Genesis: Creation, Fall, and Dominion

Should A Christian Sing the Battle Hymn?

Transcript: AI Transcript

Professor: John Weaver

Subject: Old Testament Studies

Genre: Sermon

Dictation Name:

Date: 2006-04-30

Synopsis: John Weaver argues that Christians, especially Southerners, should not sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic because its author, Julia Ward Howe, was an unbelieving Unitarian who denied core Christian doctrines, and the hymn itself perverts Scripture to glorify the Union Army's destruction of the South as a holy war. He examines the hymn's stanzas to show how they misuse biblical imagery to justify violence and portray Southerners as enemies of God.

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[John Weaver] Okay, if you'll open your Bibles into Ephesians 5 and look at verse 19, the Word of God says, speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. And then a parallel passage is found in Colossians 3, verse 16, where the Word of God says, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.

[John Weaver] Now, the message today is entitled, Should a Christian Sing the Battle Hymn of Republic? I really suppose that the correct question To ask would be this, should a Christian or a Southerner sing the battle hymn of the Republic?

[John Weaver] Now, in Ephesians 5 and verse 19, we read about songs, hymns and spiritual songs. You read that same division in Colossians 3 and verse 16. Let me just point out that the division between songs, hymns and spiritual songs is an actuality, a reference to the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms itself, that Old Testament book, is divided into psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. There is no hymn, no matter how beautiful, that is on a par with those psalms because those psalms are indeed the inspired Word of God. They are the only divinely inspired psalms, hymns, and songs that we have.

[John Weaver] Our ignorance and our lack of understanding on the issues increases as the years go by. In fact, we tend to forget that which we really have known in times past. Do you realize that one of the problems that we face today is there are so many things to think about and so many things to do, who in the world would want to waste their time thinking about a hymn or a song or a poem that was written 140 years ago? Well, let me point out the fact that what we have forgotten is that doctrine may be taught with songs. Whether that song is good or bad, or whether the doctrine is good or bad, you can always teach doctrine with songs. And songs, you can likewise teach history, whether it's true or untrue, with a song. I never will forget running into a little girl one time. She was probably about four or five years old. And the little kid was on the street, and she was singing.

[John Weaver] When you're out of schlitz, you're out of beer." And I thought, what? Well, it was just a catchy tune, and it caught her. And then Alice and I were at the Mules Day in Georgia there, and we saw this little kid on the stroller about three years old, and he was singing, Out Back, Nake House, Out Back, over and over. That's all he was saying. So, you can teach things with songs.

[John Weaver] And sooner or later, people come to accept them. Now, in order to understand the Battle Hymn of the Republic, you have to understand the context of that song. And the context of the Battle Hymn of the Republic involves the northern view of power, the centralization of government, the extermination of the South, the righteousness of the Northerns in committing genocide and enforcing their religious and cultural views upon the South. When Reconstruction occurred under the radical Republican Congress and was enforced by military rule, there were many Northerners then who rushed to the South to garner their spoils, and they brought with them their religion, their culture, and their song.

[John Weaver] Let me just point it out very graphically. In times past, no Christian and no self-respecting Southerner would ever sing or stand while the Battle Hymn of the Republic was being sung. Today, however, that hymn is sung in a multitude of churches on every patriotic day, and unhappily, it's even sung in Southern churches. And Christians themselves sing it. In reality, the battle hymn is not a hymn. By definition, a hymn is a song that incorporates biblical truth and especially celebrates the doctrine of God. We have many such hymns, like Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

[John Weaver] And can it be that I should gain an entrance in my Savior's love? How about this one? How firm a foundation, and then like a river glorious. These are all hymns that celebrate the deity of God and the greatness and the majesty of God. But the battle hymn, The Republic, was not written by a Christian, nor does it express the Christian faith. It takes truth out of context, and this applies that truth.

[John Weaver] and it has a very sinister and wicked origin. Let's begin today, first of all, by considering the authoress. Most of you know that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe. She was the wife of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a prominent physician who happened also to be a socialist, a Unitarian, and also a member of the Secret Six. Her husband was a member of that treasonous group known as the Secret Six, and the Secret Six were composed by wealthy men who sought to begin to foment and to start the war of Northern Aggression by inciting a slave rebellion in the South. And these men, of course, were the men who sponsored John Brown, who gave him money, who gave him all kinds of aid. Now, as a Unitarian, Julia Ward Howe would certainly claim to be a Christian, yet she denied the very cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. She denied the doctrine of the Trinity. She denied the deity of Jesus Christ.

[John Weaver] She denied the inspiration of the Bible and many other biblical truths. Julia Ward Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine that man is characteristically good and that he can redeem himself by his own merits without the need of a savior. She rejected a multitude of biblical truths. For instance, she rejected the doctrine of literal hell. She simply said this, and I'm quoting her very words, she said, I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell which appears to me impossible, end quote. Now, what was her reason for rejecting the doctrine of hell? Well, it just appeared to her as irrational, unreasonable, impossible. So she rejected it. You see, for a Unitarian, it is rationalism, it is their own thinking that is their standard, and not the Word of God. So she denied the doctrine of a real, literal hell.

[John Weaver] Moreover, she refuted explicitly the claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said in John 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh in father, but by me." So Jesus Christ said explicitly that he is the only way of salvation and the only way to the Father. Listen to the words of Julia Ward Howe. She says this, 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 that all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of God's plans for bringing all humanity to a state of ultimate perfection." So, Julia Ward Howe just got out of her mouth saying that Jesus Christ is not the exclusive way to the Father, that there are a multitude of ways that individuals may be converted. By her own statements, she made it exceedingly clear as her opinion concerning Jesus Christ. Here are her words again.

[John Weaver] She said, Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian Church and accept the fact that Christ was merely a good teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than many other men." So what was her idea of Jesus Christ? Julia Ward Howe believed that Jesus Christ was no better than any other man. and his wisdom and his righteousness was no more than the other man. He was just merely a man.

[John Weaver] She did not believe that he was God. She certainly did not believe that he was the God-man. And Junior Ward Howe also preached in Unitarian churches and was an ardent abolitionist. She became a much celebrated author in the North and was a supporter of the radical abolitionist movement. She was a social reformer and basically was an American socialist and communist. Now, she often preached in the Unitarian and the Universalist churches, and she continued in the Church of the Disciples led by her old friend, who was a pastor, James Freeman Clark, and she often spoke in his pulpit.

[John Weaver] Beginning in 1873, she hosted an annual gathering of women ministers and in the 1870s helped to found what is known as the Free Religious Association. Now Julia Ward Howe and her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, were not just simply abolitionists, they were abolitionists. But you remember there were several different types of abolitionism. They happened to be what were known as disunion abolitionists.

[John Weaver] Now, as disunion abolitionists, what they wanted to do was tear apart our confederated republic, to destroy our constitutional republic, and remake the United States according to their own radical, political, cultural, and religious ideas. And by the way, I hope you see that history records some of the success of their treason, that is for sure. While being ardent abolitionist, Julia Ward Howe, along with those of her ilk, in reality hated and despised the black race. You would think that abolitionists would have high regards for black people, but Julia Ward Howe wrote this, and I'm quoting, The ideal Negro would be one refined by white culture and elevated by white blood. She also wrote that the Negro among Negroes is coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest brutes, chiefly ambitious, to be of no use to any of the world, and he must go to school to the white race, and his discipline must be long and laborious."

[John Weaver] So she held a very low estimate of all blacks. So who was Julia Ward Howell? Let me answer that. She was a socialist. She was a communist. She was a reformer. She was an abolitionist. She was a Unitarian. She was one who believed that man could be reformed and regenerated and transfigured and elevated by government. And like Abraham Lincoln, she held to the centralization of power in the hands of the government and basically she was anti-Christian. Now, the battle hymn, although it employs biblical allusions and illustrations, it is in no way a biblical or a Christian song.

[John Weaver] So, the authoress, then, was an outright unbeliever and a despiser of Jesus Christ. Now, secondly today, I want you to consider with me the context of the writing of this poem. Now, before I give you the immediate context, I want to remind you of the remote context. Whenever you're studying scripture, you always want to look at a verse in its immediate context. That could be the paragraph above it or below it or just simply the paragraph that the verse is in. But the remote context may include one chapter or several chapters or the entire book. So everything has a remote context and an immediate context as well. And I want to quote Pastor Charles Jennings because he gives a very succinct definition of the remote context, and he says this.

[John Weaver] He says, during this time in American history, the South was quite different in many ways from the North. The South was more agrarian, while the North was more industrialized. The South was more rural, while the North was more urban. The South advocated the traditional interpretation of the constitutional principles of our Founding Fathers for states' rights and local governmental control as opposed to Northern Republican Party view of centralized governmental powers. The people of the South were more traditional in maintaining their culture, dating back to their Celtic ancestors, whereas the North was rapidly losing the radical and cultural traditions through the influx of more liberal ideas of equalitarianism. The educational institutions of the South were more conservative in thought, and practice as opposed to the northern concepts of universalism, humanism, deism, and rationalism that had crept into its once great academic institutions such as Harvard and Yale, At this critical time in our history, the South was definitely more adamant in its stalwart defense of traditional Calvinistic Christianity that dated back to the early reformers, while the religious establishments of the North were accepting and promoting the fallacious, anti-biblical concepts of the more modernistic approach to such truths as the authenticity and inerrancy of the scriptures."

[John Weaver] Now, in summation, here's what he said. There were so many differences between the North and the South. Not just traditionally, but culturally, religiously, economically. In fact, the South were, the people of the South were basically a laid back people. The people of the North were never laid back. I never will forget, I had an aunt and uncle who moved up North to Toledo, Ohio and stayed there for years until my uncle retired. tired from the Chevrolet plant there and then they moved back south. And my aunt could not get over the fact that down south everyone waved. And she said, you know, up north, if someone waves at you, you run the other way. But she said, you can't go down the street without 15 or 20 people speaking to you or waving to you. There was a great difference between the north and the south. This was just simply a remote context. Whatever differences you want to look at, I can assure you they were there and they were great between the North and the South.

[John Weaver] Now, the immediate context in which this battle hymn came to be written happened like this. In 1862, Samuel Gridley Howe and his wife, Julia Ward Howe, were invited to Washington by President Lincoln. The Howes visited a Union Army camp there across from the Potomac and there they heard the men singing a song and of course the song was to the tune of John Brown's body. Now, there happened to be two tunes to that song, one in which the North sang in celebration of John Brown and one in which the South sang in celebration of his death. So, the song was being sung and a clergyman who happened to be a friend and pastor of Julia Ward Howe, James Freeman Clark, and he knew that Julia Ward was a poet, and so he asked her to write a song that would replace the words to John Brown's body. And here are Julia Brown's own words.

[John Weaver] Let me read them to you. She said, I replied that I'd often wish to do so. In spite of the excitement of the day, I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, I shall lose this if I do not write it down immediately. I searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen, which I had had the night before, and began to straw the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened unto me." So, Julia Ward Howe had been asked to write this poem and she says, I woke up and man, here all these verses are raising themselves in my brain and I just got up and wrote them down.

[John Weaver] Now, Mrs. Howe and her husband had become deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 1840s and 1850s. In fact, they helped edit the Boston Commonwealth. In her zeal and desire for social reform, Mrs. Howe came to revere and respect one of the basest and vilest men that ever lived and that was the Kansas murderer and terrorist, John Brown. Now, Mrs. Howe and John Brown mutually admired each other. Mrs. Howe wrote that John Brown, and I'm quoting her now, was a Puritan of the Puritans, which was meant to be a positive statement by her and then she said he was forceful, concentrated and self-contained. Brown of course wrote of Mrs. Howe in a letter to a friend and he said that Mrs. Howe was a defiant little woman and that her personality was all flash and fire which of course appealed to John Brown. So here you find that John Brown and Judy Ward Howe mutually respected and admired each other. To show you the extent of that admiration Judy Ward Howe wrote a letter to her sister.

[John Weaver] And here's what she said. And by the way, she was in complete sympathy with Brown's viciousness and his plans to destroy the South. Here are her words. She wrote, I've just been to church, Unitarian Church, and heard James Freeman Clark, another Unitarian minister, preach about John Brown, whom God blessed and will bless. I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereupon I am at present correcting the proof sheets.

[John Weaver] I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting. Poor soul! Brown's attempt I must judge insane, but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be." By the way, I could make a real good scathing comment right there. She probably was, but here it is. She says, I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed.

[John Weaver] Listen, his death will be holy and glorious. the new saint awaiting martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, which he did, will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ." Julia Ward Howe said that the murderer and terrorist John Brown would make the gallows on which he was hanged as glorious as the cross of Jesus Christ. After his infamous murdering rampage and his attack in Harper's Ferry, when John Brown was condemned to die, Mrs. Howe again said that John Brown's death will be holy and glorious and he will glorify the gallows like Jesus glorified the cross.

[John Weaver] Now, in her letter to her sister, she said, I should be glad to be sure of heaven, as that old man may be." That old man, as Julia Ward Howe referred to him, was nothing less than a terrorist and a murderer. He, his sons, and his followers murdered innocent men and boys. You remember that John Brown massacred these men along the Potawatomi Creek and sometimes he's referred to as Potawatomi Brown.

[John Weaver] His first three victims were James P. Doyle and his sons Drury and William.

[John Weaver] Now the Doyles were Roman Catholics from Tennessee and they had moved to Kansas to get away from slavery. They had never owned a slave, did not agree with slavery, had nothing to do with slaves, But because they spoke with a southern drawl, or perhaps because they were Catholic, Brown marched them into a clearing where he split their skulls open with a sword and then drew his arms were hacked off. When Mrs. Doyle was later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered, here was her answer. just because we were southern people, I reckon."

[John Weaver] Tim Manning makes a statement in his book concerning the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and I want to read to you that one paragraph. And I want you to think about how accurate it is. Remember now, Mrs. Doyle answered as to why her husband and sons were murdered, just because we were southerners. I reckon. Arthur Manning says this, Southerners are just about the only minority in the United States about whom it is permitted, even popular, to hate. There is no negative stereotype about Southerners that is still not permitted, even encouraged, by politicians, the press, and the entertainment media.

[John Weaver] Northern nativism is still strong in the North and racism against Southern whites is still politically correct in spite of its long and bloody history. There is nothing to evil anyone can say about the South and Southern history and culture." That's basically the attitude of Hollywood and the media and the establishment. Those Doyles were just simply the first of John Brown's victims. Another victim was Alan Wilkinson, a recent settler from the South.

[John Weaver] He was executed while his wife and children watched in horror. William Sherman, not William Tecumseh Sherman unhappily, but William Sherman also was a victim of John Brown. His mutilated body was found floating in the creek with his left hand hanging only by a narrow strand of skin. His skull was split open. And people who had given up their faith in the Bible and Christianity, and had embraced humanism and Unitarianism, considered John Brown a national savior, performing the work of God, and placed him on the same footing as Jesus Christ. Newspapers in that day showed cartoons of John Brown hanging on a cross like Jesus dying for the sins of us all. Julia Ward Howe wrote of the wonderful justice of John Brown's brutal massacres.

[John Weaver] And she included that in her hymn when she spoke of the terrible swift sword, which I'll mention a little bit later. That terrible swift sword that she was referring to was old John Brown hacking to pieces mercilessly innocent men and boys. Incidentally, I hope you know that when John Brown made his raid at Harper's Ferry, the first man killed by John Brown himself was a free black. Heywood Shepard was a porter for the B&O Railroad and John Brown shot him in the back as he was running for his life. I find it interesting that John Brown said he came to the South to free the slaves in the first many murders and the attack on Harper's Ferry is a free black.

[John Weaver] The Battle Hymn of the Republic can only be understood in the framework of this transcendentalist Unitarian creed. Let me say this. The Battle Hymn may use biblical imagery and allusions, but it is not biblical and it is not Christian. I want to spend the rest of my time this morning considering with you the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I do hope and genuinely pray most of you do not know the words, but I'm afraid some of you may know those words, but I will give them to you. Here's the first stanza.

[John Weaver] She wrote, 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 his fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.

[John Weaver] Now, Mrs. Howe is applying the apocalyptic judgment that is mentioned in the book of Isaiah and in the book of Revelation against the Confederated Republic. In this first stanza, She is presenting and picturing the Union Army not only as that instrument which would cause southern blood to flow upon the earth, but also that the Union Army was the very expression of the word that is the sword itself. You have to remember that the Unitarians believed that evil could be rooted out of man by governmental action. The South was evil. And so the righteous northern government now, with this terrible swift sword that John Brown began, are now going to root out the evil Southerners and the evil that is in the South by destroying it and by bringing Armageddon upon the South. So she portrayed in the Union Army as the coming of the glory of the Lord.

[John Weaver] And what were they doing? They were trampling out his vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored. Where are the grapes of wrath? In the south. They're going to trample out the southern people. So, the first stanza then presents a picture of the northern army acting as Christ. Destroying and stamping out the wicked South and destroying the Southern people because, according to their philosophy, the South deserved to be destroyed.

[John Weaver] Now let me show you the image that she uses. Look in your Bibles to Isaiah 63 and let's read there just simply the first six verses. You'll see how she takes this out of context. This is a picture of Christ destroying His enemies. Isaiah 63, verse 1. Who is this that cometh forth from Eden, with dyed garments from Basra? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?

[John Weaver] I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me, for I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

[John Weaver] For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeeming is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore my own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in thine anger, and make them drunk in thy fury. I will bring down their strength to the earth."

[John Weaver] Now here's a picture of Jesus Christ destroying His enemies. This is the passage that Julia Ward Howe took and applied to the Union Army destroying God's enemies. Just as Christ trampled out the wine press and the blood flowed, so the Union Army now is going to destroy the Southern people and trample out the wickedness of the Southern people. Tim Manning in his book, On the Battle Hymn, asks a very legitimate question. Listen to this paragraph. He asks, What horrible crime had the South committed to warrant its extermination? The people of the South were guilty of wanting independence for a government of their own choosing.

[John Weaver] A pro-Christian, God-based government that safeguarded God-given human rights, individual liberty, and put strict limits on the powers of the shared central federal government. This was the type of government the Founders established in 1776, and the South was trying to preserve it as it had been given to them." That's basically why She decided the South deserved to be trampled out and destroyed. And so the first stanza then pictures the Northern Army as Christ trampling out the enemies, that is the South and the Southern people, because we are a wicked and ungodly and a judgment deserving people. Listen to the second stanza.

[John Weaver] She writes, I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built 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."

[John Weaver] Now I want you to listen to that. She said, I have seen Him, God. Where did she see God? I have seen Him, God, in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. That is the Union Camp. To her, Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers were the army of God going forth to slaughter the evil resistors of social reform and progressive centralized government. She said they had built in him an altar.

[John Weaver] Now, just stop and ask, what does that mean? They have built Him an altar. Does that refer to the stacked arms that are ready to be used against the southern people? She says, I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. Was this the campfires of the northern soldiers or the lamps perhaps in their tent? She said, she's seen this in His evening dues and damps. What is she saying? She is saying that those tents and those stacked arms and that campfire was nothing less than the very altar to God Himself.

[John Weaver] That is not only unbiblical, it is only ridiculous, it is blasphemous. There is another thought that I could throw out. When she says that you can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, it could also be an allusion to musket and cannon fire. If you're going to be reading the sentence of judgment and destruction, where could you see it more plainly than in the instruments of death? How could anyone as a Christian or Southerner Saying that is beyond me.

[John Weaver] The third stanza is even worse. It is so unbiblical. It is so anti-Christ. It is so anti-Christian. It is beyond belief. Listen to the third stanza. I have read the fiery gospel ridden burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my contemptors, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel, since God is marching on. Now, wait a minute. Listen to what she said. I have read the fiery gospel writ in varnished rows of steel. So these fixed bayonets, these rows of cannon are God's gospel, she says. Listen now, I have read the fire gospel written in burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my contemptors, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero born of woman.

[John Weaver] Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 and look at verse 15 for a moment. I want you to see the illusion that she is referring to. In Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have what is known as the Protei Evangelium. Prote means first or one. Evangelium, the gospel. So what you have in Genesis 3.15 is the first promise of the Messiah.

[John Weaver] And listen to what he says. Genesis 3 and verse 15, God says to the serpent, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. So in Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have then the very first promise of the Messiah, and that Messiah will be born of a woman, and that Messiah will bruise the serpent's heel.

[John Weaver] Now what does Julia Ward Howe do? Julia Ward Howe takes that verse out of context, Instead of the hero being born of woman referring to Christ, it is referring to the Union soldiers. And then she says, as you deal with my contemptors, so with you my grace shall deal. Who were the contemptors? The southern people. In other words, we were the ones who were guilty. We were holding God in contempt. Now listen to what she says.

[John Weaver] I'm not making this up. I have read the fiery gospel written in burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my contemptors, that is, as you judge and destroy the South, so with you my grace shall deal. In other words, God will bless and give grace to the northern army as they destroy the South. In other words, listen, Julia Ward's house, Theology and Philosophy, was the same philosophy that was held by the Roman Catholic Church during the Crusades.

[John Weaver] You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels. Listen, as you deal with my contemptors, that is, as you destroy them, as you judge them, so with you my grace shall deal. And then she says to the northern army that the hero born of woman, that's them, crush the serpent's heel, that's us. So she takes this passage that refers to Jesus Christ and applies it to the Union Army. And then she says that we are the serpent's seed and we're the ones that need to be crushed and destroyed and annihilated.

[John Weaver] How can any Christian and how can any southerner sing that hymn? The fourth stanza. Returns to the idea of judgment, it goes like this. He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never sound retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on. Now, what does this fourth stanza call for?

[John Weaver] It calls for a full, final and complete destruction of the South. No retreat. He has sounded for this trumpet that shall never sound retreat.

[John Weaver] Now, what is she saying? She is saying You remember that Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 volunteers to destroy the South. She is saying that the men that answered that call, the call of Lincoln, that was the judgment seat of Christ. In other words, in simple language, your response to Lincoln's call for volunteers to deny eight million Southerners the right of self-government demonstrated whether or not you were for or against Christ. So, she is saying, if you want to be on the right side, be swift, be jubilant, my feet, hurry with gladness and joy and join the Northern Army and crush the South. Destroy it.

[John Weaver] Here's the fifth and final stanza. 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. There is nothing about this song that is biblical. In the beauties of the lily, Christ was born across the sea. Oh, that sounds so wonderful. Listen, folks, lilies do not grow in stables. Christ was born in a stable. He was born in a manger. There ain't no lilies there.

[John Weaver] Secondly, only those who are in Christ are transformed and will be ultimately transfigured. Only Jesus Christ was transfigured in this life. That was upon the Mount of Transfiguration. We as Christians, we as believers, will not be quote unquote transfigured until glorification. Julia demonstrates her disbelief, her unbelief in Christ and His sufficiency and His atonement by saying, as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. You can't make anyone free. You can't free people from their sins. Jesus Christ, in John 8 and verse 36, the Word of God says, if the Son therefore shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed. What was Julia Ward Howell saying? Julia Ward Howell was saying Christ did not finish salvation. We must finish it. Government must do something. People must do something. Let's finish it. Let's do what Christ did not do and could not do.

[John Weaver] The battle of heaven and the republic is not biblical. It is not Christian.

[John Weaver] Now, let me make some applications. Now listen very carefully. If and when you hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic sung, the first thing you need to think about is the five innocent men and boys that old John Brown murdered and hacked to pieces. The second thing you should think about is the 620,000 Americans, North and South, who died in that horrible war and that war which transformed America from a constitutional republic to a centralized bureaucracy. You need to think especially of the Southern men who gave their lives for Southern independence.

[John Weaver] Secondly, listen carefully, Juilliard Howe used God and used biblical imagery to rub salt in the wounds of Christians. You know, one of our problems, and I try to say this often, and I try to say it as lovingly and kindly as I can, but one of our problems is this. that American Christians have been so dumbed down, we cannot even think. We don't know our Bibles. We don't know our history. We don't know our heritage. And when you allow an unbeliever to write a song denigrating Christ, denigrating His Word, denigrating His people, and then put that song in a church where Christians sing it heartily and lustily, it is beyond belief. Isn't it true that most of us, when we go to church and sing hymns, we never even think about what we're saying? We just say the words. She wrote a totally unbiblical, ungodly song and Christians everywhere sing it.

[John Weaver] The third application is this. The battle hymn has nothing to do with Christianity or God, it is a political patriotic song about the destruction of the South in religious terminology. Julia Ward Howe deliberately created the idea that the North was doing God's work. It paints a picture of God destroying His enemies in the South, thus elevating the North and her battle to a holy war against an unholy people. So, how then in her hymn portrays the South and its people as being evil and the enemy of God? How can any Southerner sing that song? By the way, And when you do see it, you're undoubtedly giving tacit approval and agreement with Mrs. Howe and her opinions. The inimitable Mark Twain saw the hypocrisy and the perversity of the battle hymn. Some of you may know, some of you may not know, but Mark Twain wrote his own version of the battle hymn of the Republic. And he wrote his version to mock Julia Ward Howe.

[John Weaver] I want you to listen very carefully. I'm going to read Mark Twain's version. And you can pick up one of the big reasons for the war. Here is his version. Mark Twain. Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the sword. He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored. He has loosed his fateful lightnings and with woe and death has scored.

[John Weaver] His lust is marching on. I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built him an altar in the eastern dews and damps. I have read his doomful mission in the dim and flaring lamps. His night is marching on. I have read his bandit gospel, ridden burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my pretensions, so will you, my wrath shall deal.

[John Weaver] Let the faithless son of freedom, the North, crush the patriot, the South, with his heel. Lo, greed is marching on. We have legalized this trumpet, and are guarding her retreat. Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgment seat. O, be swift, you clods, be jubilant, my feet, our God is marching on. ensorted, slime, harmonious greed, was born in yonder ditch, with a longing in his and for others' goods an itch.

[John Weaver] Has Christ died to make men holy? Let us die to make men rich. Our God is marching on." Mark Twain understood what General Smedley Butler understood. General Butler, a retired Marine from 1881 to 1940, wrote, War is a racket. And I want you to think about what Mark Twain wrote, and let me read to you just the first three short paragraphs of General Butler's book. Mark Twain said it's about greed, it's about lust, it's about pride and power. Here's what General Butler wrote, War is a racket. It always has been.

[John Weaver] It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to be to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about.

[John Weaver] It is conducted for the benefit of very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes." What was he saying? The same thing that Mark Twain said. It's all about money. It's all about power.

[John Weaver] Now, let me ask and answer a question. Should a Christian sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Should a Southerner sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? The answer should be obvious. With such a perversion of history and such a perversion of the scripture. And with such narrow minded bigotry that is being portrayed against the South, I do not understand or see how any Christian or any southerner could either stand or sing.

[John Weaver] Well, that song is being sung. It's against Christ. It's against the Bible. It's against the South. It's a war song. It is a Yankee marching song. As they came to rape, loot, burn and destroy. Hardly an honorable thing to do. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful today for Jesus Christ. We're thankful for His Word, for His truth, for His blessings. Teach us, Lord, to think. Teach us to think in biblical terms and in historical terms. And help us, Lord, to make application of Your Word to every area of our lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray, Amen. Amen.

Should A Christian Sing the Battle Hymn?

John Weaver | SermonAudio

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	SermonAudio
Media ID	11200617523
Subject	Old Testament Studies
Course	Genesis: Creation, Fall, and Dominion
Genre	Sermon
Date	2006-04-30
Dictation Name
Book	Book 076: Genesis: Creation, Fall, and Dominion — Chapter 1
Source Timed Segments	69

Formatted Transcript

Opening

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Introduction: The Question and Biblical Foundation

Weaver poses the question of whether a Christian or Southerner should sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, citing Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 on singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Okay, if you'll open your Bibles to Ephesians 5 and look at verse 19, the Word of God says, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." And then a parallel passage is found in Colossians 3, verse 16, where the Word of God says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Now, the message today is entitled, "Should a Christian Sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic?" I really suppose that the correct question to ask would be this: Should a Christian or a Southerner sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Now, in Ephesians 5 and verse 19, we read about psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. You read that same division in Colossians 3 and verse 16. Let me just point out that the division between psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is an actuality, a reference to the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms itself, that Old Testament book, is divided into psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. There is no hymn, no matter how beautiful, that is on a par with those psalms because those psalms are indeed the inspired Word of God. They are the only divinely inspired psalms, hymns, and songs that we have.

The Power of Songs to Teach Doctrine and History

Songs can teach doctrine and history, whether true or false, and people often accept their messages uncritically.

Our ignorance and our lack of understanding on the issues increases as the years go by. In fact, we tend to forget that which we really have known in times past. Do you realize that one of the problems that we face today is there are so many things to think about and so many things to do, who in the world would want to waste their time thinking about a hymn or a song or a poem that was written 140 years ago? Well, let me point out the fact that what we have forgotten is that doctrine may be taught with songs. Whether that song is good or bad, or whether the doctrine is good or bad, you can always teach doctrine with songs. And songs, you can likewise teach history, whether it's true or untrue, with a song. I never will forget running into a little girl one time. She was probably about four or five years old. And the little kid was on the street, and she was singing.

"When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer." And I thought, what? Well, it was just a catchy tune, and it caught her. And then Alice and I were at the Mule Day in Georgia there, and we saw this little kid on the stroller about three years old, and he was singing, "Outback, Steakhouse, Outback," over and over. That's all he was saying. So, you can teach things with songs. And sooner or later, people come to accept them. Now, in order to understand the Battle Hymn of the Republic, you have to understand the context of that song. And the context of the Battle Hymn of the Republic involves the northern view of power, the centralization of government, the extermination of the South, the righteousness of the Northerners in committing genocide and enforcing their religious and cultural views upon the South. When Reconstruction occurred under the radical Republican Congress and was enforced by military rule, there were many Northerners then who rushed to the South to garner their spoils, and they brought with them their religion, their culture, and their song.

The Authoress: Julia Ward Howe's Unbelief

Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian who denied the Trinity, deity of Christ, inspiration of Scripture, and hell; she believed Christ was merely a good teacher and that all religions lead to redemption.

and it has a very sinister and wicked origin. Let's begin today, first of all, by considering the authoress. Most of you know that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe. She was the wife of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a prominent physician who happened also to be a socialist, a Unitarian, and also a member of the Secret Six. Her husband was a member of that treasonous group known as the Secret Six, and the Secret Six were composed of wealthy men who sought to begin to foment and to start the war of Northern Aggression by inciting a slave rebellion in the South. And these men, of course, were the men who sponsored John Brown, who gave him money, who gave him all kinds of aid. Now, as a Unitarian, Julia Ward Howe would certainly claim to be a Christian, yet she denied the very cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. She denied the doctrine of the Trinity. She denied the deity of Jesus Christ.

She denied the inspiration of the Bible and many other biblical truths. Julia Ward Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine that man is characteristically good and that he can redeem himself by his own merits without the need of a savior. She rejected a multitude of biblical truths. For instance, she rejected the doctrine of literal hell. She simply said this, and I'm quoting her very words, she said, "I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell which appears to me impossible," end quote. Now, what was her reason for rejecting the doctrine of hell? Well, it just appeared to her as irrational, unreasonable, impossible. So she rejected it. You see, for a Unitarian, it is rationalism, it is their own thinking that is their standard, and not the Word of God. So she denied the doctrine of a real, literal hell.

Moreover, she refuted explicitly the claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said in John 14, verse 6,

Scripture Reading — John 14:6

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

So Jesus Christ said explicitly that he is the only way of salvation and the only way to the Father. Listen to the words of Julia Ward Howe. She says this, "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 that all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of God's plans for bringing all humanity to a state of ultimate perfection." So, Julia Ward Howe just got out of her mouth saying that Jesus Christ is not the exclusive way to the Father, that there are a multitude of ways that individuals may be converted. By her own statements, she made it exceedingly clear as her opinion concerning Jesus Christ. Here are her words again.

She said, "Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian Church and accept the fact that Christ was merely a good teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than many other men." So what was her idea of Jesus Christ? Julia Ward Howe believed that Jesus Christ was no better than any other man, and his wisdom and his righteousness was no more than the other man. He was just merely a man. She did not believe that he was God. She certainly did not believe that he was the God-man. And Julia Ward Howe also preached in Unitarian churches and was an ardent abolitionist. She became a much celebrated author in the North and was a supporter of the radical abolitionist movement. She was a social reformer and basically was an American socialist and communist. Now, she often preached in the Unitarian and the Universalist churches, and she continued in the Church of the Disciples led by her old friend, who was a pastor, James Freeman Clarke, and she often spoke in his pulpit.

Howe's Abolitionism and Views on Race

Howe was a radical abolitionist and socialist who held racist views, describing blacks in derogatory terms and advocating their refinement by white culture.

Beginning in 1873, she hosted an annual gathering of women ministers and in the 1870s helped to found what is known as the Free Religious Association. Now Julia Ward Howe and her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, were not just simply abolitionists, they were abolitionists. But you remember there were several different types of abolitionism. They happened to be what were known as disunion abolitionists.

Now, as disunion abolitionists, what they wanted to do was tear apart our confederated republic, to destroy our constitutional republic, and remake the United States according to their own radical, political, cultural, and religious ideas. And by the way, I hope you see that history records some of the success of their treason, that is for sure. While being ardent abolitionists, Julia Ward Howe, along with those of her ilk, in reality hated and despised the black race. You would think that abolitionists would have high regards for black people, but Julia Ward Howe wrote this, and I'm quoting, "The ideal Negro would be one refined by white culture and elevated by white blood." She also wrote that "the Negro among Negroes is coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no use to any of the world, and he must go to school to the white race, and his discipline must be long and laborious."

So she held a very low estimate of all blacks. So who was Julia Ward Howe? Let me answer that. She was a socialist. She was a communist. She was a reformer. She was an abolitionist. She was a Unitarian. She was one who believed that man could be reformed and regenerated and transfigured and elevated by government. And like Abraham Lincoln, she held to the centralization of power in the hands of the government and basically she was anti-Christian. Now, the battle hymn, although it employs biblical allusions and illustrations, it is in no way a biblical or a Christian song.

Context of the Hymn's Writing

The hymn was written in 1862 after Howe heard Union soldiers singing 'John Brown's Body'; she admired John Brown, a murderer and terrorist, and saw his execution as glorious like Christ's cross.

Now, the immediate context in which this battle hymn came to be written happened like this. In 1862, Samuel Gridley Howe and his wife, Julia Ward Howe, were invited to Washington by President Lincoln. The Howes visited a Union Army camp there across from the Potomac and there they heard the men singing a song and of course the song was to the tune of "John Brown's Body." Now, there happened to be two tunes to that song, one in which the North sang in celebration of John Brown and one in which the South sang in celebration of his death. So, the song was being sung and a clergyman who happened to be a friend and pastor of Julia Ward Howe, James Freeman Clarke, and he knew that Julia Ward was a poet, and so he asked her to write a song that would replace the words to "John Brown's Body." And here are Julia Ward Howe's own words.

Let me read them to you. She said, "I replied that I'd often wished to do so. In spite of the excitement of the day, I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, 'I shall lose this if I do not write it down immediately.' I searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen, which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened unto me." So, Julia Ward Howe had been asked to write this poem and she says, I woke up and man, here all these verses are raising themselves in my brain and I just got up and wrote them down.

Now, Mrs. Howe and her husband had become deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 1840s and 1850s. In fact, they helped edit the Boston Commonwealth. In her zeal and desire for social reform, Mrs. Howe came to revere and respect one of the basest and vilest men that ever lived and that was the Kansas murderer and terrorist, John Brown. Now, Mrs. Howe and John Brown mutually admired each other. Mrs. Howe wrote that John Brown, and I'm quoting her now, "was a Puritan of the Puritans," which was meant to be a positive statement by her and then she said "he was forceful, concentrated and self-contained." Brown of course wrote of Mrs. Howe in a letter to a friend and he said that Mrs. Howe was "a defiant little woman" and that her personality was "all flash and fire" which of course appealed to John Brown. So here you find that John Brown and Julia Ward Howe mutually respected and admired each other. To show you the extent of that admiration Julia Ward Howe wrote a letter to her sister.

And here's what she said. And by the way, she was in complete sympathy with Brown's viciousness and his plans to destroy the South. Here are her words. She wrote, "I've just been to church, Unitarian Church, and heard James Freeman Clarke, another Unitarian minister, preach about John Brown, whom God blessed and will bless. I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereupon I am at present correcting the proof sheets." "I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting. Poor soul! Brown's attempt I must judge insane, but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be." By the way, I could make a real good scathing comment right there. She probably was, but here it is. She says, "I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed."

"Listen, his death will be holy and glorious, the new saint awaiting martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, which he did, will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ." Julia Ward Howe said that the murderer and terrorist John Brown would make the gallows on which he was hanged as glorious as the cross of Jesus Christ. After his infamous murdering rampage and his attack on Harper's Ferry, when John Brown was condemned to die, Mrs. Howe again said that John Brown's death will be holy and glorious and he will glorify the gallows like Jesus glorified the cross. Now, in her letter to her sister, she said, "I should be glad to be sure of heaven, as that old man may be." That old man, as Julia Ward Howe referred to him, was nothing less than a terrorist and a murderer. He, his sons, and his followers murdered innocent men and boys. You remember that John Brown massacred these men along the Pottawatomie Creek and sometimes he's referred to as Pottawatomie Brown.

His first three victims were James P. Doyle and his sons Drury and William. Now the Doyles were Roman Catholics from Tennessee and they had moved to Kansas to get away from slavery. They had never owned a slave, did not agree with slavery, had nothing to do with slaves, but because they spoke with a southern drawl, or perhaps because they were Catholic, Brown marched them into a clearing where he split their skulls open with a sword and then their arms were hacked off. When Mrs. Doyle was later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered, here was her answer: "Just because we were southern people, I reckon."

Analysis of the Hymn's Stanzas

Weaver examines each stanza, showing how it misapplies Scripture (e.g., Isaiah 63, Genesis 3:15) to portray the Union Army as Christ's instrument of judgment against the South.

She wrote, "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."

Now, Mrs. Howe is applying the apocalyptic judgment that is mentioned in the book of Isaiah and in the book of Revelation against the Confederated Republic. In this first stanza, she is presenting and picturing the Union Army not only as that instrument which would cause southern blood to flow upon the earth, but also that the Union Army was the very expression of the word that is the sword itself. You have to remember that the Unitarians believed that evil could be rooted out of man by governmental action. The South was evil. And so the righteous northern government now, with this terrible swift sword that John Brown began, are now going to root out the evil Southerners and the evil that is in the South by destroying it and by bringing Armageddon upon the South. So she portrayed the Union Army as the coming of the glory of the Lord.

And what were they doing? They were trampling out his vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored. Where are the grapes of wrath? In the south. They're going to trample out the southern people. So, the first stanza then presents a picture of the northern army acting as Christ, destroying and stamping out the wicked South and destroying the Southern people because, according to their philosophy, the South deserved to be destroyed.

Now let me show you the image that she uses. Look in your Bibles to Isaiah 63 and let's read there just simply the first six verses. You'll see how she takes this out of context. This is a picture of Christ destroying His enemies. Isaiah 63, verse 1. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?"

"I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me, for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." "For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth."

Now here's a picture of Jesus Christ destroying His enemies. This is the passage that Julia Ward Howe took and applied to the Union Army destroying God's enemies. Just as Christ trampled out the winepress and the blood flowed, so the Union Army now is going to destroy the Southern people and trample out the wickedness of the Southern people. Tim Manning in his book, On the Battle Hymn, asks a very legitimate question. Listen to this paragraph. He asks, "What horrible crime had the South committed to warrant its extermination? The people of the South were guilty of wanting independence for a government of their own choosing."

"A pro-Christian, God-based government that safeguarded God-given human rights, individual liberty, and put strict limits on the powers of the shared central federal government. This was the type of government the Founders established in 1776, and the South was trying to preserve it as it had been given to them." That's basically why she decided the South deserved to be trampled out and destroyed. And so the first stanza then pictures the Northern Army as Christ trampling out the enemies, that is the South and the Southern people, because we are a wicked and ungodly and a judgment deserving people. Listen to the second stanza. She writes, "I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built 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."

Now I want you to listen to that. She said, "I have seen Him," God. Where did she see God? "I have seen Him," God, "in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps." That is the Union Camp. To her, Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers were the army of God going forth to slaughter the evil resistors of social reform and progressive centralized government. She said they had built in him an altar.

Now, just stop and ask, what does that mean? "They have built Him an altar." Does that refer to the stacked arms that are ready to be used against the southern people? She says, "I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps." Was this the campfires of the northern soldiers or the lamps perhaps in their tent? She said, she's seen this in "His evening dews and damps." What is she saying? She is saying that those tents and those stacked arms and that campfire was nothing less than the very altar to God Himself. That is not only unbiblical, it is not only ridiculous, it is blasphemous. There is another thought that I could throw out. When she says that you can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, it could also be an allusion to musket and cannon fire. If you're going to be reading the sentence of judgment and destruction, where could you see it more plainly than in the instruments of death? How could anyone as a Christian or Southerner sing that is beyond me.

The third stanza is even worse. It is so unbiblical. It is so anti-Christ. It is so anti-Christian. It is beyond belief. Listen to the third stanza. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, since God is marching on." Now, wait a minute. Listen to what she said. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel." So these fixed bayonets, these rows of cannon are God's gospel, she says. Listen now, "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero, born of woman..."

Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 and look at verse 15 for a moment. I want you to see the allusion that she is referring to. In Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have what is known as the Protevangelium. "Prote" means first or one. "Evangelium," the gospel. So what you have in Genesis 3:15 is the first promise of the Messiah. And listen to what he says. Genesis 3 and verse 15, God says to the serpent,

Scripture Reading — Genesis 3:15

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

So in Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have then the very first promise of the Messiah, and that Messiah will be born of a woman, and that Messiah will bruise the serpent's head.

Now what does Julia Ward Howe do? Julia Ward Howe takes that verse out of context. Instead of the hero being born of woman referring to Christ, it is referring to the Union soldiers. And then she says, "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal." Who were the contemners? The southern people. In other words, we were the ones who were guilty. We were holding God in contempt. Now listen to what she says.

I'm not making this up. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners," that is, as you judge and destroy the South, "so with you my grace shall deal." In other words, God will bless and give grace to the northern army as they destroy the South. In other words, listen, Julia Ward Howe's theology and philosophy was the same philosophy that was held by the Roman Catholic Church during the Crusades. You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels. Listen, "As ye deal with my contemners," that is, as you destroy them, as you judge them, "so with you my grace shall deal." And then she says to the northern army that "the hero, born of woman," that's them, "crush the serpent with his heel," that's us. So she takes this passage that refers to Jesus Christ and applies it to the Union Army. And then she says that we are the serpent's seed and we're the ones that need to be crushed and destroyed and annihilated.

How can any Christian and how can any southerner sing that hymn? The fourth stanza returns to the idea of judgment, it goes like this. "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on." Now, what does this fourth stanza call for?

It calls for a full, final and complete destruction of the South. No retreat. "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat." Now, what is she saying? She is saying, you remember that Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 volunteers to destroy the South. She is saying that the men that answered that call, the call of Lincoln, that was the judgment seat of Christ. In other words, in simple language, your response to Lincoln's call for volunteers to deny eight million Southerners the right of self-government demonstrated whether or not you were for or against Christ. So, she is saying, if you want to be on the right side, be swift, be jubilant, my feet, hurry with gladness and joy and join the Northern Army and crush the South. Destroy it.

Here's the fifth and final stanza. "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." There is nothing about this song that is biblical. "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea." Oh, that sounds so wonderful. Listen, folks, lilies do not grow in stables. Christ was born in a stable. He was born in a manger. There ain't no lilies there.

Secondly, only those who are in Christ are transformed and will be ultimately transfigured. Only Jesus Christ was transfigured in this life. That was upon the Mount of Transfiguration. We as Christians, we as believers, will not be quote unquote transfigured until glorification. Julia demonstrates her disbelief, her unbelief in Christ and His sufficiency and His atonement by saying, "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free." You can't make anyone free. You can't free people from their sins. Jesus Christ, in John 8 and verse 36, the Word of God says,

Scripture Reading — John 8:36

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

What was Julia Ward Howe saying? Julia Ward Howe was saying Christ did not finish salvation. We must finish it. Government must do something. People must do something. Let's finish it. Let's do what Christ did not do and could not do.

Applications and Conclusion

Christians should reject the hymn because it dishonors Christ, glorifies violence, and insults Southern heritage; Mark Twain's parody highlights its greed-driven motives.

Now, let me make some applications. Now listen very carefully. If and when you hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic sung, the first thing you need to think about is the five innocent men and boys that old John Brown murdered and hacked to pieces. The second thing you should think about is the 620,000 Americans, North and South, who died in that horrible war and that war which transformed America from a constitutional republic to a centralized bureaucracy. You need to think especially of the Southern men who gave their lives for Southern independence. Secondly, listen carefully, Julia Ward Howe used God and used biblical imagery to rub salt in the wounds of Christians. You know, one of our problems, and I try to say this often, and I try to say it as lovingly and kindly as I can, but one of our problems is this: that American Christians have been so dumbed down, we cannot even think. We don't know our Bibles. We don't know our history. We don't know our heritage. And when you allow an unbeliever to write a song denigrating Christ, denigrating His Word, denigrating His people, and then put that song in a church where Christians sing it heartily and lustily, it is beyond belief. Isn't it true that most of us, when we go to church and sing hymns, we never even think about what we're saying? We just say the words. She wrote a totally unbiblical, ungodly song and Christians everywhere sing it.

The third application is this. The battle hymn has nothing to do with Christianity or God, it is a political patriotic song about the destruction of the South in religious terminology. Julia Ward Howe deliberately created the idea that the North was doing God's work. It paints a picture of God destroying His enemies in the South, thus elevating the North and her battle to a holy war against an unholy people. So, Howe in her hymn portrays the South and its people as being evil and the enemy of God. How can any Southerner sing that song? By the way, and when you do see it, you're undoubtedly giving tacit approval and agreement with Mrs. Howe and her opinions. The inimitable Mark Twain saw the hypocrisy and the perversity of the battle hymn. Some of you may know, some of you may not know, but Mark Twain wrote his own version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And he wrote his version to mock Julia Ward Howe.

I want you to listen very carefully. I'm going to read Mark Twain's version. And you can pick up one of the big reasons for the war. Here is his version. Mark Twain. "Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the sword. He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored. He has loosed his fateful lightnings and with woe and death has scored."

"His lust is marching on. I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built him an altar in the eastern dews and damps. I have read his doomful mission in the dim and flaring lamps. His night is marching on. I have read his bandit gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal."

"Let the faithless son of freedom," the North, "crush the patriot," the South, "with his heel. Lo, greed is marching on. We have legalized this trumpet, and are guarding her retreat. Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgment seat. O, be swift, you clods, be jubilant, my feet, our God is marching on. In a sort of slimy, harmonious greed, was born in yonder ditch, with a longing in his bosom for others' goods an itch." "As Christ died to make men holy, let us die to make men rich. Our God is marching on." Mark Twain understood what General Smedley Butler understood. General Butler, a retired Marine from 1881 to 1940, wrote, "War is a racket." And I want you to think about what Mark Twain wrote, and let me read to you just the first three short paragraphs of General Butler's book. Mark Twain said it's about greed, it's about lust, it's about pride and power. Here's what General Butler wrote, "War is a racket. It always has been."

"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to be to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about." "It is conducted for the benefit of very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes." What was he saying? The same thing that Mark Twain said. It's all about money. It's all about power.

Now, let me ask and answer a question. Should a Christian sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Should a Southerner sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? The answer should be obvious. With such a perversion of history and such a perversion of the scripture, and with such narrow minded bigotry that is being portrayed against the South, I do not understand or see how any Christian or any southerner could either stand or sing. Well, that song is being sung. It's against Christ. It's against the Bible. It's against the South. It's a war song. It is a Yankee marching song. As they came to rape, loot, burn and destroy. Hardly an honorable thing to do. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful today for Jesus Christ. We're thankful for His Word, for His truth, for His blessings. Teach us, Lord, to think. Teach us to think in biblical terms and in historical terms. And help us, Lord, to make application of Your Word to every area of our lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray, Amen. Amen.

Study Guide

Major Themes

The Unbiblical Nature of the Battle Hymn

Summary: The hymn uses biblical imagery to promote a political and military agenda, perverting Scripture to justify violence against the South.

Evidence: Weaver states, 'The battle hymn is not a hymn... it takes truth out of context' and analyzes stanzas to show misuse of Isaiah 63 and Genesis 3:15.

Julia Ward Howe's Unbelief and Heresy

Summary: Howe denied core Christian doctrines, making her unfit to write a Christian hymn; her Unitarian beliefs contradict biblical Christianity.

Evidence: Weaver quotes Howe denying hell, Christ's exclusivity, and His deity, e.g., 'I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell.'

The Hymn as a Tool of Northern Aggression and Propaganda

Summary: The hymn was written to glorify the Union cause and demonize the South, portraying the war as a holy crusade.

Evidence: Weaver says, 'She portrayed the Union Army as the coming of the glory of the Lord' and 'the South deserved to be destroyed.'

The Importance of Doctrinal Discernment in Worship

Summary: Christians must evaluate songs by their doctrinal content, not just their tune or popularity, to avoid endorsing heresy.

Evidence: Weaver warns, 'American Christians have been so dumbed down, we cannot even think... we never even think about what we're saying.'

Southern Identity and Historical Grievance

Summary: The hymn represents an insult to Southern heritage and the memory of those who died in the War Between the States.

Evidence: Weaver asks, 'How can any Southerner sing that song?' and references the 620,000 dead and Southern independence.

Key Arguments

The Battle Hymn is not a Christian hymn because its author was an unbeliever.

Summary: Julia Ward Howe denied the Trinity, deity of Christ, and biblical authority, so her song cannot express Christian faith.

Evidence: Weaver states, 'the battle hymn of the Republic was not written by a Christian, nor does it express the Christian faith.'

The hymn perverts Scripture by applying messianic prophecies to the Union Army.

Summary: Howe takes passages about Christ's judgment (Isaiah 63) and the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15) and applies them to Northern soldiers crushing the South.

Evidence: Weaver says, 'She takes this passage that refers to Jesus Christ and applies it to the Union Army.'

The hymn promotes a works-based salvation through violence.

Summary: The line 'As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal' implies that killing Southerners earns God's grace, akin to Crusade theology.

Evidence: Weaver explains, 'You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels.'

The hymn glorifies a terrorist, John Brown, as a Christ figure.

Summary: Howe admired John Brown and saw his execution as glorious like the cross, and the hymn's 'terrible swift sword' alludes to his murders.

Evidence: Weaver quotes Howe: 'his death will be holy and glorious... will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ.'

Singing the hymn implies agreement with its anti-Southern and anti-Christian message.

Summary: By singing or standing for the hymn, Christians tacitly approve of Howe's heresies and the demonization of the South.

Evidence: Weaver says, 'when you do see it, you're undoubtedly giving tacit approval and agreement with Mrs. Howe and her opinions.'

Scripture References

Ephesians 5:19

Context: Cited as the biblical basis for singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, introducing the topic of appropriate Christian music.

Colossians 3:16

Context: Parallel passage to Ephesians 5:19, emphasizing teaching and admonishing through song.

John 14:6

Context: Quoted to show Christ's exclusive claim as the only way to the Father, which Howe denied.

Isaiah 63:1-6

Context: Read to show the biblical image of Christ treading the winepress of wrath, which Howe misapplied to the Union Army.

Genesis 3:15

Context: The protoevangelium promising a Messiah who crushes the serpent; Howe applied 'hero born of woman' to Union soldiers.

John 8:36

Context: Quoted to affirm that only Christ can make people truly free, countering Howe's idea that human death can bring freedom.

Historical References

Julia Ward Howe

Context: Author of the Battle Hymn; a Unitarian, abolitionist, and socialist who denied Christian doctrines and admired John Brown.

John Brown

Context: Abolitionist terrorist who murdered pro-slavery settlers in Kansas and raided Harper's Ferry; admired by Howe as a martyr.

Secret Six

Context: Wealthy Northern men who funded John Brown's raid; Howe's husband was a member.

Pottawatomie Massacre

Context: John Brown's murder of five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, including the Doyle family, described as brutal and unprovoked.

Mark Twain's parody of the Battle Hymn

Context: Twain wrote a satirical version highlighting greed and hypocrisy, which Weaver quotes to support his argument.

General Smedley Butler

Context: Retired Marine who wrote 'War is a Racket,' quoted to reinforce the idea that war is driven by profit.

Important Quotes

I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell which appears to me impossible

Significance: Demonstrates Howe's rejection of biblical doctrine based on rationalism rather than Scripture.

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 that all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption.

Significance: Shows Howe's universalism and denial of Christ's exclusive role in salvation.

Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian Church and accept the fact that Christ was merely a good teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than many other men.

Significance: Confirms Howe's low view of Christ, contradicting Christian orthodoxy.

his death will be holy and glorious, the new saint awaiting martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, which he did, will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ.

Significance: Reveals Howe's blasphemous elevation of John Brown to a Christ-like figure.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal.

Significance: Illustrates how the hymn promotes salvation by works and violence against the South.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

Significance: Shows the hymn's implication that Christ's work was insufficient and human effort completes redemption.

Discussion Questions

How should a song's doctrinal content influence whether it is appropriate for Christian worship?

Context: Weaver argues that the Battle Hymn is unbiblical despite its religious language.

What does Julia Ward Howe's Unitarian theology reveal about the dangers of denying core Christian doctrines?

Context: Weaver details Howe's rejection of the Trinity, hell, and Christ's deity.

In what ways does the Battle Hymn misuse Scripture to justify political or military actions?

Context: Weaver analyzes stanzas that apply Isaiah 63 and Genesis 3:15 to the Union Army.

How can Christians balance patriotism with biblical discernment when evaluating national songs?

Context: Weaver calls the hymn a 'political patriotic song' that dishonors Christ.

What lessons can we learn from Mark Twain's parody about the true motives behind war?

Context: Weaver quotes Twain's version to highlight greed and hypocrisy.

Applications

Evaluate songs by their doctrinal content, not just their tune or popularity.

Summary: Christians must examine the words and theology of hymns to ensure they align with Scripture.

Evidence: Weaver says, 'American Christians have been so dumbed down, we cannot even think... we never even think about what we're saying.'

Reject songs that glorify violence or pervert the gospel.

Summary: The Battle Hymn promotes a false gospel of salvation through killing, which Christians must repudiate.

Evidence: Weaver states, 'You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels.'

Honor the memory of those who suffered unjustly in history.

Summary: Remember the victims of John Brown and the Southern dead rather than singing a song that mocks their sacrifice.

Evidence: Weaver urges, 'think about the five innocent men and boys that old John Brown murdered' and the 620,000 war dead.

Develop biblical and historical literacy to discern truth from error.

Summary: Ignorance of Scripture and history makes Christians susceptible to accepting unbiblical messages in culture.

Evidence: Weaver laments, 'We don't know our Bibles. We don't know our history. We don't know our heritage.'

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T12:34:54Z

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-05T21:47:22Z

Clean Transcript

Should A Christian Sing the Battle Hymn?

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#1 | 0:04 to 0:54 | cleaned
Okay, if you'll open your Bibles to Ephesians 5 and look at verse 19, the Word of God says, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." And then a parallel passage is found in Colossians 3, verse 16, where the Word of God says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."
#2 | 1:01 to 1:34 | cleaned
Now, the message today is entitled, "Should a Christian Sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic?" I really suppose that the correct question to ask would be this: Should a Christian or a Southerner sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic?
#3 | 1:34 to 1:50 | cleaned
Now, in Ephesians 5 and verse 19, we read about psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. You read that same division in Colossians 3 and verse 16. Let me just point out that the division between psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is an actuality, a reference to the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms itself, that Old Testament book, is divided into psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. There is no hymn, no matter how beautiful, that is on a par with those psalms because those psalms are indeed the inspired Word of God. They are the only divinely inspired psalms, hymns, and songs that we have.
#4 | 1:50 to 2:37 | cleaned
Our ignorance and our lack of understanding on the issues increases as the years go by. In fact, we tend to forget that which we really have known in times past. Do you realize that one of the problems that we face today is there are so many things to think about and so many things to do, who in the world would want to waste their time thinking about a hymn or a song or a poem that was written 140 years ago? Well, let me point out the fact that what we have forgotten is that doctrine may be taught with songs. Whether that song is good or bad, or whether the doctrine is good or bad, you can always teach doctrine with songs. And songs, you can likewise teach history, whether it's true or untrue, with a song. I never will forget running into a little girl one time. She was probably about four or five years old. And the little kid was on the street, and she was singing.
#5 | 2:38 to 3:36 | cleaned
"When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer." And I thought, what? Well, it was just a catchy tune, and it caught her. And then Alice and I were at the Mule Day in Georgia there, and we saw this little kid on the stroller about three years old, and he was singing, "Outback, Steakhouse, Outback," over and over. That's all he was saying. So, you can teach things with songs.
#6 | 3:37 to 4:01 | cleaned
And sooner or later, people come to accept them. Now, in order to understand the Battle Hymn of the Republic, you have to understand the context of that song. And the context of the Battle Hymn of the Republic involves the northern view of power, the centralization of government, the extermination of the South, the righteousness of the Northerners in committing genocide and enforcing their religious and cultural views upon the South. When Reconstruction occurred under the radical Republican Congress and was enforced by military rule, there were many Northerners then who rushed to the South to garner their spoils, and they brought with them their religion, their culture, and their song.
#7 | 4:02 to 4:53 | cleaned
Let me just point it out very graphically. In times past, no Christian and no self-respecting Southerner would ever sing or stand while the Battle Hymn of the Republic was being sung. Today, however, that hymn is sung in a multitude of churches on every patriotic day, and unhappily, it's even sung in Southern churches. And Christians themselves sing it. In reality, the battle hymn is not a hymn. By definition, a hymn is a song that incorporates biblical truth and especially celebrates the doctrine of God. We have many such hymns, like Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
#8 | 4:54 to 5:45 | cleaned
"And Can It Be That I Should Gain an Interest in My Savior's Love?" How about this one? "How Firm a Foundation," and then "Like a River Glorious." These are all hymns that celebrate the deity of God and the greatness and the majesty of God. But the battle hymn of the Republic was not written by a Christian, nor does it express the Christian faith. It takes truth out of context, and it applies that truth.
#9 | 5:47 to 6:12 | cleaned
and it has a very sinister and wicked origin. Let's begin today, first of all, by considering the authoress. Most of you know that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe. She was the wife of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a prominent physician who happened also to be a socialist, a Unitarian, and also a member of the Secret Six. Her husband was a member of that treasonous group known as the Secret Six, and the Secret Six were composed of wealthy men who sought to begin to foment and to start the war of Northern Aggression by inciting a slave rebellion in the South. And these men, of course, were the men who sponsored John Brown, who gave him money, who gave him all kinds of aid. Now, as a Unitarian, Julia Ward Howe would certainly claim to be a Christian, yet she denied the very cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. She denied the doctrine of the Trinity. She denied the deity of Jesus Christ.
#10 | 6:13 to 7:24 | cleaned
She denied the inspiration of the Bible and many other biblical truths. Julia Ward Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine that man is characteristically good and that he can redeem himself by his own merits without the need of a savior. She rejected a multitude of biblical truths. For instance, she rejected the doctrine of literal hell. She simply said this, and I'm quoting her very words, she said, "I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell which appears to me impossible," end quote. Now, what was her reason for rejecting the doctrine of hell? Well, it just appeared to her as irrational, unreasonable, impossible. So she rejected it. You see, for a Unitarian, it is rationalism, it is their own thinking that is their standard, and not the Word of God. So she denied the doctrine of a real, literal hell.
#11 | 7:24 to 8:21 | cleaned
Moreover, she refuted explicitly the claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said in John 14, verse 6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." So Jesus Christ said explicitly that he is the only way of salvation and the only way to the Father. Listen to the words of Julia Ward Howe. She says this, "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 that all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of God's plans for bringing all humanity to a state of ultimate perfection." So, Julia Ward Howe just got out of her mouth saying that Jesus Christ is not the exclusive way to the Father, that there are a multitude of ways that individuals may be converted. By her own statements, she made it exceedingly clear as her opinion concerning Jesus Christ. Here are her words again.
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She said, "Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian Church and accept the fact that Christ was merely a good teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than many other men." So what was her idea of Jesus Christ? Julia Ward Howe believed that Jesus Christ was no better than any other man, and his wisdom and his righteousness was no more than the other man. He was just merely a man.
#13 | 9:35 to 10:06 | cleaned
She did not believe that he was God. She certainly did not believe that he was the God-man. And Julia Ward Howe also preached in Unitarian churches and was an ardent abolitionist. She became a much celebrated author in the North and was a supporter of the radical abolitionist movement. She was a social reformer and basically was an American socialist and communist. Now, she often preached in the Unitarian and the Universalist churches, and she continued in the Church of the Disciples led by her old friend, who was a pastor, James Freeman Clarke, and she often spoke in his pulpit.
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Beginning in 1873, she hosted an annual gathering of women ministers and in the 1870s helped to found what is known as the Free Religious Association. Now Julia Ward Howe and her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, were not just simply abolitionists, they were abolitionists. But you remember there were several different types of abolitionism. They happened to be what were known as disunion abolitionists.
#15 | 10:47 to 11:19 | cleaned
Now, as disunion abolitionists, what they wanted to do was tear apart our confederated republic, to destroy our constitutional republic, and remake the United States according to their own radical, political, cultural, and religious ideas. And by the way, I hope you see that history records some of the success of their treason, that is for sure. While being ardent abolitionists, Julia Ward Howe, along with those of her ilk, in reality hated and despised the black race. You would think that abolitionists would have high regards for black people, but Julia Ward Howe wrote this, and I'm quoting, "The ideal Negro would be one refined by white culture and elevated by white blood." She also wrote that "the Negro among Negroes is coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no use to any of the world, and he must go to school to the white race, and his discipline must be long and laborious."
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So she held a very low estimate of all blacks. So who was Julia Ward Howe? Let me answer that. She was a socialist. She was a communist. She was a reformer. She was an abolitionist. She was a Unitarian. She was one who believed that man could be reformed and regenerated and transfigured and elevated by government. And like Abraham Lincoln, she held to the centralization of power in the hands of the government and basically she was anti-Christian. Now, the battle hymn, although it employs biblical allusions and illustrations, it is in no way a biblical or a Christian song.
#17 | 12:40 to 13:19 | cleaned
So, the authoress, then, was an outright unbeliever and a despiser of Jesus Christ. Now, secondly today, I want you to consider with me the context of the writing of this poem. Now, before I give you the immediate context, I want to remind you of the remote context. Whenever you're studying scripture, you always want to look at a verse in its immediate context. That could be the paragraph above it or below it or just simply the paragraph that the verse is in. But the remote context may include one chapter or several chapters or the entire book. So everything has a remote context and an immediate context as well. And I want to quote Pastor Charles Jennings because he gives a very succinct definition of the remote context, and he says this.
#18 | 13:20 to 14:12 | cleaned
He says, "During this time in American history, the South was quite different in many ways from the North. The South was more agrarian, while the North was more industrialized. The South was more rural, while the North was more urban. The South advocated the traditional interpretation of the constitutional principles of our Founding Fathers for states' rights and local governmental control as opposed to Northern Republican Party view of centralized governmental powers. The people of the South were more traditional in maintaining their culture, dating back to their Celtic ancestors, whereas the North was rapidly losing the radical and cultural traditions through the influx of more liberal ideas of equalitarianism. The educational institutions of the South were more conservative in thought and practice as opposed to the northern concepts of universalism, humanism, deism, and rationalism that had crept into its once great academic institutions such as Harvard and Yale. At this critical time in our history, the South was definitely more adamant in its stalwart defense of traditional Calvinistic Christianity that dated back to the early reformers, while the religious establishments of the North were accepting and promoting the fallacious, anti-biblical concepts of the more modernistic approach to such truths as the authenticity and inerrancy of the scriptures."
#19 | 14:13 to 15:46 | cleaned
Now, in summation, here's what he said. There were so many differences between the North and the South. Not just traditionally, but culturally, religiously, economically. In fact, the South were, the people of the South were basically a laid back people. The people of the North were never laid back. I never will forget, I had an aunt and uncle who moved up North to Toledo, Ohio and stayed there for years until my uncle retired from the Chevrolet plant there and then they moved back south. And my aunt could not get over the fact that down south everyone waved. And she said, you know, up north, if someone waves at you, you run the other way. But she said, you can't go down the street without 15 or 20 people speaking to you or waving to you. There was a great difference between the north and the south. This was just simply a remote context. Whatever differences you want to look at, I can assure you they were there and they were great between the North and the South.
#20 | 15:46 to 16:57 | cleaned
Now, the immediate context in which this battle hymn came to be written happened like this. In 1862, Samuel Gridley Howe and his wife, Julia Ward Howe, were invited to Washington by President Lincoln. The Howes visited a Union Army camp there across from the Potomac and there they heard the men singing a song and of course the song was to the tune of "John Brown's Body." Now, there happened to be two tunes to that song, one in which the North sang in celebration of John Brown and one in which the South sang in celebration of his death. So, the song was being sung and a clergyman who happened to be a friend and pastor of Julia Ward Howe, James Freeman Clarke, and he knew that Julia Ward was a poet, and so he asked her to write a song that would replace the words to "John Brown's Body." And here are Julia Ward Howe's own words.
#21 | 16:58 to 18:08 | cleaned
Let me read them to you. She said, "I replied that I'd often wished to do so. In spite of the excitement of the day, I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, 'I shall lose this if I do not write it down immediately.' I searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen, which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened unto me." So, Julia Ward Howe had been asked to write this poem and she says, I woke up and man, here all these verses are raising themselves in my brain and I just got up and wrote them down.
#22 | 18:08 to 19:16 | cleaned
Now, Mrs. Howe and her husband had become deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 1840s and 1850s. In fact, they helped edit the Boston Commonwealth. In her zeal and desire for social reform, Mrs. Howe came to revere and respect one of the basest and vilest men that ever lived and that was the Kansas murderer and terrorist, John Brown. Now, Mrs. Howe and John Brown mutually admired each other. Mrs. Howe wrote that John Brown, and I'm quoting her now, "was a Puritan of the Puritans," which was meant to be a positive statement by her and then she said "he was forceful, concentrated and self-contained." Brown of course wrote of Mrs. Howe in a letter to a friend and he said that Mrs. Howe was "a defiant little woman" and that her personality was "all flash and fire" which of course appealed to John Brown. So here you find that John Brown and Julia Ward Howe mutually respected and admired each other. To show you the extent of that admiration Julia Ward Howe wrote a letter to her sister.
#23 | 19:16 to 20:39 | cleaned
And here's what she said. And by the way, she was in complete sympathy with Brown's viciousness and his plans to destroy the South. Here are her words. She wrote, "I've just been to church, Unitarian Church, and heard James Freeman Clarke, another Unitarian minister, preach about John Brown, whom God blessed and will bless. I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereupon I am at present correcting the proof sheets."
#24 | 20:40 to 21:18 | cleaned
"I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting. Poor soul! Brown's attempt I must judge insane, but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be." By the way, I could make a real good scathing comment right there. She probably was, but here it is. She says, "I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed."
#25 | 21:19 to 21:55 | cleaned
"Listen, his death will be holy and glorious, the new saint awaiting martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, which he did, will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ." Julia Ward Howe said that the murderer and terrorist John Brown would make the gallows on which he was hanged as glorious as the cross of Jesus Christ. After his infamous murdering rampage and his attack on Harper's Ferry, when John Brown was condemned to die, Mrs. Howe again said that John Brown's death will be holy and glorious and he will glorify the gallows like Jesus glorified the cross.
#26 | 21:55 to 22:53 | cleaned
Now, in her letter to her sister, she said, "I should be glad to be sure of heaven, as that old man may be." That old man, as Julia Ward Howe referred to him, was nothing less than a terrorist and a murderer. He, his sons, and his followers murdered innocent men and boys. You remember that John Brown massacred these men along the Pottawatomie Creek and sometimes he's referred to as Pottawatomie Brown.
#27 | 22:55 to 23:34 | cleaned
His first three victims were James P. Doyle and his sons Drury and William.
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Now the Doyles were Roman Catholics from Tennessee and they had moved to Kansas to get away from slavery. They had never owned a slave, did not agree with slavery, had nothing to do with slaves, but because they spoke with a southern drawl, or perhaps because they were Catholic, Brown marched them into a clearing where he split their skulls open with a sword and then their arms were hacked off. When Mrs. Doyle was later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered, here was her answer: "Just because we were southern people, I reckon."
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Tim Manning makes a statement in his book concerning the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and I want to read to you that one paragraph. And I want you to think about how accurate it is. Remember now, Mrs. Doyle answered as to why her husband and sons were murdered, "Just because we were southerners, I reckon." Tim Manning says this, "Southerners are just about the only minority in the United States about whom it is permitted, even popular, to hate. There is no negative stereotype about Southerners that is still not permitted, even encouraged, by politicians, the press, and the entertainment media."
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"Northern nativism is still strong in the North and racism against Southern whites is still politically correct in spite of its long and bloody history. There is nothing too evil anyone can say about the South and Southern history and culture." That's basically the attitude of Hollywood and the media and the establishment. Those Doyles were just simply the first of John Brown's victims. Another victim was Allen Wilkinson, a recent settler from the South.
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He was executed while his wife and children watched in horror. William Sherman, not William Tecumseh Sherman unhappily, but William Sherman also was a victim of John Brown. His mutilated body was found floating in the creek with his left hand hanging only by a narrow strand of skin. His skull was split open. And people who had given up their faith in the Bible and Christianity, and had embraced humanism and Unitarianism, considered John Brown a national savior, performing the work of God, and placed him on the same footing as Jesus Christ. Newspapers in that day showed cartoons of John Brown hanging on a cross like Jesus dying for the sins of us all. Julia Ward Howe wrote of the wonderful justice of John Brown's brutal massacres.
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And she included that in her hymn when she spoke of the terrible swift sword, which I'll mention a little bit later. That terrible swift sword that she was referring to was old John Brown hacking to pieces mercilessly innocent men and boys. Incidentally, I hope you know that when John Brown made his raid at Harper's Ferry, the first man killed by John Brown himself was a free black. Heyward Shepherd was a porter for the B&O Railroad and John Brown shot him in the back as he was running for his life. I find it interesting that John Brown said he came to the South to free the slaves and the first man he murders in the attack on Harper's Ferry is a free black.
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The Battle Hymn of the Republic can only be understood in the framework of this transcendentalist Unitarian creed. Let me say this. The Battle Hymn may use biblical imagery and allusions, but it is not biblical and it is not Christian. I want to spend the rest of my time this morning considering with you the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I do hope and genuinely pray most of you do not know the words, but I'm afraid some of you may know those words, but I will give them to you. Here's the first stanza.
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She wrote, "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."
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Now, Mrs. Howe is applying the apocalyptic judgment that is mentioned in the book of Isaiah and in the book of Revelation against the Confederated Republic. In this first stanza, she is presenting and picturing the Union Army not only as that instrument which would cause southern blood to flow upon the earth, but also that the Union Army was the very expression of the word that is the sword itself. You have to remember that the Unitarians believed that evil could be rooted out of man by governmental action. The South was evil. And so the righteous northern government now, with this terrible swift sword that John Brown began, are now going to root out the evil Southerners and the evil that is in the South by destroying it and by bringing Armageddon upon the South. So she portrayed the Union Army as the coming of the glory of the Lord.
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And what were they doing? They were trampling out his vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored. Where are the grapes of wrath? In the south. They're going to trample out the southern people. So, the first stanza then presents a picture of the northern army acting as Christ, destroying and stamping out the wicked South and destroying the Southern people because, according to their philosophy, the South deserved to be destroyed.
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Now let me show you the image that she uses. Look in your Bibles to Isaiah 63 and let's read there just simply the first six verses. You'll see how she takes this out of context. This is a picture of Christ destroying His enemies. Isaiah 63, verse 1. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?"
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"I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me, for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment."
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"For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth."
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Now here's a picture of Jesus Christ destroying His enemies. This is the passage that Julia Ward Howe took and applied to the Union Army destroying God's enemies. Just as Christ trampled out the winepress and the blood flowed, so the Union Army now is going to destroy the Southern people and trample out the wickedness of the Southern people. Tim Manning in his book, On the Battle Hymn, asks a very legitimate question. Listen to this paragraph. He asks, "What horrible crime had the South committed to warrant its extermination? The people of the South were guilty of wanting independence for a government of their own choosing."
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"A pro-Christian, God-based government that safeguarded God-given human rights, individual liberty, and put strict limits on the powers of the shared central federal government. This was the type of government the Founders established in 1776, and the South was trying to preserve it as it had been given to them." That's basically why she decided the South deserved to be trampled out and destroyed. And so the first stanza then pictures the Northern Army as Christ trampling out the enemies, that is the South and the Southern people, because we are a wicked and ungodly and a judgment deserving people. Listen to the second stanza.
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She writes, "I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built 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."
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Now I want you to listen to that. She said, "I have seen Him," God. Where did she see God? "I have seen Him," God, "in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps." That is the Union Camp. To her, Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers were the army of God going forth to slaughter the evil resistors of social reform and progressive centralized government. She said they had built in him an altar.
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Now, just stop and ask, what does that mean? "They have built Him an altar." Does that refer to the stacked arms that are ready to be used against the southern people? She says, "I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps." Was this the campfires of the northern soldiers or the lamps perhaps in their tent? She said, she's seen this in "His evening dews and damps." What is she saying? She is saying that those tents and those stacked arms and that campfire was nothing less than the very altar to God Himself.
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That is not only unbiblical, it is not only ridiculous, it is blasphemous. There is another thought that I could throw out. When she says that you can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, it could also be an allusion to musket and cannon fire. If you're going to be reading the sentence of judgment and destruction, where could you see it more plainly than in the instruments of death? How could anyone as a Christian or Southerner sing that is beyond me.
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The third stanza is even worse. It is so unbiblical. It is so anti-Christ. It is so anti-Christian. It is beyond belief. Listen to the third stanza. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, since God is marching on." Now, wait a minute. Listen to what she said. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel." So these fixed bayonets, these rows of cannon are God's gospel, she says. Listen now, "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero, born of woman..."
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Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 and look at verse 15 for a moment. I want you to see the allusion that she is referring to. In Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have what is known as the Protevangelium. "Prote" means first or one. "Evangelium," the gospel. So what you have in Genesis 3:15 is the first promise of the Messiah.
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And listen to what he says. Genesis 3 and verse 15, God says to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." So in Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have then the very first promise of the Messiah, and that Messiah will be born of a woman, and that Messiah will bruise the serpent's head.
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Now what does Julia Ward Howe do? Julia Ward Howe takes that verse out of context. Instead of the hero being born of woman referring to Christ, it is referring to the Union soldiers. And then she says, "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal." Who were the contemners? The southern people. In other words, we were the ones who were guilty. We were holding God in contempt. Now listen to what she says.
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I'm not making this up. "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners," that is, as you judge and destroy the South, "so with you my grace shall deal." In other words, God will bless and give grace to the northern army as they destroy the South. In other words, listen, Julia Ward Howe's theology and philosophy was the same philosophy that was held by the Roman Catholic Church during the Crusades.
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You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels. Listen, "As ye deal with my contemners," that is, as you destroy them, as you judge them, "so with you my grace shall deal." And then she says to the northern army that "the hero, born of woman," that's them, "crush the serpent with his heel," that's us. So she takes this passage that refers to Jesus Christ and applies it to the Union Army. And then she says that we are the serpent's seed and we're the ones that need to be crushed and destroyed and annihilated.
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How can any Christian and how can any southerner sing that hymn? The fourth stanza returns to the idea of judgment, it goes like this. "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on." Now, what does this fourth stanza call for?
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It calls for a full, final and complete destruction of the South. No retreat. "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat."
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Now, what is she saying? She is saying, you remember that Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 volunteers to destroy the South. She is saying that the men that answered that call, the call of Lincoln, that was the judgment seat of Christ. In other words, in simple language, your response to Lincoln's call for volunteers to deny eight million Southerners the right of self-government demonstrated whether or not you were for or against Christ. So, she is saying, if you want to be on the right side, be swift, be jubilant, my feet, hurry with gladness and joy and join the Northern Army and crush the South. Destroy it.
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Here's the fifth and final stanza. "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." There is nothing about this song that is biblical. "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea." Oh, that sounds so wonderful. Listen, folks, lilies do not grow in stables. Christ was born in a stable. He was born in a manger. There ain't no lilies there.
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Secondly, only those who are in Christ are transformed and will be ultimately transfigured. Only Jesus Christ was transfigured in this life. That was upon the Mount of Transfiguration. We as Christians, we as believers, will not be quote unquote transfigured until glorification. Julia demonstrates her disbelief, her unbelief in Christ and His sufficiency and His atonement by saying, "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free." You can't make anyone free. You can't free people from their sins. Jesus Christ, in John 8 and verse 36, the Word of God says, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." What was Julia Ward Howe saying? Julia Ward Howe was saying Christ did not finish salvation. We must finish it. Government must do something. People must do something. Let's finish it. Let's do what Christ did not do and could not do.
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The Battle Hymn of the Republic is not biblical. It is not Christian.
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Now, let me make some applications. Now listen very carefully. If and when you hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic sung, the first thing you need to think about is the five innocent men and boys that old John Brown murdered and hacked to pieces. The second thing you should think about is the 620,000 Americans, North and South, who died in that horrible war and that war which transformed America from a constitutional republic to a centralized bureaucracy. You need to think especially of the Southern men who gave their lives for Southern independence.
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Secondly, listen carefully, Julia Ward Howe used God and used biblical imagery to rub salt in the wounds of Christians. You know, one of our problems, and I try to say this often, and I try to say it as lovingly and kindly as I can, but one of our problems is this: that American Christians have been so dumbed down, we cannot even think. We don't know our Bibles. We don't know our history. We don't know our heritage. And when you allow an unbeliever to write a song denigrating Christ, denigrating His Word, denigrating His people, and then put that song in a church where Christians sing it heartily and lustily, it is beyond belief. Isn't it true that most of us, when we go to church and sing hymns, we never even think about what we're saying? We just say the words. She wrote a totally unbiblical, ungodly song and Christians everywhere sing it.
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The third application is this. The battle hymn has nothing to do with Christianity or God, it is a political patriotic song about the destruction of the South in religious terminology. Julia Ward Howe deliberately created the idea that the North was doing God's work. It paints a picture of God destroying His enemies in the South, thus elevating the North and her battle to a holy war against an unholy people. So, Howe in her hymn portrays the South and its people as being evil and the enemy of God. How can any Southerner sing that song? By the way, and when you do see it, you're undoubtedly giving tacit approval and agreement with Mrs. Howe and her opinions. The inimitable Mark Twain saw the hypocrisy and the perversity of the battle hymn. Some of you may know, some of you may not know, but Mark Twain wrote his own version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And he wrote his version to mock Julia Ward Howe.
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I want you to listen very carefully. I'm going to read Mark Twain's version. And you can pick up one of the big reasons for the war. Here is his version. Mark Twain. "Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the sword. He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored. He has loosed his fateful lightnings and with woe and death has scored."
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"His lust is marching on. I have seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have built him an altar in the eastern dews and damps. I have read his doomful mission in the dim and flaring lamps. His night is marching on. I have read his bandit gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel. As you deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal."
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"Let the faithless son of freedom," the North, "crush the patriot," the South, "with his heel. Lo, greed is marching on. We have legalized this trumpet, and are guarding her retreat. Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgment seat. O, be swift, you clods, be jubilant, my feet, our God is marching on. In a sort of slimy, harmonious greed, was born in yonder ditch, with a longing in his bosom for others' goods an itch."
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"As Christ died to make men holy, let us die to make men rich. Our God is marching on." Mark Twain understood what General Smedley Butler understood. General Butler, a retired Marine from 1881 to 1940, wrote, "War is a racket." And I want you to think about what Mark Twain wrote, and let me read to you just the first three short paragraphs of General Butler's book. Mark Twain said it's about greed, it's about lust, it's about pride and power. Here's what General Butler wrote, "War is a racket. It always has been."
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"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to be to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about."
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"It is conducted for the benefit of very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes." What was he saying? The same thing that Mark Twain said. It's all about money. It's all about power.
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Now, let me ask and answer a question. Should a Christian sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Should a Southerner sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic? The answer should be obvious. With such a perversion of history and such a perversion of the scripture, and with such narrow minded bigotry that is being portrayed against the South, I do not understand or see how any Christian or any southerner could either stand or sing.
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Well, that song is being sung. It's against Christ. It's against the Bible. It's against the South. It's a war song. It is a Yankee marching song. As they came to rape, loot, burn and destroy. Hardly an honorable thing to do. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful today for Jesus Christ. We're thankful for His Word, for His truth, for His blessings. Teach us, Lord, to think. Teach us to think in biblical terms and in historical terms. And help us, Lord, to make application of Your Word to every area of our lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray, Amen. Amen.
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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T12:34:54Z

Should A Christian Sing the Battle Hymn?

John Weaver | Freedom Ministries

John Weaver argues that Christians, especially Southerners, should not sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic because its author, Julia Ward Howe, was an unbelieving Unitarian who denied core Christian doctrines, and the hymn itself perverts Scripture to glorify the Union Army's destruction of the South as a holy war. He examines the hymn's stanzas to show how they misuse biblical imagery to justify violence and portray Southerners as enemies of God.

Opening

Introduction: The Question and Biblical Foundation

Weaver poses the question of whether a Christian or Southerner should sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, citing Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 on singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

The Power of Songs to Teach Doctrine and History

Songs can teach doctrine and history, whether true or false, and people often accept their messages uncritically.

The Authoress: Julia Ward Howe's Unbelief

Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian who denied the Trinity, deity of Christ, inspiration of Scripture, and hell; she believed Christ was merely a good teacher and that all religions lead to redemption.

Moreover, she refuted explicitly the claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said in John 14, verse 6,

Scripture Reading — John 14:6

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Howe's Abolitionism and Views on Race

Howe was a radical abolitionist and socialist who held racist views, describing blacks in derogatory terms and advocating their refinement by white culture.

Context of the Hymn's Writing

The hymn was written in 1862 after Howe heard Union soldiers singing 'John Brown's Body'; she admired John Brown, a murderer and terrorist, and saw his execution as glorious like Christ's cross.

Analysis of the Hymn's Stanzas

Weaver examines each stanza, showing how it misapplies Scripture (e.g., Isaiah 63, Genesis 3:15) to portray the Union Army as Christ's instrument of judgment against the South.

Scripture Reading — Genesis 3:15

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

So in Genesis 3 and verse 15, you have then the very first promise of the Messiah, and that Messiah will be born of a woman, and that Messiah will bruise the serpent's head.

Scripture Reading — John 8:36

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

Applications and Conclusion

Christians should reject the hymn because it dishonors Christ, glorifies violence, and insults Southern heritage; Mark Twain's parody highlights its greed-driven motives.

Should A Christian Sing the Battle Hymn?

John Weaver | SermonAudio

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	SermonAudio
Media ID	11200617523
Subject	Old Testament Studies
Course	Genesis: Creation, Fall, and Dominion
Genre	Sermon
Date	2006-04-30
Dictation Name
Book	Book 076: Genesis: Creation, Fall, and Dominion — Chapter 1
Source Timed Segments	69

Lecture Guide

Outline

Introduction: The Question and Biblical Foundation: Weaver poses the question of whether a Christian or Southerner should sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, citing Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 on singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
The Power of Songs to Teach Doctrine and History: Songs can teach doctrine and history, whether true or false, and people often accept their messages uncritically.
The Authoress: Julia Ward Howe's Unbelief: Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian who denied the Trinity, deity of Christ, inspiration of Scripture, and hell; she believed Christ was merely a good teacher and that all religions lead to redemption.
Howe's Abolitionism and Views on Race: Howe was a radical abolitionist and socialist who held racist views, describing blacks in derogatory terms and advocating their refinement by white culture.
Context of the Hymn's Writing: The hymn was written in 1862 after Howe heard Union soldiers singing 'John Brown's Body'; she admired John Brown, a murderer and terrorist, and saw his execution as glorious like Christ's cross.
Analysis of the Hymn's Stanzas: Weaver examines each stanza, showing how it misapplies Scripture (e.g., Isaiah 63, Genesis 3:15) to portray the Union Army as Christ's instrument of judgment against the South.
Applications and Conclusion: Christians should reject the hymn because it dishonors Christ, glorifies violence, and insults Southern heritage; Mark Twain's parody highlights its greed-driven motives.

Major Themes

Key Arguments

The Battle Hymn is not a Christian hymn because its author was an unbeliever.

Julia Ward Howe denied the Trinity, deity of Christ, and biblical authority, so her song cannot express Christian faith.

Weaver states, 'the battle hymn of the Republic was not written by a Christian, nor does it express the Christian faith.'

The hymn perverts Scripture by applying messianic prophecies to the Union Army.

Howe takes passages about Christ's judgment (Isaiah 63) and the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15) and applies them to Northern soldiers crushing the South.

Weaver says, 'She takes this passage that refers to Jesus Christ and applies it to the Union Army.'

The hymn promotes a works-based salvation through violence.

The line 'As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal' implies that killing Southerners earns God's grace, akin to Crusade theology.

Weaver explains, 'You earn salvation by killing the infidels. We were the infidels.'

The hymn glorifies a terrorist, John Brown, as a Christ figure.

Howe admired John Brown and saw his execution as glorious like the cross, and the hymn's 'terrible swift sword' alludes to his murders.

Weaver quotes Howe: 'his death will be holy and glorious... will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ.'

Singing the hymn implies agreement with its anti-Southern and anti-Christian message.

By singing or standing for the hymn, Christians tacitly approve of Howe's heresies and the demonization of the South.

Weaver says, 'when you do see it, you're undoubtedly giving tacit approval and agreement with Mrs. Howe and her opinions.'

Scripture References

Ephesians 5:19: Cited as the biblical basis for singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, introducing the topic of appropriate Christian music.
Colossians 3:16: Parallel passage to Ephesians 5:19, emphasizing teaching and admonishing through song.
John 14:6: Quoted to show Christ's exclusive claim as the only way to the Father, which Howe denied.
Isaiah 63:1-6: Read to show the biblical image of Christ treading the winepress of wrath, which Howe misapplied to the Union Army.
Genesis 3:15: The protoevangelium promising a Messiah who crushes the serpent; Howe applied 'hero born of woman' to Union soldiers.
John 8:36: Quoted to affirm that only Christ can make people truly free, countering Howe's idea that human death can bring freedom.

Historical References

Julia Ward Howe: Author of the Battle Hymn; a Unitarian, abolitionist, and socialist who denied Christian doctrines and admired John Brown.
John Brown: Abolitionist terrorist who murdered pro-slavery settlers in Kansas and raided Harper's Ferry; admired by Howe as a martyr.
Secret Six: Wealthy Northern men who funded John Brown's raid; Howe's husband was a member.
Pottawatomie Massacre: John Brown's murder of five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas, including the Doyle family, described as brutal and unprovoked.
Mark Twain's parody of the Battle Hymn: Twain wrote a satirical version highlighting greed and hypocrisy, which Weaver quotes to support his argument.
General Smedley Butler: Retired Marine who wrote 'War is a Racket,' quoted to reinforce the idea that war is driven by profit.

Important Quotes

I threw away once and forever the thought of that terrible hell which appears to me impossible

Demonstrates Howe's rejection of biblical doctrine based on rationalism rather than Scripture.

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 that all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption.

Shows Howe's universalism and denial of Christ's exclusive role in salvation.

Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian Church and accept the fact that Christ was merely a good teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than many other men.

Confirms Howe's low view of Christ, contradicting Christian orthodoxy.

his death will be holy and glorious, the new saint awaiting martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer execution, which he did, will make the gallows glorious like the cross of Jesus Christ.

Reveals Howe's blasphemous elevation of John Brown to a Christ-like figure.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal.

Illustrates how the hymn promotes salvation by works and violence against the South.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

Shows the hymn's implication that Christ's work was insufficient and human effort completes redemption.

Discussion Questions

[Question]

How should a song's doctrinal content influence whether it is appropriate for Christian worship?

[Context]

Weaver argues that the Battle Hymn is unbiblical despite its religious language.

[Question]

What does Julia Ward Howe's Unitarian theology reveal about the dangers of denying core Christian doctrines?

[Context]

Weaver details Howe's rejection of the Trinity, hell, and Christ's deity.

[Question]

In what ways does the Battle Hymn misuse Scripture to justify political or military actions?

[Context]

Weaver analyzes stanzas that apply Isaiah 63 and Genesis 3:15 to the Union Army.

[Question]

How can Christians balance patriotism with biblical discernment when evaluating national songs?

[Context]

Weaver calls the hymn a 'political patriotic song' that dishonors Christ.

[Question]

What lessons can we learn from Mark Twain's parody about the true motives behind war?

[Context]

Weaver quotes Twain's version to highlight greed and hypocrisy.

Applications

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-05T21:47:22Z