As Memorial Day and Independence Day celebrations near, prepare
yourself to hear the. most offensive song ever written. No, not
some rap drone about violence or perverted sex, rather that
pseudo-Christian anthem known as The Battle Hymn of the
Republic.
The song occupies a prominent position not only within the
program of nearly every nationalistic celebration, but also as
part of many Christian services. Admittedly, the anthem sounds
good, but it is far from being a 'hymn.' Many Christians
understand its stirring words to provide an image of a
victorious Church, but the connotations of a spiritual
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 O. 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 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
fixed 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 the 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."
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 and has no
place in a worship service.
