Though it is hard to credit, people regularly invoke these slogans to prove that America is a Christian nation, and even a nation founded on Christian principles.26 It’s argument by idiom. A little bit of research reveals that none of these phrases dates to the founding era. “In God we trust” was first added to American coinage in 1863, during the height of the Civil War, seventy-five years after the Constitutional Convention. It was added to paper currency in 1955 and became the national motto in 1956. “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. The first president to close a
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