Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Christian Responses to Lindbergh: “The New Christ”

Christian Responses to Lindbergh: “The New Christ”

Last updated on: July 11, 2017 at 1:53 am by Chris Gehrz

Christian Responses to Lindbergh: “The New Christ” 2017-07-10T20:16:54-04:00 Chris Gehrz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

…it seems as if all the hands in the world are touching or trying to touch the new Christ and that the new Cross is the Plane… (Harry Crosby, eyewitness to Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 landing in Paris)

Transoceanic travel has become so commonplace that I’m not sure we can fully appreciate what Charles Lindbergh did on May 20-21, 1927, when he became the first person to complete a solo, nonstop, transatlantic flight. But at the time, people had to use the language of divinity to explain what that flight meant to them.

Lindbergh’s first biographers called him “a demi-god, the personification of human achievement.” (As we’ve seen, such attempts to “deify” Lindbergh as just such a “demi-god” helped prompt Silas Bent’s warning of the rise of “American paganism.”) But others doubted that human effort alone was responsible. Lindbergh’s own 1927 account, “We,” is impossibly matter-of-fact, but the afterword by Fitzhugh Green reported that “[m]any said that [Lindbergh’s] sudden meteor-like appearance from obscurity was an act of Providence.” One such observer was the American ambassador who hosted Lindbergh in Paris. “While I am not a deeply religious man,” said Myron T. Herrick in a ceremony at the Hotel de Ville, “I recognize that Captain Lindbergh’s great achievement is the produce of divine inspiration. Nothing else can explain his success.”

Ernest Hemingway, who wasn’t at Le Bourget, called Lindbergh an “angel.” Fellow expat Harry Crosby, who was, “the new Christ.”

So how did Christian leaders respond to the providential appearance of this modern demi-god, the “new Christ” whose sudden advent was covered by mass media? (Given that Lindbergh arrived in Paris on a Saturday, one imagines many sermons being frantically re-written as America’s evening papers reported the astonishing news.) It’s a question I need to research further, but let me share at least a glimpse of the Christian response in America’s largest city.

Embed from Getty Images

Hard as it may be to believe ninety years later, in 1927 the New York Times reported on sermons by leading pastors. Its archives from that year contain dozens of examples of Christian reflection on Lindbergh, primarily from May 22nd or June 12th (“unofficially but almost universally” called “Lindbergh Sunday,” in anticipation of the flyer’s New York parade the following day). Most of the sermons were delivered in Episcopal, Methodist, Congregationalist, and other mainline Protestant churches, but the spectrum stretched all the way from the Unitarian theologian Charles Francis Potter to John Roach Straton, the staunchly conservative pastor of Calvary Baptist who had held a series of debates with Potter at Carnegie Hall in 1923-1924.

To a man (and they were all men), these preachers fell over themselves to praise Lindbergh.

Why? What made him so praiseworthy?

First and foremost, the Minnesotan appeared to clergy like the Methodist pastor Christian Reisner to be a young man of irreproachable character, “built in the school of hard work, poised by faithfulness and brightened by the spirit of service.” At Saint Thomas’, a historic Episcopal church on Fifth Avenue, Harold Gibbs proclaimed American pride in the flyer’s

bravery, his manliness, his calm poise and balance, his frankness and honesty, his devotion to an ideal and his cleanness of mind and body…. These are qualities which the Christian Church has tried to build up in her children. These are the qualities of a Christian gentleman. What we admire most in him is that he is the product of Christian teaching and the Christian religion.

Cadman in 1924 – CC BY-SA 4.0 (Folger Shakespeare Library)

If he was as humble as other preachers claimed, one wonders how Lindbergh felt while S. Parkes Cadman, the president of the Federal Council of Churches, lavished praise on him before 200,000 onlookers in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park: “We value you most of all for your matured wisdom, gracious deference, inborn tact, simplicity and inflexibility of purpose. It is your indefinable moral superiority that draws out souls.”

The dean of New York’s Episcopal cathedral, Howard Chandler Robbins, attributed Lindbergh’s success to “[d]iscipline, the self-discipline of years….” It was a rare word from that pulpit that Straton might have endorsed; the Baptist preacher boasted that “Lindbergh’s long flight across land and sea was sustained only by his own intrepid will power.” No fundamentalist was going to go as far as Straton’s sparring partner Potter (“We earth-bound spirits rise in sympathetic exultation when one of our number transcends some common limitation and lifts a whole race with him in his epic achievement”), but Straton, a staunch prohibitionist, was reminded of a famously abstemious Old Testament hero :

Lindbergh’s achievement illustrates as well, like the life of Daniel, the advantages of clean living and a pure heart. Like Daniel, this splendid, smiling American boy has refused to defile his body with strong drink, or by smoking, profanity, or other such abuses. Thanks to a noble mother’s example, and the influences of her Christian ideals, this young man, in the midst of the temptations and moral dangers of today, has maintained his life on a clean and wholesome basis.

Embed from Getty Images

For other clergy, it was the evident failure of Prohibition that made Lindbergh notable; they were relieved to see a young American defy Jazz Age stereotypes. John L. Davis, a Methodist, held up Lindbergh’s flight as “a rebuke to those youths who think of nothing but necking and drinking parties because he has shown what can be done through proper application of a stalwart character.” In Lindbergh, Robert Norwood (St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal) told an imagined European, “you have the representative of American manhood. America is not in the obese money grabbers which frequent your shores, nor in the cocktail drinking youth who is the idol of the flapper, but in this simple youth, whose smile is unforgettable, you have the representative of America.”

By 1927 Prohibition may have seemed doomed in a Wet bastion like New York City, but for Reformed pastor Malcolm James McLeod, Lindbergh’s pioneering flight showed that the impossible was always possible: “The same is said of ideals, that they are not practical or that they have not been practiced with full success in the past. The story of the Master, the golden rule, the drink question and disarmament have ‘never been done.’”

For the most progressive clergy in the group, it was that possibility of peace that had been most revitalized by Lindbergh’s flight. Preaching just ten years after the U.S. entered World War I, Walter Russell Bowie told parishioners at Grace Church that the elimination of war may have seemed out of reach, but Lindbergh drew on humanity’s “fund of moral heroism, as well as a fund of physical heroism among men, which thrills to the challenge of the impossible.” C. Everett Wagner of West Side Methodist called Lindbergh “America’s greatest popular ambassador of international good-will after Woodrow Wilson… [The] American people should respond to France’s challenge to outlaw war between these more friendly nations.” A year later, America’s secretary of state and France’s foreign minister lent their names to a treaty abandoning war as a means of resolving conflicts.

Embed from Getty Images

According to historian Modris Eksteins, Lindbergh seemed to represent new hope for an old world decimated by the Great War, “a world of values, of decorum, of positive accomplishment, of grace… It was a world of positive values, revolving around family, religion, nature, and the good and moral life” (Rites of Spring, p. 250). This was the Lindbergh exalted in the most prestigious pulpits of New York City: a “Christian gentleman” whose self-control, humility, purity, and courage owed much (they assumed) to a “noble mother’s example… and Christian ideals” and whose feat renewed humanity’s prospects for social progress.

But Eksteins believed that Lindbergh, “through his achievement and character, seemed to satisfy two worlds, one in the throes of decline and the other in the process of emergence.” As much as he excited the guardians of traditional morality, he left “equally exhilarated” a more “modern sensibility,” one for whom “[t]he purpose was immaterial. The act was everything…. [Lindbergh] flew for no one, not even for mankind. He flew for himself.”

That theme was not to be found in the sermons of the Protestant establishment. But then Lindbergh, in Eksteins’ interpretation, “was not the creation of an old world; he was a harbinger of a new dawn.” And this new age was not dominated by institutions, structures, or codes:

The acclaim for Lindbergh was an encomium for a bygone age of social individualism and at the same time a recognition, even if unconscious, that in the modern world the individual was alone, in permanent flight, devoid of footing… Man had been set loose. Freedom was no longer a matter of being at liberty to do what is morally right and ethically responsible. Freedom had become a personal matter, a responsibility above all to oneself. (p. 267)

Previous Post

July 10, 2017

Counting Baptists and Naming Baptists

Next Post

July 12, 2017 The Value of Failure in Graduate School

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Romans say about the mind governed by the flesh versus the mind governed by the Spirit?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The flesh is weak, but the Spirit is strong The flesh leads to sin, but the Spirit leads to righteousness The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace The flesh seeks itself, but the Spirit seeks God