Caron on Hamilton & Christianity

See this link for a very moving story from the current Dean of Pepperdine Law School, Paul Caron. It references Dean Caron's personal faith, the currently popular Hamilton play, and a scholarly article I have long championed that I think gives the best account of Hamilton's religious journey. Yes, Hamilton did not become an "orthodox Christian" until the end of his life, after it all came crashing down, after his son died in a duel.

A taste:

For me, the "grace too powerful to name" is the central message and beauty of Christianity.  It alone is what empowers Eliza to forgive Hamilton and restore their marriage amidst "unimaginable" pain.

Seeing this wondrous depiction of forgiveness in the play left me hungering for more detail. What enabled Eliza to forgive Hamilton?  What was Hamilton's actual faith journey? Thankfully, a reader sent me a wonderful article that answers both of these questions:  Douglass Adair & Marvin Harvey, Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian Statesman?, 12 Wm. & Mary Q. 308 (1955).

The article lays out the case that Hamilton's extraordinary fall led him to faith:

Hamilton, who in the years of his early success had almost forgotten God, who in the years of his greatest power had tried to manipulate God just as he manipulated the public debt to increase that power, began sincerely seeking God in this time of failure and suffering.

For twenty-five years his genius, his driving ambition, his energy, his will had carried him from triumph to triumph. His pen and literary talent had transported him from his obscure and unhappy status in the West Indies to what seemed to be the beginning of a respectable, but dull, professional career in provincial New York. Then, adventurer with his obsessive ambition and his arrival coincided with the outbreak of cataclysm that not only overstimulates ambition in some men, but also provides opportunities of magnificent scope for those who dare to take advantage of them. Now his talents and luck carried him ahead by leaps and bounds. By the time he was twenty-two, Hamilton had begun that association with Washington — the most potent figure in all America — which was to serve him so marvelously for the next two decades. By the time he was twenty-five he had allied himself with the Schuylers and automatically gained a top position among the elite of New York. Ten years more and he was Washington's "prime minister," the most influential man in the nation after his chief. Then after 1797, though Washington voluntarily resigned his supreme authority in the state to bumbling John Adams, the President's Cabinet was still made up of Hamilton's men, who could manage Adams for him. When the first test came in the war crisis of 1798, Hamilton, in spite of Adams's violent objections, gained control of the new army recruited according to his own specifications. With his army, and with a certain French war impending, Hamilton could feel he had the game in his hands. He had enemies, it was true, but they were no longer dangerous; for now no competitor could threaten his power and his ability to drive the United States along the path he knew it ought to follow. In 1798 everything that Hamilton had willed had come to pass; everything that he still desired had almost been achieved. His virtuous pursuit of power — to be used virtuously, of course — had been successful even beyond the soaring dreams of the immigrant boy of 1772. Who can blame him for feeling omnipotent? Who can wonder that by 1799 Hamilton confused himself with God.

But within one year Hamilton's power vanished, first by slow degrees, then with sudden and cataclysmic completeness. ... Perhaps never in all American political history has there been a fall from power so rapid, so complete, so final as Hamilton's in the period from October, 1799 to November, 1800. Twelve months earlier his party had seemed stronger than at any time since 1792. His position in the party was unchallenged and seemed unchallengeable. He had every reason to believe that soon his party would advance him to the chief magistracy. ... By 1801 Hamilton, whose will had mastered every obstacle, whose power so recently had seemed firmly consolidated and impregnable, suddenly experienced the nightmare sensation of impotence. ... [T]his sudden political tempest had wrecked his hopes, stripped him of his last chance for glory, ended his power to do good for his country, and stranded him a derelict on the shoals of a petty civilian life. No wonder Hamilton felt himself a failure in 1801. No wonder he suffered the tortures of a potent man suddenly become impotent. No wonder that in his despair he finally turned to God for help and support. ...