A Christian's Unease With The Battle Hymn of the Republic

In the July 2026 edition of The Atlantic, staff writer and in-house historian Jake Lundberg writes a paean to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, in his note in the magazine, says that in connection with the 250th anniversary of independence, The Atlantic wanted to write about the poem and song, as The Atlantic has a close connection to it. Written by the abolitionist Julia Ward Howe in November 1861, the poem was published first in The Atlantic in February 1862. The magazine had then only existed for less than five years. The Atlantic paid Howe $5 for the publication rights. (Both Goldberg’s note and Lundberg’s article already been published online.)

Lundberg effusively praises the poem. Lundberg calls it the “second national anthem” of the country and considers it superior to the first. It is “a testimony” and an “earnest witness—seeing, hearing, and feeling God’s wrath on the way to service in a great national cause.” Lundberg recounts the history of the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. It arose in a frenzy of patriotic expression in the North after the beginning of the Civil War, and was set to the tune of the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body”. After the Civil War the song transcended sectional boundaries. Lundberg notes that at joint Union/Confederate veterans’ reunions after the war, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was often sung, followed by “Dixie”. Lundberg recounts how the song became a truly American patriotic song legitimizing the United States’ overseas wars of the twentieth century. Although Lundberg does not mention it, I clearly remember the song being sung in the National Cathedral to close out the National Memorial Service for 9/11 on September 14, 2001. The sight and sound of the President and the entire government of the United States, including its uniformed general and admirals, somberly but earnestly singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as they undertook to secure retribution upon the country’s enemies, was awe-inspiring and fearsome; it was a solemn promise to unleash “the terrible swift sword.”

Now I am a patriot. I am also a person who takes the meaning of words seriously. I am also a person who takes his Christianity seriously.

So let’s be clear. Ward was not writing abstractions about God and his actions.

In context, “the glory of the coming of the Lord” was the coming of the Union Army in the Civil War. It is the Union Army that is “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” The Union Army is God’s “terrible swift sword.” The “watch-fires of a hundred circling camps” are the campfires of the Union camps, where God can be seen, where Union soldiers have “builded Him an alter,” and where God’s “righteous sentence” can be read.

And as the Union Army marches on, so God’s Truth is marching on.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the war of the United States against the Confederacy was a just and righteous war.

But in Christian moral theology, there are names for the sin of claiming divine sanction or presence for purely human endeavor. That sin lies at the intersection of blasphemy, presumption and sacrilege. It violates the commandment, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.” Every time Americans sing the song they are asserting that the purposes of the United States throughout its history are also God’s cause and will. Therefore, it is the United States military that executes God’s will. This wrapping a military/political cause in the language of divine apocalypse is plainly (at least to me) a grave misuse of the name of the Lord.

This is what disturbs me so much about the song. Again, I insist that I am a patriot. I do however put God and God’s law prior to human action. I know that almost no one who sings the song have given much real thought about it in this way. But I have.

The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is often sung in Christian churches on or about national holidays. I do not join in the singing, and sometimes I have walked out, fearing that God might at last lose his patience.

I will, however, always sincerely sing and pray the blessings of “America the Beautiful.”

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

America! America!

God mend thy every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control

Thy liberty in law!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness

And every gain divine!

AMEN