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“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” & What It Really Means
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic" & What It Really Means
by Michael Dan Jones
One of the most enduring traditional American hymns and patriotic songs is Julia Ward Howe’s “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It is a staple with many Christian church choirs and hardly a patriotic holiday passes without this song being sung and played at ceremonies nationwide. But is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” truly appropriate for religious hymnals and patriotic ceremonies? Who was the author? What motivated and inspired her? What message was she trying to convey? What do the words mean? What meaning do they have for us today?
Denied the Divinity of Christ
The author, Julia Ward Howe, was born in 1819 in New York City. She married a prominent physician, Dr. Samuel Howe Gridley (1801-1876) in 1843 and they lived in Boston, Mass., where they raised five children. She was a much celebrated author, a tireless supporter of the anti-slavery movement, preached in Unitarian Churches, and was a zealous worker for the advancement of women, prison reform, world peace and other humanitarian movements. She died October 17, 1910 at her summer home in Oak Glen, Rhode Island.
News reporters of her day delighted in describing this unusual woman. She was diminutive in stature, barely over five feet; invariably wearing a white trimmed, black dress and lace cap and had the habit of peering over her silver-rimmed glasses as she read her lecture in a crisp Boston-Yankee accent.
But her literary works had dark themes, such as murder, suicide and betrayal, perhaps reflecting her own unhappy marriage with her domineering and unfaithful husband. Her church, the Unitarian Church, although it claimed to be Christian, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity… Finish reading>>
