from a saviour. She rejected basic biblical truths
such as a literal hell—“I threw away, once and forever, the thought of
the terrible hell which appears to me impossible.”
Mrs. Howe
also refuted the exclusive claim of Jesus, “I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) by
saying, “Having rejected the exclusive doctrine that made Christianity
and special forms of it the only way of spiritual redemption, I now accept
the belief that not only Christians but all human beings, no matter what
their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of
God’s plans for bringing all of humanity to a state of ultimate
perfection.”
Our
challenge is to bring a proper understanding of the nature of this battle
anthem to the leadership of the Christian church. No Christian church
would intentionally sing a song of praise to Satan’s doctrines, nor
would any pastor or elder lead their flock into rebellion against true
biblical doctrine. Yet by ignorance, is has been done on a regular basis
in the American church. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is apostasy.
It promotes hatred and vengeful destruction. It has no place in a worship
service.
