He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. – 2 Kings 21:3

Today's Scripture Reading (June 15, 2026): 2 Kings 21

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." With these words, Charles Dickens launches his story about the French Revolution, "A Tale of Two Cities." The words highlight the paradoxical nature of the human experience. And sometimes it seems that the best of times and the worst of times are separated by the thinnest of margins. Consider the men who historians often argue are the best and the worst American Presidents. On the best side, Abraham Lincoln consistently ranks as the best of American Presidents. Lincoln is praised for his leadership throughout the American Civil War and his abolition of slavery. Abraham Lincoln is a man who was made, as maybe we all are, by the circumstances of his life. Would Abraham have presided over the abolition of slavery had he been President twenty years earlier? I don't think so. And while one of the great tragedies of American history was Lincoln's assassination, the assassination stopped the Lincoln story before Reconstruction. And no one knows how Reconstruction might have changed his legacy.

So maybe it's no surprise that the two worst Presidents are the two men who served before and after Abraham Lincoln. The worst President of the United States is consistently James Buchanan. I think there might be a few other candidates for this position, but Buchanan keeps rising to the top because of the way he handled American Society in the years leading up to the Civil War. Buchanan believed that history would vindicate him, but that vindication has never really materialized. He has been consistently criticized for his unwillingness or inability to react to the Southern States, which were threatening to secede from the Union, setting the stage for the Civil War. It is as if someone else were President; maybe the Civil War wouldn't have happened. And I am not sure that is true either.

But Buchanan's competition for the title of worst American President is often Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln. In all fairness, Johnson had been Lincoln's Vice-President for less than two months before Lincoln's assassination. Still, Johnson had the privilege of serving as President for most of Abraham Lincoln's second term (April 15, 1865 - March 4, 1869), and his legacy remains that he failed Reconstruction by blocking civil rights for the newly freed slaves. Together, Buchanan, Lincoln, and Johnson served as Presidents of the United States from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1869, some of the most volatile years in the history of the Union. They were the best and the worst of times and of Presidents.

I sometimes wonder why the author of Kings chose not to compare the reign of King Manasseh with that of his father, Hezekiah, and his grandfather, Ahaz. Here, we once again seem to have a story of the worst and the best of the Kings of Judah in two consecutive generations. But instead, the author of Kings, possibly Jeremiah, chooses to compare Manasseh to the best of the Judean Kings, Hezekiah, with the worst of the Israelite or Samaritan Kings, Ahab. And while 2 Kings omits part of the story, it seems that Manasseh competed with both of these kings. For part of his reign, he was as bad as Ahaz and his wife, Jezebel, of Israel. And while he was never as good as his father, Hezekiah, he did try to follow his father's example later in his reign.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 33