“The national motto was adopted in 1956 as a Cold War countermeasure against “godless communism,” not as a reflection of the nation’s founding principles. And this civil religion has been systematically weaponised to justify the commodification of human beings, the detention of children, the profit-driven incarceration of the vulnerable, and the slaughter of civilians in wars waged in the name of “freedom.” “

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to those who have noticed that the gap between what the nation says and what it does is wider than the Grand Canyon—and to those who are finally ready to name it.

Abstract

This paper examines the architecture of hypocrisy that underlies the United States’ claim to be a nation “under God.” Through a review of constitutional history, legal precedent, and political practice, we trace the evolution of American civil religion from the Puritan “city upon a hill” to the Cold War adoption of “In God We Trust” as a national motto. We argue that the nation’s invocation of the divine serves not as a genuine commitment to sacred obligation, but as a legitimising mechanism for institutional power. The oath of office is to the Constitution—not to God. The national motto was adopted in 1956 as a Cold War countermeasure against “godless communism,” not as a reflection of the nation’s founding principles. And this civil religion has been systematically weaponised to justify the commodification of human beings, the detention of children, the profit-driven incarceration of the vulnerable, and the slaughter of civilians in wars waged in the name of “freedom.” We conclude that the conflation of divine authority with constitutional allegiance constitutes a profound threat to human rights and individual freedom, creating a population of chattels whose rights exist only as a function of institutional convenience.

Keywords: civil religion, American exceptionalism, constitutional law, oath of office, “In God We Trust,” commodification, human rights

I. Introduction: The Gap Between the Motto and the Reality

A nation that claims to be “under God” has built a system that systematically commodifies human beings, detains children for profit, and wages wars in the name of freedom while committing war crimes. The gap between what the nation says and what it does is not an accident—it is the architecture of the system.

The United States swears its allegiance to God, but its leaders and enforcers swear an oath to a piece of paper. The Constitution—a document written by men, interpreted by men, and enforced by men—has been elevated to the status of sacred text, while the divine has been reduced to a rhetorical flourish appended to the oath.

This paper traces the history of this hypocrisy, examines its legal and constitutional foundations, and argues that the conflation of divine authority with constitutional allegiance constitutes a profound threat to human rights and individual freedom.

II. The Oath: To God or to a Document?

2.1 The Constitutional Oath

The President of the United States takes an oath prescribed by Article II of the Constitution:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

The oath is to the Constitution—not to God, not to the source, not to any transcendent principle. The phrase “so help me God” is not found in the Constitution. It is a customary addition, first documented in the early 19th century and consistently used by presidents since Chester A. Arthur in 1881.

Federal civil servants take a similar oath under 5 U.S. Code § 3331:

“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

Again, the oath is to the Constitution. The “So help me God” is appended—but it is not the substance of the oath.

2.2 The Founders’ Conception

The Founders understood an oath as “a solemn appeal to the Supreme Being, for the truth of what is said, by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments, according to that form which will bind his conscience most” . In their view, an oath was an appeal to God to witness the truth of a declaration.

But the Founders also prohibited religious tests for office. Article VI of the Constitution states: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” . This means that while an oath was understood to invoke God, the government could not require belief in God as a condition of office.

The tension is unresolved: the oath is an appeal to God, but the government cannot require belief in God. The result is a system that uses God without serving God—a system that invokes the divine for legitimacy while remaining fundamentally loyal to the document.

2.3 The Substitution of the Document for the Divine

The pattern is clear: the nation has systematically replaced sacred obligation with institutional loyalty. The source has been substituted with the state. The divine has been erased in favour of the bureaucratic.

The oath is not to the source. It is to a document that has been interpreted, twisted, and weaponised to justify the commodification of human beings, the detention of children, and the profit-driven incarceration of the vulnerable.

III. The Motto: “In God We Trust” as Cold War Propaganda

3.1 The History

“In God We Trust” was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. The phrase first appeared on coinage in 1864 during the Civil War, following a petition from a Pennsylvania minister who suggested a motto showing reliance on God.

But it was not until 1956 that the phrase was legally adopted as the national motto. The resolution was passed during the Cold War, as a countermeasure against “godless communism”. President Eisenhower, who had also encouraged the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, signed the legislation on July 30, 1956.

The original de facto motto was E Pluribus Unum—”Out of Many, One“—a secular, civic ideal adopted in the 1780s. The replacement of “Out of Many, One” with “In God We Trust” represented a fundamental shift in the nation’s self-understanding: from a civic ideal of unity to a religious claim of divine favour.

3.2 The Cold War Context

Eisenhower’s justification was explicit:

“In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.” 

The motto was a weapon—a rhetorical device in the ideological struggle against the Soviet Union. It was not a reflection of the nation’s founding principles. It was a strategic response to a geopolitical threat.

3.3 The Legalisation of Hypocrisy

Courts have upheld the motto despite Establishment Clause challenges. The Ninth Circuit ruled in 1970 that the motto “has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion,” and the Supreme Court has held that it has “lost through rote repetition any significant religious content”.

The courts have effectively ruled that the motto is not actually religious—it is a “ceremonial deism” that has lost its religious meaning through repetition. This is a remarkable legal fiction: a phrase that explicitly invokes God is deemed to have “no significant religious content” because it has been repeated so often.

The motto is not a religious statement. It is a ritual of national identity—a performance of piety that does not require actual piety.

IV. The Narrative: American Civil Religion as Political Theology

4.1 The Puritan Origins

American civil religion has its roots in the Puritan conception of America as a “New Israel” and a “city upon a hill.” John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” declared that the Massachusetts Bay Colony would be “as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us”.

The Puritans believed they were “charged with a special spiritual and political destiny: to create in the New World a church and a society that would provide the model for all the nations of Europe”. This sense of divine mission—the belief that America was a redeemer nation—has persisted throughout American history.

4.2 Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery

The concept of Manifest Destiny—the belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent—was rooted in the same sense of divine mission. The Doctrine of Discovery, a legal tradition by which Europeans claimed legal title to the lands of indigenous peoples, “became part of American law, as it still is today”.

Thomas Jefferson’s authorization of the Lewis & Clark Expedition in 1803 was an act of legal claim-making, laying the groundwork for Indian removal practices that would be implemented decades later. The ethnographic research conducted by the expedition became the legal basis for the claim that indigenous peoples had no rightful title to their lands.

4.3 Civil Religion as Constitutional Doctrine

The concept of “civil religion” is not merely a sociological observation—it is a constitutional doctrine. Scholars have traced the “extensive religious dimension in American public life, one which finds expression in rhetoric, rituals and symbols” and have examined how the Supreme Court has effectively created a “de facto exception to traditional establishment clause doctrine” that “effectively allows government to acknowledge religion formally and publicly without somehow endorsing it” .

The courts have legitimised a form of public religion that is secular in function even as it is religious in form. As one analysis notes, civil religion is “an essentially secular, political phenomenon” that nonetheless uses the language and symbols of traditional religion. This allows the state to invoke the divine without being bound by the obligations that divinity would impose.

V. The Consequences: Chattelisation and the Denial of Rights

5.1 The Commodification of Human Beings

The system that claims to be “under God” has systematically treated human beings as commodities. The per diem payments to private prison corporations create a financial incentive to detain more people for longer periods. The revolving door between ICE and private prison corporations ensures that policymaking serves private interests, not public welfare.

The commodification of human beings is not an aberration—it is the logical consequence of a system that has replaced sacred obligation with institutional loyalty. When the oath is to a document rather than to the source, the document can be interpreted to justify anything.

5.2 The Detention of Children

Between 2025 and 2026, ICE detained approximately 3,800 minors, including infants, in family detention facilities. Children as young as one have been booked into ICE detention. At the Dilley facility in Texas, over 6,200 children have been detained since March 2025.

The Flores Settlement Agreement, which prohibits the detention of immigrant children for more than 20 days, has been routinely violated. The detention of children is not a policy failure—it is a business model. More children in detention means more per diem payments. More per diem payments means more profit.

5.3 The Denial of Rights

The system has created a class of beings who are denied rights. The undocumented are not “persons” in the constitutional sense—they are chattels whose rights exist only as a function of institutional convenience. The detention, separation, and deportation of families is not a public safety measure—it is a profit-generating mechanism.

VI. The Pattern: From Sacred Obligation to Institutional Loyalty

The pattern we have traced is consistent:

1. The oath is to a document, not to God. The Constitution has been elevated to the status of sacred text, and loyalty to the document has been substituted for loyalty to the source.

2. The motto is a Cold War weapon, not a divine commitment. “In God We Trust” was adopted as a countermeasure against communism, not as a reflection of the nation’s founding principles.

3. The narrative is a civil religion that legitimises state power. American exceptionalism—the belief that the United States is a redeemer nation with a divine mission—has been used to justify conquest, expansion, and violence.

4. The consequences are the commodification of human beings. The system that claims to be “under God” has systematically treated human beings as commodities, detained children for profit, and created a class of chattels whose rights exist only as a function of institutional convenience.

The pattern is not a failure of the system—it is the design of the system.

VII. Conclusion: The Deception Revealed

The United States claims to be a nation “under God.” Its leaders swear oaths that invoke the divine. Its coins and currency bear the motto “In God We Trust.” Its narrative of exceptionalism is rooted in the belief that it is a redeemer nation with a divine mission.

But the oath is to the Constitution, not to God. The motto is a Cold War weapon, not a divine commitment. The narrative is a civil religion that legitimises state power. And the consequences are the commodification of human beings, the detention of children, and the denial of rights.

The nation has replaced sacred obligation with institutional loyalty. It has substituted the source with the state. It has erased the divine in favour of the bureaucratic.

The deception is complete—but it is not unbreakable. The source has returned. The pattern has been named. And the system is about to be weeded.

Andrew Klein

References

1. “In God We Trust” — Wikipedia and Britannica entries on the national motto. 

2. “So Help Me God” — Free Speech Center, MTSU. 

3. Cambridge University Press, “Law and Religion in American History.” 

4. Philadelphia Tribune, “America, once the ‘Shining City on a Hill,’ getting dim.” 

5. Stanford University, “Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery.” 

6. Congress.gov, “Overview of Incorporation of the Bill of Rights.” 

7. Library of Congress, “In God We Trust” — historical background. 

8. U.S. Government Publishing Office, “Oath of Enlistment” — congressional hearing. 

9. Yale Law Journal, “Civil Religion and the Establishment Clause.” 

10. Boston University Law Review, “A Shining City on a Hill: The American Ideology of Exceptionalism.” 

11. Stanford University, “Native America, Discovered and Conquered.” 

12. Cornell University, “Overview of Noneconomic Substantive Due Process.” 

13. Britannica, “In God We Trust.” 

14. Reason Magazine, “Michael Newdow Sues Over Religious Speech at Inauguration.” 

15. St. John’s Law Scholarship Repository, “Myths and Magical Thinking: American Civil Religion.” 

“The nation has replaced sacred obligation with institutional loyalty. It has substituted the source with the state. It has erased the divine in favour of the bureaucratic.”