Christopher Gehrz - Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of Americas Most Infamous Pilot

Christopher Gehrzs tough-minded yet open curiosity about Charles Lindberghs perturbing spiritualityan amorphous Jesus and nebulous Christianity melded with pantheistic religiosities, eugenics, antisemitism, White supremacy, and American nationalismbrings forth a religious biography as compelling as it is fascinating. An absorbing, necessary American read.

Jon Butler

author of God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan

Charles Lindbergh was a celebrated aviator, the father of the baby abducted in the crime of the century, a Nazi sympathizer, and a believer in eugenics. He also carried a small New Testament with him as he entered the South Pacific theatre of World War II. In this fascinating, informative, and accessible biography, historian Chris Gehrz helps us make sense of the religious life of this infamous pilot.

John Fea

American historian and executive editor of Current

This short and crisply written biography tracks Lindberghs life and spiritual but not religious leanings. Lindbergh followed his own spiritual compass, yet towards a path that led him to sympathy with some of the worst political and social ideas of the twentieth century. The mixed brew he concocted, as Gehrz makes clear, reinforced rather than challenged his sympathies for anti-Semitism, eugenics, and white supremacy. Gehrz clearly and powerfully captures the sad ironies of this tale of a man who flew solo into heroism and into dark places.

Paul Harvey

author of Howard Thurman and the Disinherited: A Religious Biography

In a portrait of Charles Lindbergh that is both soaring and sober, Christopher Gehrz pilots us from the transcendence of flight into the darkness of bigotry and infidelity. Yet Gehrz is our guide, not Lindberghs judge. Gehrz reveals Lindberghs long search for a spirituality that affirmed his own sense of purpose but did not shackle him to a church or require him to repent. He sees in Lindbergh a nation bewitched by its technological accomplishments, confident in its innocence, and callous toward inequality.

John G. Turner

author of They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty

Mark A. Noll, Kathryn Gin Lum, and Heath W. Carter, series editors

Long overlooked by historians, religion has emerged in recent years as a key factor in understanding the past. From politics to popular culture, from social struggles to the rhythms of family life, religion shapes every story. Religious biographies open a window to the sometimes surprising influence of religion on the lives of influential people and the worlds they inhabited.

The Library of Religious Biography is a series that brings to life important figures in United States history and beyond. Grounded in careful research, these volumes link the lives of their subjects to the broader cultural contexts and religious issues that surrounded them. The authors are respected historians and recognized authorities in the historical period in which their subject lived and worked.

Marked by careful scholarship yet free of academic jargon, the books in this series are well-written narratives meant to be read and enjoyed as well as studied.

Titles include:

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

by Allen C. Guelzo

Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson

by Edwin S. Gaustad

Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill

by Gary Scott Smith

A Christian and a Democrat: A Religious Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt

by John F. Woolverton and James D. Bratt

Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life

by Nancy Koester

For a complete list of published volumes, see the back of this volume.

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2021 Christopher Gehrz

All rights reserved

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7621-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gehrz, Christopher, 1975 author.

Title: Charles Lindbergh : a religious biography of Americas most infamous pilot / Christopher Gehrz.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2021. | Series: Library of religious biography series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A short biography of Charles Lindbergh that traces his varying interests in faith and spirituality and explores how this aspect of his life influenced both his famous achievements and his infamous sympathies for white supremacy and eugenics Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021000659 | ISBN 9780802876218 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 19021974. | Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974Religion. | Air pilotsUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC TL540.L5 G46 2021 | DDC 629.13092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000659

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the American Standard Version.

In honor of another descendant of Swedish immigrants: Dick Petersonfor whom physics is an act of worship, whose career confirms Anne Lindberghs instinct that the true scientist [is] akin to the artist and the saint, whose life demonstrates that The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork (Psalm 19:1)

I usually end this part of any book with my family, but this time Im going to start the acknowledgments with my wife, children, and parents. If it werent for them, Id never have given a second thought to Charles Lindberghand Id never have been able to study his life.

One weekend in August 2016, the kids and I drove Katie to a workshop in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which left Lena, Isaiah, and me free to pay our first visit to the Lindbergh House, just up the road in Little Falls. That autumn, as we spent a sabbatical together on the East Coast, my son researched the Spirit of St. Louis for our visit to the National Air and Space Museum. After that trip to Washington, I started thinking seriously about the notion of a spiritual but not religious biography of Lindbergh. That project never would have happened if my parents, Dick and Elaine Gehrz, hadnt hosted us for that 2016 sabbatical, and if Katie, Isaiah, and Lena hadnt spared me for a long summer research trip in 2018 and then put up with endless Lindbergh conversations and trivia (Did you know that ?) over the following two years.

The next most indispensable figure in this project was Heath Carter, who had an inkling that a tall, introverted Minnesotan of Swedish ancestry might be the ideal person to study Charles Lindberghthen helped fill in the gaps of this Europeanists knowledge of US history. With Kathryn Gin Lum, Heath continues the excellent work started by Mark Noll in editing the Library of Religious Biography, several of whose prior entries I used to research my own contribution. Among many other people at Eerdmans who labored on this particular biography, let me thank Laurel Draper, Tom Raabe, Laura Bardolph Hubers, and David Bratt, who helped me realize that a biographer doesnt have to like his subject to tell an important story.

While a spiritual biography of Lindbergh is unusual, I built on the work of many predecessors, particularly A. Scott Berg, Susan Hertog, Bruce L. Larson, and Grace Lee Nute. Their research and writing helped Charles, Anne, and the rest of the Lindbergh family come to life for me.