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America's complicated history with religion and politics
Brut America
Follow
3/25/2025
One nation under God.
In God we trust.
So help me God.
Religion and government: it's complicated…
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
So help me God, so help me God, so help me God, so help me God.
00:05
A lot of Americans don't even know that the phrase, so help me God, is not in the Constitution.
00:20
It's not part of the official oath.
00:22
It's just been common practice for so long that we almost don't even hear it.
00:25
In the United States, we have religious freedom, including separation of religion and government,
00:30
which would actually make it unconstitutional to force any elected official to swear under
00:36
God or on a Bible when they're being sworn into office.
00:55
Those are just colloquial practices, and it's not part of our law.
01:18
Some people think or believe that George Washington said it during the very first presidential
01:23
oath of office, but the history record's actually really murky on that.
01:27
So somewhere along the line, it became common practice.
01:39
Many of our founders, in fact, Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, a number of
01:47
our founders didn't use a Bible.
01:49
They used books of law or no book at all.
01:53
In more recent times, you've had members of Congress, like Representative Keith Ellison,
01:58
who was the first Muslim member of Congress, and he chose to be sworn in on a Quran that
02:03
had been owned by Thomas Jefferson.
02:05
Whether or not an elected official, be that the president of the United States or your
02:09
local school board member, swears in on a Bible is absolutely a matter of choice.
02:23
The founders of this country were really deeply committed to religious freedom, to separation
02:32
of church and state for white people.
02:35
They didn't provide that same religious freedom to enslaved people who were not entitled to
02:41
practice their religions, either their native religions or their adopted Christian religions.
02:46
Our founders didn't extend religious freedom to native people who were not only forced
02:51
off their sacred lands, but violently stripped of their native religion.
03:09
When the phrase One Nation Under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, it was actually
03:15
a pastor here in Washington, D.C. that convinced Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, to add that
03:21
phrase.
03:22
And at the time, he said, anyone who's not willing to profess a Christian ideal is not
03:27
an American, is not living by the American ideal.
03:40
When we start to mix government and religion, the path down the road is much of what we're
03:47
seeing today, or many of the laws that we've seen over the last few years that allow foster
03:54
care agencies to take government money, but then discriminate against Jewish foster parents
04:02
or LGBTQ foster parents.
04:04
This isn't about Christians and atheists.
04:08
This isn't about atheists wanting there to be no Christians in public life.
04:13
This is ultimately about saying religious freedom is a shield to protect, not a sword
04:18
to harm others.
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