In God We Trust?
Myths About the Separation of Church and State
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Myth:
Our national motto is "In God We Trust," proving we are a Christian Nation.
Response: It is true that the phrase "In God We Trust" appears on American money and also serves as the National Motto. Is this an indication that the principle of separation is invalid and that the United State is a religious or even a Christian nation? Or is it, rather, an indication that imperfect humans have thus far failed to completely implement such separation?
Opponents to church/state separation, when the citing the above fact, imply that the former interpretation is necessarily true. They are so convinced of it, in fact, that they don't even really argue for the relationship - instead, they reference this phrase and then move right to their desired conclusion! Little or not time is spent with exploring the possibility of the latter actually being true. Even worse, they often use it as a reason for further breaches in separation.
First we must remember that the original National Motto was not "In God We Trust." The original motto was E Pluribus Unum (a Latin phrase translated as "from many, one"), created by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in 1776. This is a wholly secular motto for the secular government they had helped establish, and this phrase can still be found on the back of the one dollar bill.
Even at the time, however, there were people who were dissatisfied with the secular nature of both the government and the motto. Resentment festered over time and found release in the late 19th century with the National Reform Movement, that era's version of the Christian Coalition. After the Civil War, this group encouraged the widespread belief that the tragedy had been a punishment from God for the nation's lack of Christianity - in particular, the government's lack of Christianity.
As a solution, the NRA proposed amending the Constitution in order to make it and the government explicitly Christian. It would have had the government acknowledge "the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler among nations," and would have declared "his will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government." This particular effort failed, but they did manage to get many members placed in all levels of government.
One of these was James Pollock, picked by President Lincoln as the tenth director of the U.S. Mint back in 1861. Pollock, who wanted the United States to become an official Christian theocracy, was able to get Congress to include in a law the phrase "...and the shape, mottoes, and devices of said coins shall be fixed by the director of the mint, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury;..."
Previously, Congress decided what would appear on coins - now, however, Pollock could do almost anything he wished. It was at this time that the phrase "In God We Trust" first began to appear on the nation's coins. Pollock got the idea to obtain the power to use this phrase from a Baptist minister, Mark R. Watkinson, who argued that it would "relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism." It was, then, specifically designed to promote particular religious beliefs to the detriment of other beliefs.
However, the appearance of these words was fixed to the desires of the current Mint's Director and the Secretary of the Treasury, so fundamentalist activists convinced Congress to pass a new law in 1908 which required the phrase to appear on certain coin denominations. Despite signing the law, President Theodore Roosevelt objected to this political use of the phrase, writing to William Boldly on November 11, 1907, that:
My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege....It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in building such as those at West Point and Annapolis -- in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.
The next stage occurred in 1955, when Congress passed a law requiring the phrase "In God We Trust" to appear on all currency. The following year, 1956, saw the passage of the law which changed the motto officially to "In God We Trust." Both of these actions were taken in response to the perceived threat of "godless communism." It was, in essence, an effort to promote a particular and politically charged religious vision both to the American people and to citizens of other nations.
The existence of this phrase is regularly used by fundamentalists in an effort to have the government promote their religious beliefs - completely ignoring the irony of such a religious phrase appearing on money. In 1999, for example, an Indiana school wanted to post "eleven precepts," little more than a rewriting of the Ten Commandments which included the command "Trust in God."
Supporters argued that this was a secular precept because the phrase "In God We Trust" appears on currency. For some reason, it escaped their notice that commanding people's children to trust in a god simply is not the job of the state. Not only is this a misuse of government power, but it is an insult to religion to try and claim that trusting in their God is a secular rather than a religious issue.
That this motto is an attempt to enforce a particular idea of God in American society has been admitted by those who have not been careful with their words. Stephen Hartkop, executive director of the Christian Coalition of Ohio, has said that "For them to try to remove these words [from the currency] is nothing other than an attempt to try to basically remove God from society, and I really don't think the people of this country want that."
Evidently, he and others really believe that their God is only present in American society when that presence is actively supported by the government. Churches, devout belief, and personal religious worship have no impact. But what does that say about their religion? It is for this reason that Thomas Jefferson wrote:
It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
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