Tuesday, July 30, 2024

It is the 30th of July 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

  

I am preparing an upcoming weekend edition show on the history of the faith of American presidents. 1) This is an election year, and these kinds of questions always come up. 2) While it is interesting in and of itself, I think by reflecting on the professed faith of a nation's leader, we can say a good bit (even in a country where it is not supposed to matter).  

This is a roundabout way to ask you if you know what the official motto of the United States of America is. I pause.

“In God We Trust”.

If you said “e pluribus unum,” this would be incorrect as it has been the “unofficial motto” since our founding. It means “out of many one.” In God We Trust became the official motto of the United States of America on July 30, 1956, after President Eisenhower signed a bill making it so and had the new motto printed on paper money (it was already printed on coins).

This raises so many questions, such as, “Do other countries have mottoes, and do they also incorporate some kind of national piety”? Great question, Dan… so I looked.

The various Islamic republics or countries heavily governed by Muslims do. Consider that both Iran and Iraq have a national motto that is “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Saudi Arabia has the whole official motto of “There is No God other than Allah, and Muhammed is his Messenger.”

In the West, we can be a little less pious and a little more driven towards unity and success—fertility and freedom (as in Guatemala) and the general ideas wrapped up in France’s “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

(I would like to note that Chile is a little more combative- claiming “through reason, or by force”).

America adopting this “In God We Trust” language wasn’t new. As I mentioned, it had been in American coinage since the Civil War. And the idea and “almost” phrasing would have been known to all readers (and later singers) of “The Defense of Fort M’Henry,” later known as the Star Spangled Banner- in it, they sang: 

“Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto - "In God is our trust,”.

 

But it was key in 1956 for America to renew its vow to its civic religion in the face of the godless Communists. Our former WWII allies were most easily describable to the masses as “godless communists” and opposed to us “godly Americans.”

It was also significant that Dwight D. Eisenhower put this in place. He rode into office as a war hero, but his past was, perhaps, under-scrutinized for some. His parents raised him in a radical sect of Mennonites before they became Jehovah’s Witnesses.

When his staff learned he was never baptized (those Mennonites didn’t practice the sacrament), he was baptized at the National Memorial Presbyterian Church in D.C.

He had rejected his parents' pacifism (another leg of Mennonite doctrine) to enter West Point, but once in office, after being baptized, he claimed that “The business of the church is to put us generals out of business,” which represents the headiness and optimism of mid-century Post-War mainline Christianity.

Back to the “In God We Trust” motto: It has been challenged in many ways, ad nauseam, and it seems there is no chance it would be struck down as “promoting religion” as it does not promote any specific sectarian position.

 

As for other unbaptized presidents? I’ll get back to that on my weekend show in a few weeks, but I have Polk not been baptized until later in life. Andrew Johnson wasn’t baptized and was the first impeached president- read what you will into that, and the other… He’d tell you: Honest Abe. He loved some civil religion but, like Jefferson before him, adhered to something more like the force than historic Christianity. But that’s for another time.

On this day in 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the only president baptized in office, made “In God We Trust” the official motto of the United States.

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Psalm 111:

Praise the Lord.

I will extol the Lord with all my heart
    in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

Great are the works of the Lord;

    they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Glorious and majestic are his deeds,

    and his righteousness endures forever.

He has caused his wonders to be remembered;

    the Lord is gracious and compassionate.

He provides food for those who fear him;

    he remembers his covenant forever.

He has shown his people the power of his works,

    giving them the lands of other nations.

The works of his hands are faithful and just;

    all his precepts are trustworthy.

They are established for ever and ever,

    enacted in faithfulness and uprightness.

He provided redemption for his people;

    he ordained his covenant forever—

    holy and awesome is his name.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;

    all who follow his precepts have good understanding.

    To him belongs eternal praise.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 30th of July 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man like the official motto of Montserrat: A [person] of excellence, molded by nature, nurtured by God; he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who loves the bluntness of the Scottish national motto: “No one provokes me with impunity.” I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.