"In God We Trust."
You can find this phrase on American currency, and if
certain state legislators get their way, on public school buildings everywhere.
The phrase is so ubiquitous, I wouldn't blame you for assuming that it's always
been part of public life in the United States. But it's actually a relatively
recent invention. In 1956 President Dwight Eisenhower signed two pieces of
legislation regarding this phrase.
The first required it to appear on all
currency. The second officially designated the words as the national
motto. But where did this phrase come from and why did it suddenly become the
country's motto when we got along fine for almost two hundred years without one?
The answer lies, in part, with communism.
The official motto In God We Trust reveals two kinds of narratives wrapped
up in American civil religion.
First, the motto demonstrates how Americans use
symbolic language to link patriotism with piety.
If we're God's favored nation
then we must be full of righteous patriots right?
The second narrative emerged in the 1950s as politicians used Americans'
religiosity to explain how to identify their adversaries.
As the Cold War
intensified between the US and the Soviet Union, "in god we trust"' became a
way to distinguish between the godly "Us" and the godless "Them."
This is piety as nationalism.
This narrative states that belief in God is why the United States
is a good nation vis-a-vis the godlessness of evil communist states.
But where did this phrase "in god we trust' come from? It actually originates from
the poem that inspired the national anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner, but it's
been forgotten because Americans only sing the first stanza of that poem.
It reads: "then conquer we must when our cause is just and this be our motto in
God is our trust." Francis Scott Key a lawyer and amateur poet wrote this poem
after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the war of 1812.
But it wasn't until after a century of competition with other patriotic songs
that President Herbert Hoover named the Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem.
These other songs all mention God's providence and protection. For example
"Hail Columbia," which is still used as the official vice-presidential anthem, and
"America the Beautiful," where the chorus says AMERICA God shed His grace on thee.
So, why am i mentioning these? Remember, from episode 1 of this American Civil
Religion Series that one of the elements of Clifford Geertz's definition of
religion is that it requires a system of symbols.
And we find a bunch of symbols
when we consider the political rhetoric surrounding official state and military functions.
"Home of the brave." "Land of the free." "God the author of our Liberty."
American music evokes these symbols and we can trace their use back to the
country's founding documents, which American civil religion uses as a
constant source of inspiration. For example, the Declaration of Independence
says that the people of America are endowed by their creator
with certain unalienable rights. When you read these documents it's not a huge
leap in logic to assume that the nation and its people are divinely inspired and
favored by God. Now of course the story is much more complicated than that since
the founders had a diversity of religious opinions. But the power of that
simple narrative explains why Americans have an ongoing debate about: Was the
U.S. founded as a Christian nation?
So to summarize the first narrative
encapsulated by In God We Trust links patriotism and piety.
The second narrative is a battle between the godliness of the US versus the atheism
of communism.
Speaking in June 1950, President Truman framed the ideological
battle between the U.S. and communism as a battle of life and death,
good and evil, God and Satan.
He said: "This godless force seeks to destroy all the
honesty and decency that every Protestant Jew and Catholic has been taught.
During the Cold War the primary slur against communists was that they
were godless atheists. In fact, the Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy used
this connection as a loyalty test for Americans who he believed had unamerican
communist sympathies.
And President Eisenhower called upon Americans to
attend church, any church, as the first and foremost defense against communism.
Eisenhower's very first words as president requested the inaugural crowd
to let him say a little private prayer: "But before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to
this moment, would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own? And I ask that you bow your heads.
Eisenhower also launched the
National Prayer Breakfast, an annual meeting of religious leaders with
government officials that continues to this day.
And he would be later baptized by the evangelical leader Billy Graham who
himself claimed that communism was an anti Christian religion.
Billy Graham: "Communism and Christianity have a headlong clash.
So the Cold War was the context of "in
god we trust" becoming the nation's motto.
It was a narrative that argued
that true Americans believed in God and you could identify the nation's enemies
by their godlessness.
Ironically all of this was happening during a bunch of
Supreme Court cases limiting the potential damage of McCarthyism.
In 1947
the court ruled that school bus reimbursements to attend private
religious schools was illegal. They limited religious instruction inside
public schools, and they ruled prayer led by public school officials as unlawful.
But this narrative of atheism as unamerican remains powerful to this day.
Now we can see how these two stories merge together. It's not just that
American interests are secured by the blood of patriots who love their country.
It's also that these Patriots have been of a certain religion backed by similar
Christian views about God's providence and grace in relation to their sacrifice.
To believe differently as McCarthy accused communists of during the 1950's
is to be marked as less American.
The decision to make In God We Trust the
official motto cuts to the heart of the debate over Americans' values and identity.
In the 1950s, leaders in the u.s. said religion was so fundamental to
"American-ness" that it had to be reaffirmed as its motto, printed on official seals
and stamps, and carved into the entrance of Congress.
You might not agree with this motto.
More and more Americans now identify as non-religious but conflict
is one of the hallmarks of American civil religion. American identity is
contested as people stake different claims over what it really means to be
American. Next episode we'll explore this as we examine the controversy
surrounding the NFL player Colin Kaepernick when he refused to stand and
salute the flag during the 2016 football season.
This amounted to a battle over
the sacred symbol of the American flag, what it really stands for, and the range
of rituals you could deploy to honor that meaning.
Thanks for watching and
stay tuned for episode 3 of American civil religion