A Word About "In God We Trust" License Plates
Driving through my native Hoosier State on a couple occasions in the past few weeks, I noticed several of Indiana's new "In God We Trust" license plates. The plates picture an American flag and nothing else, and I'm not sure how an American flag represents God. (Is the "God" plate any more American than any other Indiana license plate?) But the first question that came to mind after seeing these plates was, How is the money getting to God? It turns out that God isn't getting a dime. Any Hoosier can get an "In God We Trust" plate for no additional fee. Drivers in Indiana can show off their piety and devotion without sacrificing anything. Hooray!
Tennessee has its own "In God We Trust" licesnse plates, but ours aren't free. Highway devotion in the Volunteer State requires paying a fee to the American Eagle Foundation, a Pigeon Forge-based organization dedicated to saving the American Bald Eagle. I'm pretty confident that God loves eagles, so I suppose that's OK.
As much as I love low-cost, low-impact ways to flaunt one's religion, I'm not really comfortable with government-sanctioned statements of faith. I know that "In God We Trust" has been the national motto and has adorned our bills and coins for decades, but who is this God in whom we trust? I don't think this deity is the God expressed most fully in Jesus Christ and the Christian Scriptures. If it were, our nation wouldn't be reluctant to cancel the enormous debts owed to us by developing nations (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:8-55), we wouldn't have 9 million children without healthcare, and we wouldn't have the world's highest incarceration rate. Sure, our nation does plenty of good and godly things and is home to many faithful people; but we need to be careful boasting about how much we trust God if we aren't going to take seriously key tenets of God's teaching (Luke 6:46, Matthew 25:31-40).
Tennessee has its own "In God We Trust" licesnse plates, but ours aren't free. Highway devotion in the Volunteer State requires paying a fee to the American Eagle Foundation, a Pigeon Forge-based organization dedicated to saving the American Bald Eagle. I'm pretty confident that God loves eagles, so I suppose that's OK.As much as I love low-cost, low-impact ways to flaunt one's religion, I'm not really comfortable with government-sanctioned statements of faith. I know that "In God We Trust" has been the national motto and has adorned our bills and coins for decades, but who is this God in whom we trust? I don't think this deity is the God expressed most fully in Jesus Christ and the Christian Scriptures. If it were, our nation wouldn't be reluctant to cancel the enormous debts owed to us by developing nations (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:8-55), we wouldn't have 9 million children without healthcare, and we wouldn't have the world's highest incarceration rate. Sure, our nation does plenty of good and godly things and is home to many faithful people; but we need to be careful boasting about how much we trust God if we aren't going to take seriously key tenets of God's teaching (Luke 6:46, Matthew 25:31-40).
posted by Tinley | 2:16 PM
4 Comments:
Bravo. Well said.
AMEN! I agree with you completely.
Hey c*cksucker, find something else to strike you anxiety.... oh your so much and individual rebeling against the new plates.
It's not surprising that the first "anonymous" comment below resorts to obscene, lewd name-calling. People who don't understand the separation between church and state resort to guns and religion as Sen. Obama suggests. Pick up a copy of the Constitution and read it. No one has the right to ordain their religion or their speech. Any view to the contrary reflects bigotry that is antithetical to constitutional precepts, and a complete ignorance of the American system of government. People, read and inform yourselves.
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