Ronald C. White of the San Francisco Theological Seminary delivered the first of the 2006-2007 Bradley Lectures on September 11. Edited excerpts follow. The complete text and video of the lecture are available here.

Lincoln's eloquence may prove to be his most lasting legacy. Why does Lincoln continue to enjoy such modern access to people of all walks of life in all nations? He is the representative American who is able to paint our highest ideals in word pictures. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, his words continue to cross all boundaries of time and location. At critical moments, such as an anniversary of 9/11, the nation instinctively turns to Lincoln for words of both healing and resolve.

Lincoln built the Gettysburg Address upon a structure of past, present, and future time. Lincoln started in the past by placing the dedication of the battlefield at Gettysburg in the larger context of American history. The trajectory of Lincoln’s crucial first sentence was to underscore the timeless American truth that "all men are created equal." When Lincoln reaffirmed this truth he asserted that the war was about both liberty and union.

The words "under God" pointed forward to "shall have a new birth of freedom." In the first years of the Civil War, Lincoln found himself wrestling in new ways with the purposes of God in history. The death of so many soldiers brought him face to face with the meaning of life. With the death of his son Willie in February 1862, he was confronted with the meaning of eternal life. His evocation of "a new birth" had deep meaning for the evangelical Protestantism that intersected his life with increasing frequency and intensity in his presidential years.

The "new birth" which slowly emerged in Lincoln’s politics meant that on November 19 at Gettysburg he was no longer, as in his Inaugural Address, defending an old Union, but proclaiming a new Union. The old Union contained and attempted to restrain slavery. The new Union would fulfill the promise of liberty, the crucial step into the future that the Founders had failed to take.

The "new birth" was a paradox in both politics and religion. Lincoln had come to see the Civil War as a ritual of purification. The old Union had to die just as the old man had to die. In death there was preparation for a new Union and a new humanity. As Lincoln had said in his annual message to Congress of the previous December, "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." Almost one year later at Gettysburg, Lincoln was more ready to speak of "the new birth of freedom."

As Lincoln approached the unexpected climax of his address, he uttered the words that would be most remembered: "And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The voice we hear in the Gettysburg Address is not an individual voice. The address is full of first-person references, but every one is plural. Ten times Lincoln uses the plural "we," and three times "us."

At a first hearing or reading, we are aware of what is being said and not of who is saying it. Yet at a second or third hearing or reading, Lincoln’s character is everywhere present. Lincoln’s very reticence to speak about himself--how different from modern politicians--is what made his voice by the end of his address so decisive.

Is it only words? Rendered by Abraham Lincoln, words are actions. Lincoln’s words can become strangely contemporary as we seek today to remember the meaning of 9/11.