You're exactly right. Religion was used as a foil against Communism in the Cold War. It was the Good Christian USA vs the Evil Atheist USSR.
"In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the USA in 1956. "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.
Regarding putting "In God We Trust" on currency, Representative Charles E Bennett said "In these days when imperialistic and materialistic communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, we should continually look for ways to strengthen the foundations of our freedom" [1].
"In god we trust" was a swipe against the UK monarchy. The US government rejects rule "By the Grace of God". In most western monarchies God anoints kings and queens. But God has no role in picking the president. The root of power in the US is "the people". Those people trust that God could step in if needed, but they don't expect God to play the active role he does in monarchy.
Given that historical context, it is funny to see the phrase now used to support religion.
I've always wondered how the political right in the West ended up with such seemingly odd bedfellows as capitalism and religion. e.g., the Jesus of stories seems like a potentially Socialist sort? A friend of mine thought that it was likely that the pairing was a reaction to the communism and atheism of the USSR.
The Calvinist work ethic is less Jesus and more Old Testament: you were born into sin, you live under the Curse of God, and you'd better work as hard as you can every day and shun vice or you'll go to hell.
That's no different than orthodox Christian theology. Like with a handful of other unique religions, orthodox Christianity fundamentally put great value into and encouraged work in the temporal world. In Roman Catholic theology science--knowing the physical world through exploration and labor--is at least in principle an avenue of holy revelation similar to that of the bible and the Church.
I think the difference is in the shedding of the ancient modes of worship. Follow Protestant theologies to their logical end and the only way to manifest piety is through industrious labor. It's not just that work is prayer; that concept was already present in orthodox Christianity. Work becomes the religion, rather than being one aspect of a more complex system of worship.
Well, as far as I was taught growing up Roman Catholic, you were supposed to be faithful and good, and honour God every day, and over time your soul would be saved through faith and good deeds. In old-school Calvinism, original sin is upon you until He takes it away, like the bomb in Jackie Chan's mouth in Rush Hour 2, and he'll just as quickly give it back if you break the faith.
I'm not sure that's official Catholic doctrine[1] but in any event compared to many other religions, and many strains of Christianity (think early Gnostic sects) it's all splitting hairs. People quibble endlessly over how and why good works and labor are important--do they reflect salvation or further salvation?--but I don't think those theological distinctions have substantively effected our political culture. Such minor distinctions are exaggerated by denominations precisely because of their larger shared characteristics that require them to work hard at differentiating themselves. Most of these nuances lose their importance when, e.g., comparing Christianity to Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism.
[1] AFAIU official Roman Catholic doctrine, as well as most Protestant faiths, is that salvation only comes from the grace of God; and that the only sure-fire way of receiving that grace is wholehearted belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God who died for the remission of sin. But that just begs the question of what "belief" means, thus the centuries of dispute subsequent to the domination of Trinitarianism.
could you clarify what you mean by orthodox in this case? This is like, the one place where it really does make a difference. (Roman Catholicism, which is what luther forked, may be little-o orthodox but it is explicitly not big-O Orthodox)
Yeah, I use little "o" for the dominate strain of Christianity that can be traced back to the 4th or 5th centuries and which Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and (to a diminished degree) most Protestant sects can readily and directly trace their doctrines and beliefs. Trinitarianism isn't as good of a fit in this context even though there's substantial overlap. But Trinitarianism would outright exclude, e.g., Mormonism even though I think it's fair to say that much of the social ethos in Mormonism derives from orthodox Christianity, and particularly from aspects of Protestant theology, even if Mormonism doesn't share the once singularly defining characteristic of orthodox Christianity. That shared characteristic--that engaging in the world and doing good works matters, however it's framed doctrinally--is what I wanted to emphasize.
At the very least I think it helps exclude all the niche sects, old and new, that pedantic people could bring up as exceptions to generalizations about the origin and evolution of Western value systems.
Selection bias? Cultures (including religions) that reject capitalist values are disadvantaged in terms of global industry. One might expect dominate industrial powers to either outright reject community-oriented religious systems or for such religious systems to internalize capitalist values.
To be honest I'm not particularly surprised that there's a religious undercurrent to them. I don't exactly know how to quantify it, but as an outsider that's just sort of how I'd expect US propaganda posters to be. The US has always been particularly outwardly religious, so I guess I sort of expect it to play to those sensibilities when making these.
Today, it's hilariously illegal to put this kind of thing in an official employee communication. No government agency would even dream it.
Even in the 1960s, that kind of overtly religious appeal would have been very, VERY controversial. This kind of material _never_ appeared in military stuff, and I am very surprised to see it in NSA publications.
> Even in the 1960s, that kind of overtly religious appeal would have been very, VERY controversial. This kind of material _never_ appeared in military stuff...
The Air Force barred an airman from reenlisting because he would not say "so help me God" in his oath, in 2014.[0]
To be fair, the military doesn't want to accept people who would disobey a direct order over something so petty. If they aren't mature enough to say "so help me God" and move on, they don't want them.
Insisting that the federal government obey by the Constitution is petty? For the government to enforce any religion on any level is strictly forbidden and the interpretation is even broader than that. It's the very first thing in the Bill of Rights.
It was the Red Scare. We added “under God” to the pledge of allegiance on the theory that undercover commies would explode if they tried to say it. I’m not surprised.
> The US has always been particularly outwardly religious
As other threads / comments explained, this only became a thing during the 50's; before that there was a much stronger separation between church and state.
1. It's a common view that "Christian ideals created freedom" dating back at least, to the time of the Founding Fathers.
2. I would guess that many (but not all) of the people working for secret government agencies in a support role, are more conservative than the general population.
If you think the Santa ones are religious, wait 'til you scroll down to the one that reads "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants".
I was surprised how religious some of these were, beyond just "Merry Christmas, don't forget about security"
e.g "Christian ideals created freedom"