Don’t rewrite history
To make the case that we are a “Christian foundation-loving nation,” a recent letter writer stated: “Just look at our money, it says ‘In God We Trust’.” But those words were first added to our coins in 1864 and to our bills in 1957.
The simple truth is: The word “God” cannot be found in either the U.S. Constitution or on our nation’s first coins and bills.
Clearly our founders were in various ways religious Christians (or one could say Judeo-Christians). Also clearly, they created our constitution as a secular document.
Reasonable arguments have been developed that the foundation of our nation is based on Judeo-Christian teachings. But “Just look at our money” isn’t one of them.
Henry D. Friedman, Sanger
This story was originally published August 3, 2015 at 8:13 AM with the headline "Don’t rewrite history."