It’s About Making Babies!

I wrote Senator Coburn, MD, of Oklahoma today.

Senator Coburn,

I confess I am a bit confused. NBC is taking a poll, and there has been much brouhaha about “In God We Trust” on US currency, coins, and other expressions of Christian faith in and around US Government and local government property.

I thought the US Constitution forbids intermingling church and stae. I hadn’t realized that church, faith, and religion are all the same thing.

I had thought that faith was a person’s understanding and beliefs about matters of the spirit. I had thought that religion was the general practice of worship and expression reverence for a chosen spiritual guide, God. And I had thought that a church was a secular organization of people expressing a communal faith.

How, then can the US Constitution have anything to say about faith, or religion? It is only the organizations we call “church” that is barred from participation in our government.

If a state or official wants the ten commandments posted in a courthouse, that is mere ornamentation for the public, even if an expression of faith for the individual. If that same posting of the Ten Commandments were commissions – or imposed – by the Roman Catholic Church in America, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (The Mormons), the Southern Conference of the Baptist Church – that would be an illegal conflict, since churches are barred from interfering with Government.

NBC is running a poll, asking if “In God We Trust” should be removed from currency. Since there is no church affiliated with our currency, I can see no conflict. Consider the phrase traditional or religious, as you will. Without the context of church, the phrase is a choice – one bound in history and tradition, and to many, a guide for the future.

Unless POTUS Barack Hussein Obama believes that America demands the statement on their currency as a back-handed slap, an expression of *dis*trust in government. Then I would think the challenge would be to restore trust, not ban the criticism.

The phrase on currency, “In God We Trust” actually implements the Constitutional ban on state religion. By stating that the trust is *not* in organizations of men, the message is clear: Personal faith is honored and encouraged. Government, currency, will not be bound to any church, i.e. organized religion.