'How an Unconventional Approach to Religion Helped Shape a Divided Nation'

Ted Widmer reviews Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation, by Joshua Zeitz, at The New York Times.

As a young man, Lincoln was barely a Christian in the conventional sense. ...

"But a different Lincoln occupied the White House. If not a doctrinaire believer (he never joined a church), he clearly felt a deep connection to the Bible, which he read carefully. ..."

See Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address", Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 6.

See:
Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 54 Vol., 1952)

"Readers who are startled to find the Bible omitted from the set will be reassured to learn that this was done only because Bibles are already widely distributed, and it was felt unnecessary to bring another, by way of this set, into homes that had several already. References to the Bible are, however, included in both the King James and the Douai versions under the appropriate topics in the Syntopicon." (The Great Conversation, by Robert M. Hutchinsmm, volume 1, p. xvii). [Syntopicon is the title of the extensive topical index to the entire set.]

Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990)

"References to Bible, when present, are always placed first. The Bible is not included as part of the set, since there is no definitive version acceptable to everyone." Introduction to The Syntopicon (vol. 1, p. xiv),