In (???) We Trust

by John Krysko 7/11/26

“In God We Trust”, the official motto of the United States, replaced the older “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of Many Comes One”) phrase in 1955. By a stroke of the pen by President Dwight Eisenhower, all money, both paper and coinage, was required to carry those words. Just a year before, Eisenhower had successfully encouraged Congress to change the words of the Pledge of Allegiance to include a reference to Divinity:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

A part of the motivation at the time was to distinguish the U.S. from what was deemed a godless Soviet Union. It was meant to unite the country…but did it? And if so, what has been the outcome?

The relationship between a Divinity and a Country is an ages-old issue. Since at least the age of the Egyptian Pharaohs, leaders have attempted to link their authority with the Divine. The Divine Right of Kings was a belief that a monarch’s power came directly from God, not from the people’s laws or Parliament. Disobeying a monarch became a religious sin. This idea was put into English law under Henry VIII and strongly supported by his successors until the beheading of Charles I in 1649. The French equally supported this approach, especially under Louis XIV, the “Sun King”. This idea did not end well for the Louis line however, as his grandson Louis XVI also lost his head. Some ideas die hard.

This association of temporal authority and spiritual authority is not unique to western civilization. Simply pick up a copy of the Bible or read ancient Hindu texts and the idea proliferates. But what does “God” want? Well, I personally doubt that Divinity has a vested interest in having a temporal government. Consider the dialogue between the great Hebrew prophet Samuel and God. In 1Samuel 8, the people of Israel demand a king so they can “be like all the other nations”. This upsets Samuel and offends God. Both the Prophet and God recognize that this was a rejection of God as their ruler and replacing that with a human king. The perhaps startling advice by God to Samuel is to give the people what they want yet warning them about the dangers and costs of earthly power. Samuel’s own sons were greedy and took bribes. Samuel chooses Saul, who starts off well, but becomes corrupted, and his successor, the great King David, certainly had his issues…God basically said that if you choose this “path of Kings”, don’t come to me when it goes sour. Tough Love from our Divine Parent. This was about 1,000 years before Christ and, in the short term, it did unite the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah, but the seeds of the destruction of this union were sown in the focus on the requiring of a human king as its head and not Divinity.

It took a different kind of king to set the record straight. Let’s go forward a little more than 1,000 years from Saul. It has been said that Rome (and the Jewish authorities) allowed the Crucifixion of Jesus because of a (false) assertion that Jesus claimed to be “King of the Jews”. (This charge was purportedly written above Him on the Cross). The Jewish leaders knew that Rome was reluctant to get involved in religious matters, but the false accusation that Jesus claimed to be their king (over Rome) worked. But what did Jesus say on this matter of church versus state? When asked, as a trap, by those in the Jewish hierarchy if Jews should pay the imperial tax to Rome, He picks up a coin and asks:

“Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Gospel of Mark, Ch.12).

This is a most profound teaching, and it throws the question in all of our faces. In this world of form and seeming materiality, do what is required. But further, it is reminding us (subtly) to remember God. Jesus constantly told His disciples that they were in the world, but not of it. So it is with us. We have day-to-day tasks and assignments, but we are best served to remember our first and truest allegiance- to the Divine.

From the beginning of our country’s founding, we have struggled with this apparent duality. Clearly the issue of paying taxes to a (foreign) king who claimed some type of Divine authority was repugnant. The challenge then is how does the State deal with issues of Religion. Our First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Note that all it really stated was that there should not be any state religion). In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, Thomas Jefferson took this further and wrote that the First Amendment builds a “wall of separation between Church & State”.

So, how does “Money” come into this discussion? Well, there is that 1955 law requiring “In God we Trust” on all coinage. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is to remember the God in all things. This  translates into an abiding and profound respect for the natural world and for the value of all human life. It also reminds us to rely first, and foremost, on the Divine in all things- including the material world.

It is also the challenge not to worship “Money”, or material success and trappings. It is love of money that is the root of all evil, not “money itself”. This is a simple discernment, but it does become complex. The key to understanding the spiritual dimension of our national motto lies in the word “Trust”. This is the opportunity to examine the fundamental basis of our trust. Is it solely material, i.e. our “net worth” is our “self-worth”?

If our trust is solely material, when our circumstances change- be it our health or wealth, then our trust evaporates. However, if we are rooted in something deeper and more profound, then outer changes will not defeat us, and may even strengthen our Trust “muscle”.

So, as we consider our own basis for “Trust”, remember the words of the advertisement: “What’s in your wallet”?