(Picture supply: Architect of the Capitol)
The next excerpt comes from the e book Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Construct Christian Nationalism. Though many individuals affiliate Christian nationalism with evangelicals, the e book explores the position mainline Protestants have performed in selling the thought of America as a Christian nation.
The next excerpt comes from the e book’s sixth chapter, “In God We Belief?”
***
An Uncivil Transfer
The preamble to the Structure of the Accomplice States of America framed the brand new breakaway nation as a Christian nation. It famous the folks of the Confederacy had been “invoking the favor and steering of Almighty God” to “ordain and set up this Structure for the Accomplice States of America.” It marked a substantive shift away from what some folks referred to as the “godless” Structure of the U.S., which referred to faith in its unique model solely by prohibiting non secular exams for public workplace. In order the Civil Battle began, some Christians within the North nervous that God may favor the Confederates. This line of considering urged that they wanted to do one thing to invoke—and maybe even demand—God’s blessing on the aspect of the Union.
Within the early months of the warfare, Rev. Mark Watkinson despatched a letter dated November 13, 1861, to the U.S. secretary of the treasury with one such resolution: put God on Mammon. And who was Watkinson? The pastor of First Explicit Baptist Church (now often known as Prospect Hill Baptist Church) in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania. The congregation is affiliated with the American Baptist Church buildings USA (who again then had been often known as Northern Baptists).
“One reality touching our forex has hitherto been severely neglected. I imply the popularity of the Almighty God in some kind on our cash,” Watkinson wrote to the Treasury secretary. “You’re in all probability a Christian. What if our Republic weren’t shattered past reconstruction? Wouldn’t the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly purpose from our previous that we had been a heathen nation?”
Thus, Watkinson urged a redesign that would come with “God, Liberty, Regulation” stamped on the cash. The minister even urged it may assist with the warfare effort.
“This could make a gorgeous coin, to which no doable citizen may object,” he added in his letter. “This could relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This could place us brazenly below the Divine safety we’ve got personally claimed. From my coronary heart I’ve felt our nationwide disgrace in disowning God as not the least of our current nationwide disasters.”
Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase agreed with the overall argument. A lifelong Episcopalian, Chase was raised in his teen years by his uncle, who was an Episcopal bishop. Chase wrote a November 20, 1861, memo to James Pollock, the director of the U.S. Mint, to discover a appropriate method to invoke God on the cash of the Union.
“No nation may be sturdy besides within the power of God, or protected besides in his protection. The belief of our folks in God ought to be declared on our nationwide cash,” Chase wrote. “You’ll trigger a tool to be ready with out pointless delay with a motto expressing within the fewest and tersest phrases doable this nationwide recognition.”
Pollock was of an analogous thoughts as Watkinson the Baptist pastor and Chase the lay Episcopalian. The previous governor of Pennsylvania, Pollock was a lifelong Presbyterian who served as an elder in his native church and whereas main the Mint was vp of the American Sunday Faculty Union that promoted the creation of Sunday Faculty applications in church buildings. Drawing from the final stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Pollock urged the motto “In God Is Our Belief.” That tune, after all, had additionally been penned throughout wartime as Francis Scott Key, an Episcopalian, composed it whereas witnessing the shelling of Fort McHenry in the course of the Battle of 1812.
“We declare to be a Christian nation,” Pollock wrote in an 1863 report suggesting a conversion of the coin design so as to add his God motto. “Why ought to we not vindicate our character, by honoring the God of countries, within the train of our political sovereignty as a nation? Our nationwide coinage ought to do that. Its legends and gadgets ought to declare our belief in God; in him who’s the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’”
Like Watkinson and Chase, Pollock additionally tied the necessity to put God on the cash to the hope of profitable the Civil Battle.
“The time for the introduction of this or an analogous motto is propitious and acceptable,” he argued. “’Tis an hour of nationwide peril and hazard, an hour when man’s power is weak point, when our power and our nation’s power and salvation have to be within the God of battles and of countries. Allow us to reverently acknowledge his sovereignty, and let our coinage declare our belief in God.”
Chase appreciated the thought, however he crossed out the “is our” in Pollock’s motto and wrote “we.” The following yr, 1864, Congress authorized the brand new design, and “In God We Belief” confirmed up on two-cent cash because the warfare with Accomplice forces continued. The slogan didn’t initially seem on all cash, simply on cash. And never everybody authorized. A New York Occasions editorial in 1865 criticized “the enactment of this new type of nationwide worship” as “improper.”17 The piece added, “Allow us to attempt to carry our faith—comparable to it’s—in our hearts, and never in our pockets.” Others joked about trusting in God however demanding money.
(Picture supply: Numismatic Information)
President Theodore Roosevelt eliminated the phrase from cash in 1907 as a part of an try and beautify the cash, however public outrage led to the slogan returning the subsequent yr. An Episcopal layman in Pennsylvania spearheaded the marketing campaign to return God to the cash, and pastors throughout the nation preached in opposition to Roosevelt’s redesign. Outstanding critics of Roosevelt’s transfer included banker and Episcopalian J.P. Morgan, Democratic U.S. Rep. Morris Sheppard (a Methodist who later grew to become often known as “the daddy of Prohibition” for authoring the Eighteenth Modification), and the sacristy of the Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia (the place Patrick Henry gave his well-known “give me liberty or give me demise” speech). Moreover, denominational teams handed resolutions calling on the return of God on U.S. cash, together with the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the Presbyterian Brotherhood of America.
After first displaying up in the course of the Civil Battle (and surviving Roosevelt), the phrase “In God We Belief” ultimately soared to nationwide significance nicely past cash jingling in pockets. And one other warfare supplied the inspiration. The years simply after World Battle II ushered in a golden age for Christian Nationalism in the US. After the creation of the Nationwide Day of Prayer in 1952, the launch of the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast in 1953, and the addition of “below God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, the revival unfold to characteristic “In God We Belief.” In 1955, Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower mandated its presence on all U.S. forex (not simply cash). The following yr, the leaders in Washington, D.C., adopted the phrase because the nationwide motto.
An Enduring Legacy
When James Pollock, the top of the U.S. Mint in the course of the Civil Battle, was a congressman within the 1840s, he supported the efforts of Samuel Morse in creating the telegraph. As Morse despatched the primary message, Pollock was within the room the place it occurred. From the U.S. Capitol, Morse despatched a message to Baltimore: “What hath God wrought?” The phrase got here from Numbers 23:23 in one of many messages of Balaam, the diviner with the speaking donkey. Had Pollock been within the Capitol 177 years later, he may need seen a number of folks carrying indicators declaring “In God We Belief” as they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And on the notorious gallows constructed simply outdoors the Capitol as folks chanted “Hold Mike Pence,” folks wrote “Hold them for treason,” “God Bless the USA,” and “In God We Belief.”
But, even after that, some mainline Protestants proceed to have fun their position in serving to set up this motto. Like Prospect Hill Baptist Church in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania, the church the place Rev. Mark Watkinson served in 1861 as he began the push to place God on our cash. With occasions being held open air in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an indication of nostalgia for Christian Nationalism whilst progressive agendas had been being superior. As an example, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2022, folks stood outdoors the church and browse King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as a part of a neighborhood emphasis on combating racism. Above the audio system, an previous signal hung on the outside wall of the constructing: “Historic website. Origin of In God We Belief.” In smaller textual content beneath a picture of two cash, the signal notes that “from this church in 1861 the suggestion was made that recognition to the Almighty God be positioned on the cash of our nation.”
On a smaller scale, the web site of First Presbyterian Church in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, brags on its historical past web page that Pollock worshiped on the church early in his profession earlier than he later “originated” the trouble to place “the motto, ‘In God We Belief,’ on the US cash that went into the gathering plates.” Except for the truth that Chase, not Watkinson or Pollock, really got here up with the phrase “In God We Belief,” the signal and web site present how the efforts to create a major Christian Nationalistic image are celebrated even immediately at mainline Protestant congregations. Removed from a reckoning, the phrase remains to be lifted up.
However whereas these church buildings had been ministering throughout COVID-19 and celebrating Epiphany, others additionally heralded “In God We Belief” as they participated within the Capitol rebellion. As soon as mustered up in the course of the Civil Battle and Chilly Battle, “In God We Belief” has labored for many years to bolster a Christian Nationalistic worldview amongst some Individuals with its presence on quite a few official paperwork and governmental buildings. Preaching from courtrooms, faculties, forex, and presidential remarks, the motto adopted in wars immediately continues to disciple Individuals to view their nation and religion particularly methods.
The phrase has survived a number of authorized challenges to keep up its official standing, however this has not at all times been a victory for Christianity. As an example, a 1970 federal appellate resolution on a case questioning the phrase on forex discovered it didn’t violate church-state separation as a result of the phrase was simply “of patriotic or ceremonial character” with out “any non secular significance” and “no theological or ritualistic impression.” And a 2005 appellate ruling rejected a problem to authorities buildings posting the motto as a result of the phrase had “a reliable secular function.” Removed from maintaining God in society, by adopting “In God We Belief” our authorities managed to kick faith out of “God.”
That’s a key downside that finally emerges. Within the quest to put “In God We Belief” in varied public areas, these pushing for it’s going to argue it’s a generic, unifying patriotic assertion. The makes an attempt to declare that the phrase “In God We Belief” is a religiously impartial assertion is offensive. However it’s exactly by defining it as secular that courts have backed use of the phrase on cash and public buildings. It’s blasphemous to make use of that phrase as some broad, inclusive,
unifying, generic American assertion. Who is that this “god” that the state is telling us to belief? To imagine in God is by definition not religiously impartial. To conflate being American with being Christian is to try to water down—and even assault—the fundamental teachings of Christianity. However that’s what Christian Nationalism does.
The phrase chosen in the course of the Civil Battle to invoke God’s blessings on the Union in the course of the bloody battle in opposition to the Confederacy discovered itself within the crowd together with waving Accomplice flags throughout an try and overturn an election. The insurrectionists, like non secular and political leaders in the course of the Chilly Battle, held up as their motto a phrase that claimed God was on their aspect as a substitute of a motto concerning the many individuals of the nation coming collectively as one. What hath God’s folks wrought?
Brian Kaylor is a Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in political communication. Beau Underwood is a minister within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and is pursuing a doctorate in public affairs. This piece is an excerpt from their new e book, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Construct Christian Nationalism.
(Picture supply: Architect of the Capitol)
The next excerpt comes from the e book Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Construct Christian Nationalism. Though many individuals affiliate Christian nationalism with evangelicals, the e book explores the position mainline Protestants have performed in selling the thought of America as a Christian nation.
The next excerpt comes from the e book’s sixth chapter, “In God We Belief?”
***
An Uncivil Transfer
The preamble to the Structure of the Accomplice States of America framed the brand new breakaway nation as a Christian nation. It famous the folks of the Confederacy had been “invoking the favor and steering of Almighty God” to “ordain and set up this Structure for the Accomplice States of America.” It marked a substantive shift away from what some folks referred to as the “godless” Structure of the U.S., which referred to faith in its unique model solely by prohibiting non secular exams for public workplace. In order the Civil Battle began, some Christians within the North nervous that God may favor the Confederates. This line of considering urged that they wanted to do one thing to invoke—and maybe even demand—God’s blessing on the aspect of the Union.
Within the early months of the warfare, Rev. Mark Watkinson despatched a letter dated November 13, 1861, to the U.S. secretary of the treasury with one such resolution: put God on Mammon. And who was Watkinson? The pastor of First Explicit Baptist Church (now often known as Prospect Hill Baptist Church) in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania. The congregation is affiliated with the American Baptist Church buildings USA (who again then had been often known as Northern Baptists).
“One reality touching our forex has hitherto been severely neglected. I imply the popularity of the Almighty God in some kind on our cash,” Watkinson wrote to the Treasury secretary. “You’re in all probability a Christian. What if our Republic weren’t shattered past reconstruction? Wouldn’t the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly purpose from our previous that we had been a heathen nation?”
Thus, Watkinson urged a redesign that would come with “God, Liberty, Regulation” stamped on the cash. The minister even urged it may assist with the warfare effort.
“This could make a gorgeous coin, to which no doable citizen may object,” he added in his letter. “This could relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This could place us brazenly below the Divine safety we’ve got personally claimed. From my coronary heart I’ve felt our nationwide disgrace in disowning God as not the least of our current nationwide disasters.”
Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase agreed with the overall argument. A lifelong Episcopalian, Chase was raised in his teen years by his uncle, who was an Episcopal bishop. Chase wrote a November 20, 1861, memo to James Pollock, the director of the U.S. Mint, to discover a appropriate method to invoke God on the cash of the Union.
“No nation may be sturdy besides within the power of God, or protected besides in his protection. The belief of our folks in God ought to be declared on our nationwide cash,” Chase wrote. “You’ll trigger a tool to be ready with out pointless delay with a motto expressing within the fewest and tersest phrases doable this nationwide recognition.”
Pollock was of an analogous thoughts as Watkinson the Baptist pastor and Chase the lay Episcopalian. The previous governor of Pennsylvania, Pollock was a lifelong Presbyterian who served as an elder in his native church and whereas main the Mint was vp of the American Sunday Faculty Union that promoted the creation of Sunday Faculty applications in church buildings. Drawing from the final stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Pollock urged the motto “In God Is Our Belief.” That tune, after all, had additionally been penned throughout wartime as Francis Scott Key, an Episcopalian, composed it whereas witnessing the shelling of Fort McHenry in the course of the Battle of 1812.
“We declare to be a Christian nation,” Pollock wrote in an 1863 report suggesting a conversion of the coin design so as to add his God motto. “Why ought to we not vindicate our character, by honoring the God of countries, within the train of our political sovereignty as a nation? Our nationwide coinage ought to do that. Its legends and gadgets ought to declare our belief in God; in him who’s the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’”
Like Watkinson and Chase, Pollock additionally tied the necessity to put God on the cash to the hope of profitable the Civil Battle.
“The time for the introduction of this or an analogous motto is propitious and acceptable,” he argued. “’Tis an hour of nationwide peril and hazard, an hour when man’s power is weak point, when our power and our nation’s power and salvation have to be within the God of battles and of countries. Allow us to reverently acknowledge his sovereignty, and let our coinage declare our belief in God.”
Chase appreciated the thought, however he crossed out the “is our” in Pollock’s motto and wrote “we.” The following yr, 1864, Congress authorized the brand new design, and “In God We Belief” confirmed up on two-cent cash because the warfare with Accomplice forces continued. The slogan didn’t initially seem on all cash, simply on cash. And never everybody authorized. A New York Occasions editorial in 1865 criticized “the enactment of this new type of nationwide worship” as “improper.”17 The piece added, “Allow us to attempt to carry our faith—comparable to it’s—in our hearts, and never in our pockets.” Others joked about trusting in God however demanding money.
(Picture supply: Numismatic Information)
President Theodore Roosevelt eliminated the phrase from cash in 1907 as a part of an try and beautify the cash, however public outrage led to the slogan returning the subsequent yr. An Episcopal layman in Pennsylvania spearheaded the marketing campaign to return God to the cash, and pastors throughout the nation preached in opposition to Roosevelt’s redesign. Outstanding critics of Roosevelt’s transfer included banker and Episcopalian J.P. Morgan, Democratic U.S. Rep. Morris Sheppard (a Methodist who later grew to become often known as “the daddy of Prohibition” for authoring the Eighteenth Modification), and the sacristy of the Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia (the place Patrick Henry gave his well-known “give me liberty or give me demise” speech). Moreover, denominational teams handed resolutions calling on the return of God on U.S. cash, together with the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the Presbyterian Brotherhood of America.
After first displaying up in the course of the Civil Battle (and surviving Roosevelt), the phrase “In God We Belief” ultimately soared to nationwide significance nicely past cash jingling in pockets. And one other warfare supplied the inspiration. The years simply after World Battle II ushered in a golden age for Christian Nationalism in the US. After the creation of the Nationwide Day of Prayer in 1952, the launch of the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast in 1953, and the addition of “below God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, the revival unfold to characteristic “In God We Belief.” In 1955, Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower mandated its presence on all U.S. forex (not simply cash). The following yr, the leaders in Washington, D.C., adopted the phrase because the nationwide motto.
An Enduring Legacy
When James Pollock, the top of the U.S. Mint in the course of the Civil Battle, was a congressman within the 1840s, he supported the efforts of Samuel Morse in creating the telegraph. As Morse despatched the primary message, Pollock was within the room the place it occurred. From the U.S. Capitol, Morse despatched a message to Baltimore: “What hath God wrought?” The phrase got here from Numbers 23:23 in one of many messages of Balaam, the diviner with the speaking donkey. Had Pollock been within the Capitol 177 years later, he may need seen a number of folks carrying indicators declaring “In God We Belief” as they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And on the notorious gallows constructed simply outdoors the Capitol as folks chanted “Hold Mike Pence,” folks wrote “Hold them for treason,” “God Bless the USA,” and “In God We Belief.”
But, even after that, some mainline Protestants proceed to have fun their position in serving to set up this motto. Like Prospect Hill Baptist Church in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania, the church the place Rev. Mark Watkinson served in 1861 as he began the push to place God on our cash. With occasions being held open air in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an indication of nostalgia for Christian Nationalism whilst progressive agendas had been being superior. As an example, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2022, folks stood outdoors the church and browse King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as a part of a neighborhood emphasis on combating racism. Above the audio system, an previous signal hung on the outside wall of the constructing: “Historic website. Origin of In God We Belief.” In smaller textual content beneath a picture of two cash, the signal notes that “from this church in 1861 the suggestion was made that recognition to the Almighty God be positioned on the cash of our nation.”
On a smaller scale, the web site of First Presbyterian Church in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, brags on its historical past web page that Pollock worshiped on the church early in his profession earlier than he later “originated” the trouble to place “the motto, ‘In God We Belief,’ on the US cash that went into the gathering plates.” Except for the truth that Chase, not Watkinson or Pollock, really got here up with the phrase “In God We Belief,” the signal and web site present how the efforts to create a major Christian Nationalistic image are celebrated even immediately at mainline Protestant congregations. Removed from a reckoning, the phrase remains to be lifted up.
However whereas these church buildings had been ministering throughout COVID-19 and celebrating Epiphany, others additionally heralded “In God We Belief” as they participated within the Capitol rebellion. As soon as mustered up in the course of the Civil Battle and Chilly Battle, “In God We Belief” has labored for many years to bolster a Christian Nationalistic worldview amongst some Individuals with its presence on quite a few official paperwork and governmental buildings. Preaching from courtrooms, faculties, forex, and presidential remarks, the motto adopted in wars immediately continues to disciple Individuals to view their nation and religion particularly methods.
The phrase has survived a number of authorized challenges to keep up its official standing, however this has not at all times been a victory for Christianity. As an example, a 1970 federal appellate resolution on a case questioning the phrase on forex discovered it didn’t violate church-state separation as a result of the phrase was simply “of patriotic or ceremonial character” with out “any non secular significance” and “no theological or ritualistic impression.” And a 2005 appellate ruling rejected a problem to authorities buildings posting the motto as a result of the phrase had “a reliable secular function.” Removed from maintaining God in society, by adopting “In God We Belief” our authorities managed to kick faith out of “God.”
That’s a key downside that finally emerges. Within the quest to put “In God We Belief” in varied public areas, these pushing for it’s going to argue it’s a generic, unifying patriotic assertion. The makes an attempt to declare that the phrase “In God We Belief” is a religiously impartial assertion is offensive. However it’s exactly by defining it as secular that courts have backed use of the phrase on cash and public buildings. It’s blasphemous to make use of that phrase as some broad, inclusive,
unifying, generic American assertion. Who is that this “god” that the state is telling us to belief? To imagine in God is by definition not religiously impartial. To conflate being American with being Christian is to try to water down—and even assault—the fundamental teachings of Christianity. However that’s what Christian Nationalism does.
The phrase chosen in the course of the Civil Battle to invoke God’s blessings on the Union in the course of the bloody battle in opposition to the Confederacy discovered itself within the crowd together with waving Accomplice flags throughout an try and overturn an election. The insurrectionists, like non secular and political leaders in the course of the Chilly Battle, held up as their motto a phrase that claimed God was on their aspect as a substitute of a motto concerning the many individuals of the nation coming collectively as one. What hath God’s folks wrought?
Brian Kaylor is a Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in political communication. Beau Underwood is a minister within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and is pursuing a doctorate in public affairs. This piece is an excerpt from their new e book, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Construct Christian Nationalism.
