March 9, 2012
In God We Trust...do we?
I received an email last week that accused the U.S. Mint of now producing, new dollar denomination coins that do not contain the words “In God We Trust”. I was requested to pass this message on to everyone I know and to refuse to accept these new coins as a protest. As I usually do, always should, and wish more would, I went to snopes.com to check the validity of the message. Guess what...it's false. (Please note that for those of you who don't think Snopes can be trusted...I Snoped that too and they said that they can!) The new $1 coins actually do have In God We Trust inscribed on them, but it's on the coin's edge instead of on the flat front or back. This caused me to wonder when the phrase was first used on our currency, what did it mean, and to ponder the really big question...do we? I decided to do a bit of research and my first stop was at Wikipedia...and here's what I learned.
In God We Trust was first placed on some coinage during the Civil War beginning In 1864 when Congress passed a law that placed this phrase on cents coins only. This was apparently done to help prove that the Union had God on its side...and, considering the reasons for the war, it would be hard to deny. Then in 1865 additional legislation placed the phrase on gold and silver coins. Then in 1873 another bill allowed the treasury to add the phrase to all coins.
The use of this phrase has not been uninterrupted since then. It was removed from the nickel in 1883 and did not reappear until 1938. Then Congress in 1908 ordered that all prior coinage with this phrase have it inscribed on all future production. Since then, with the exception of the nickel, In God We Trust has appeared on all U.S. Coinage. Why not the nickel? I didn't pursue that further because at this point I knew more than I wanted to!
Interestingly the phrase never appeared on paper currency until 1956 when the 84th Congress and President Eisenhower officially signed the law changing the U.S. Motto from E Puribus Unum (Out of many, one) to In God We Trust. It was roughly about this time when the Pledge Of Allegiance also had the words , “one nation under God” added. The new motto and the change in the nation's pledge were precipitated by the cold war and the McCarthy era battle against the atheist communists. I wonder what phrase Communist country's currency displayed? Maybe, “We Don't Need No Stinking God”?
Our Congress spent time re-affirming in 2002, 2006, and again in 2011 that “In God We Trust” is indeed our official motto. President Obama was critical of the time Congress spent in affirming this in 2011 because he thought they ought to spend more of their time in helping him solve all of our problems instead. Interestingly, our President in November of 2010 in a speech in Indonesia told the audience that our nation's motto is E Pluribus Unum. Maybe Congress was simply trying to remind him that we had changed the motto 55 years earlier?
The last official challenge of the constitutionality of this phrase was refused by our federal courts in 1978. The court concluded that this notion of our nation's link to God was too deeply woven into our national fabric to be challenged. Many remain convinced that this phrase represents the continuing attempts of Christians to hijack our nation. Why blame only Christians for wanting to continue using this phrase? After all, isn't God a generic term that could be applied to most religions? (of course we would have to exclude Scientology).Where do I stand on all of this? Actually, as usual, a bit confused. Do we need to have this phrase on our currency to re-affirm our belief in God? What about atheists? Many others argue that this violates the premise of separation of church and state. Not hard to understand their argument. Theodore Roosevelt was opposed to having In God We Trust on our coinage because he thought it was an insult to God to have his/her name on money.
Looking back at our nation's history it caused me to wonder if most of us actually believe in God...let alone trust in him. Did we believe in God as we ran the American Indians off of their land? Did we believe in God when we allowed slavery to flourish in the first place, and then allowed discrimination for another hundred years? Did God play a role when we allowed our leaders to leave our borders unprotected for over thirty years...and we now blame the immigrants for coming through the open door to this famed land of opportunity? Do you think that God approves of our elected leaders pillaging our children's future? Is our lack of willingness to change leaders an example of us Trusting In God? Seem more like simple apathy. Does God approve of our using this phrase as our national motto? I'm guessing that God is most likely saying, “I gave your country every advantage possible...don't blame me for the mess you and your leaders have created”.
My opinion? Our actions speak louder than words. What do you think?
Mike Tower
No comments:
Post a Comment