Julia W. Howe and the Battle Hymn

[thea_447]

This came to me in an email yesterday, I'm merely passing it along.
It contains information about Julia Ward Howe that I did not know.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

The Battle Hymn of the Republic is a pseudo-Christian anthem which occupies a prominent position not only within the programme 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 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 pre-eminence 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. It has no place in a worship service.

[rivrrat]

Thea,
I am not qualified to argue the theology of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. However I can't help but agree that the song is a political one designed to further the Union cause. I also agree that John Brown, and his sons, were terrorists. I have not heard of the "Secret Six" mentioned in your post. Could you identify the author of what you posted. I would be interested in digging a little deeper into it.

Thanks

[hoosier]

Morale is a very important thing for any army in any war. Ideally, the soldier wants to think that his side is not only mightier than the enemy but also more righteous.

Patriotic civilians would like to help bolster that morale, but few, if any, have ever found a more effective way of doing so than Julia Ward Howe did by writing this hymn.

You make a good point that some of those original words are pretty extreme. I don't ever recall singing that third verse, and nowadays the final verse is usually changed to "...let us live to make men free."

Still, I think that the emphasis of the song is that "our side" - i.e., the side that is singing the song - is the one that is on the right side. I know that Julia Ward Howe wrote it in a Northern city and called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." But if her sympathies had been pro-Southern and if she had written it in, say, Charleston and called it "The Battle Hymn of the Confederacy," I would tend to doubt that one word of any of those five verses would have been different.

I'm a veteran church choir singer and I've sung the hymn in a number of different churches.

Let me assure you that, when I sing it, I do not do so with a sense of vengeful gloating over the defeat of the CSA more than a century ago.

I have always sung it with the feeling that we, as Christians, are expressing our confidence that we are on the right side with the Lord, and that is the way I will continue to sing it in the future.

[gary]

If you are correct sir, that would make Howe the first American woman propagandist.

The Secret Six were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Gerrit Smith, Reverend Theodore Parker, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, George Luther Stearns, Franklin Sanborn

Doug,
Here is a PBS link to that tells about the Secret Six...there has been other info turned up over the years indirectly implicating elected officials and other notables who were associates of these men in supporting the terrorist acts of John Brown.

Interestingly enough, none of Brown's backers were ever brought to trail.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/brown/p...s/pande06.html

[ami]

I am not sure how that message got approved, I have since moved it to a secure non visible forum, so that Mike and I can discuss it.

I think Mike was tired last night and missed some areas of that message.

Ami
CWT Admin

[thea_447]

Doug,

Actually my husband sent it to me in an email the other day. He travels a good deal in his work and is currently in New York on business but I will ask on his return where he came across this.

The reason that I posted it was that I didn't know anything about Julia Ward Howe's religious affiliations per se. And the quote from her biography intrigued me.

I will see what I can find out though.
I remain, YMOS,

[nicolo]

Is the writer anti-unitarian or anti-Battle Hymn of the Republic? In any case a hymn is a song of praise, usually, but not always in a religious context.
The Unitarians were not the only ones at the time who saw God's hand involved in a great cause on earth, done by man to the glory of God. The abolitionists were a small minority in society, but a greater majority existed who came to see that slavery was a moral wrong and it's extermination was God at work through man.
The song does not praise war it praises the cause that war was being fought for. I am surprised by the shallowness people that assumes the cause for emancipation was centered in a small band of anti-christian radicals.
There is nothing in the lyrics of the Battle HYmn of the Republic that any thinking Christian could not agree with.
Slavery had the unique ability of enobling its opponents, including John Brown. Back in those days it was assumed that Much of God's handiwork on earth was performed by many a sinner.

[johan_steele]

My knowledge of theology is sparse at best and I readily admit my ignorance of many aspects of the Bible. I had to reread this post several times to understand what the author was trying to get at. I don't agree w/ the premise that the Battle Hymn of the Republic is a Satanic song, any part of it. Is this an effort to remove the song from hymnals or paint those who have sung it as satanic or am I reading too much into it?

It raised enough questions in my mind that I took it up w/ my pastor and he was kind enough to ease my mind. At least I know in having sung and whistled such a song hundreds of times I haven't been singing satanic verse.

In short I respectfully disagree w/ the conclusions of the author. I believe if the Battle Hymn of the Republic was as anti-Christian and anti-biblical is as suggested it wouldn't be in most traditional hymn books and someone would have raised a fuss a long time ago.