The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

The high-water mark for the religious messaging was the Religion in American Life campaign conducted by the Ad Council in partnership with America’s best admen and advertising agencies. RIAL professed two goals: “(1) to accent the importance of all religious institutions as the basis of American life” and “(2) to urge all Americans to attend the church or synagogue of their choice.”10 The Ad Council ran 2,200 RIAL ads in newspapers in 1949 and steadily increased that number each year, to nearly 10,000 ads in 1956.11 Magazine, radio, television, billboards, posters in transportation hubs, and ad cards all told Americans that “free civilization rests upon a basis of religious faith.”12 Truman even recorded a radio address for the campaign, and in it, botched history that the previous chapter of this book sought to straighten out: “When the United States was established, its coins bore witness to the American faith in a benevolent deity. The motto then was ‘In God We Trust.’ That is still our motto and we, as a people, still place our firm trust in God.”13 The RIAL message, though inaccurate, was “inescapable,” according to Kruse.14