In the fifth grade, I received an assignment that has followed me my entire life: a one-page paper on each of our (then) 42 presidents. This project has led me to love history and to draw life lessons from historical figures. So which of those 42 do I choose to “blog” on? None other than the mostly forgotten, unelected 21st President of the United States of America: Chester A. Arthur

Arthur was born October 5, 1829. He grew up the son of a Baptist pastor and was a very bright kid. In adulthood he turned to law and politics as a career. Yet all of this was put on hold as the Civil War broke out. As many others in his day, he served in the “War Between the States” becoming a quartermaster general for the Union state of New York. Before becoming president, history records Arthur as no more than a cog in partisan Republican politics. He was a quintessential corrupt politician and everyone knew it. In the 1880 Presidential election, the Republicans chose James A. Garfield as their nominee. Although everyone knew of Arthur’s corruption, including Garfield, the Republicans had to win New York so Arthur was selected as Garfield’s running mate. Friends… that’s politics! 

After going through Scott Greenberger’s excellent volume The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur, five principles emerged that I wanted to address from a Christian worldview.

Lesson #1:  First, you can help your kids hate Christianity. Chester, or Chet to his friends, grew up in the home of a staunch abolitionist father who was a Baptist preacher. In his early life, Arthur was frequently uprooted, but even worse, his dad was a hard-nosed, no-nonsense disciplinarian with little love and grace in his heart. Chet’s sister noted in her diary feeling much more at ease when her father was not around – and far from Christ because of his harsh judgments. 

Tragically but unsurprisingly, this “preacher’s kid” grew up to become a tainted  political leader under “boss” Roscoe Conkling, during one of the most corrupt periods in American political history – the “Gilded Age.”  Keeping a steady stream of dirty money flowing and even procuring women to keep “their people” in office, Arthur would stay out all night drinking and planning other ways to maintain Conkling’s and his hold on power. 

Ephesians 6:1 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” “Provoke” implies “irritation,” which we as parents can do in a number of ways: setting unrealistic expectations, withholding affection, issuing unwarranted discipline, or harshly criticizing would certainly apply to provoking a child to wrath. 

Only eternity will tell if Chet might not have strayed from the Lord had his father been more loving and joyful – but being too hard on our kids absolutely makes them more likely to run from God the moment they leave the nest.  

Lesson #2: Sometimes we must do things we feel unsuited for. Again, Arthur was not elected president, but only assumed the burden of the nation’s highest office when James Garfield died of a severe infection, less than six months into his term, when doctors botched an operation after he was shot twice by the insane Charles Guiteau. 

Universally viewed as more suited for drinking, socializing, and smoking Cuban cigars into the wee hours of the morning than for the presidency, Arthur reportedly reacted to the news that he had ascended to the office by placing his face in his hands and weeping uncontrollably. Arthur knew that this office was greater than him and he knew he was not fit for the job.  

Is this not the way that life turns out for most of us? We make our plans, seek to execute them and then find them smashed into a million pieces. Proverbs 16:33 tells us, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” 

Yet the Bible demonstrates repeatedly that though an individual’s plans may falter, God’s sovereign plan for that life works to a greater purpose. Joseph, for example, would have never planned to go to Egypt as a slave, but God used it to save the world from starvation. Job suffered the loss of all his children and wealth, yet God gave him a greater vision of who He was and used him to teach us how to suffer as Christians. Even Jesus’s agonizing death – not something a man would have planned – was by the predetermined will of the Father. Through His death, many sons are brought to glory. 

Whether you feel “out of your element” as a parent, spouse, friend, or anything else, we must learn to trust the sovereign plan of God and know that it is he that has thrust us onto the private or public stage that we now inhabit. His grace will sustain us. 

In my next blog, I’ll have three more lessons from the life of Arthur. Stay tuned!

Soli Deo Gloria!