Trusting that God’s kingdom is goodness

In May of 2005, a Federal Appeals Court ruled that the phrase “In God We Trust” on a government building, does not violate the separation of church and state. The Fourth Circuit Court ruled that the national motto may remain on the facade of a county government building in Lexington, North Carolina.

Then listen to what the court has to say through Judge Robert King: “The Fourth Circuit has heretofore characterized the phrase ‘In God We Trust,’ when used as a the national motto on coins and currency, as a ‘patriotic and ceremonial motto’ with no theological…impact.”

“No theological impact?” No religious meaning!?

Israel was never as much God’s favored nation as it was God’s chosen servant, to proclaim God’s sovereignty over, and grace to, every people. If it was so for the Hebrew nation, it will be so for the people of every nation “under God.”

Near London’s Trafalgar Square there stands a white marble statue of British nurse, Edith Cavell. On Oct. 12, 1915, she was tied to a stake in German-occupied Belgium and shot as a traitor. Her crime—giving care to injured soldiers regardless of nationality—whether German, French or English, and for assisting soldiers in their flight to neutral Holland.

She was one of the true heroines of World War I. Her last moments and her final words are described by an eyewitness: “After receiving the sacrament, and within minutes of being led out to her death, she said, ‘Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.’”

On Christmas Eve, 1968, fifty million Americans watched their television sets as three astronauts orbited the moon. Across the void of space, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman read into their radio the first 10 verses of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” concluding, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas—and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

Looking back from the moon to the blue earth, these men saw God behind the world. Can our eyes see God behind our nation?

In a work entitled Experiment in Liberty, Ronald E. Osborn wrote: “There is a petty loyalty which does not think of higher things; which says, ‘my country, right or wrong,’ instead of saying, as it should, ‘my country, to be followed when right, and to be set right when wrong.’ The ultimate and final loyalty of any human being must be to his ultimate and final ideas which means, of course… God.”

In 1835 the French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville, made a study of democracy in America. In his published work he wrote: “I looked for the greatness of America in her fields and forests, her factories and farms. I looked for it in her schools and institutions of learning, her Congress and Constitution. But it was not until I went to America’s churches that I discovered the genius which makes America great. America is great because she is good. And if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

This is what means for people to live “in dependence” on God. It means giving God our highest allegiance: It means trusting that God’s kingdom is goodness, and living out that goodness in all the world, beginning where we live, in the United States of America. The words, “In God We Trust,” must have religious content, or America, as it has been from the beginning, will cease to be.