July 4th … a fortress of power and wealth that continues to dim the light of the earth.
Today, as fireworks crack across the American sky and voices rise in patriotic songs, there are banners and posts everywhere declaring “In God We Trust.” It is repeated in speeches, printed on currency, and etched into the walls of courthouses as if it were the eternal creed of the nation. But few pause to ask: Which God? And why this God?
It was not always so. For nearly two centuries, the United States had no official motto. Only in 1956, at the height of Cold War paranoia, did Congress declare “In God We Trust” the national creed, aligning America’s identity with a God who blesses nations, chooses peoples, and wages holy wars.
This was not the God of Jesus of Nazareth, the one who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Nor the one who warned, “Put away your sword, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Instead, it was the older, tribal God of Abraham and Joshua, the God who gives land to some and commands them to annihilate others.
The ships that crossed the Atlantic carried Puritans, Pilgrims, Huguenots, and Catholics. They came with Christian Bibles in their hands and the name of Jesus on their lips. They professed allegiance to the carpenter from Nazareth, the man who promised, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me” (Matthew 25:40). But something changed on the shores of the New World.
The moment their boots struck the earth, the sword was drawn, and it would not return to its sheath. The Christians who came to America did not build a kingdom of peace. They built forts, plantations, and colonies. They did not wash feet; they took land. They did not love their enemies; they labeled them savages and cleared them from the land like Amalekites in ancient Canaan. In practice, these Christians did not follow Jesus. They followed another God: the God who had promised land to Abraham, the God who commanded Joshua to take Jericho, the God who ordered Saul to wipe out Amalek. This was the God America would trust.
Two thousand years after Jesus spoke of a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36), America chose a kingdom very much of this world. But not “In Jesus We Trust.” Not “In Christ We Trust.”The difference is not accidental.
Jesus is a dangerous figure for empires. He speaks of turning the other cheek, of loving enemies, of the first becoming last and the last first. He warns the rich that their kingdoms will fall. He tells Pilate that his followers do not fight, because his kingdom is not of this world. How can a nation trust in such a man? How can a superpower, with armies stationed in a hundred countries, believe in the one who said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19)? Instead, America chose the older, more convenient God: the hidden God of Sinai and Zion, the one who sends fire from heaven, who chooses peoples and curses their enemies.
Jesus invited his followers to leave behind the comforts of home and the weight of inheritance. He spoke of a new family, one not built on bloodlines, power, or conquest. “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50). To follow him meant stepping away from the “father’s house”, from the patriarchal structures of hierarchy and domination. It meant letting go of the tribal God of vengeance and entering a kinship where all are equals, brothers and sisters under the God of love.
But America, and those who say “In God We Trust,” have not left the father’s house. They have remained within its walls, clutching its weapons and wealth, fearing the wilderness of freedom that Jesus offers. They have built a fortress around the father’s house and called it a city upon a hill.
From the beginning, America imagined itself as a New Israel. John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella in 1630, declared that the Puritans would build “a city upon a hill”,a phrase drawn from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14). But the city they built would not be one of humility and peace. It would become a fortress of power and wealth that continues to dim the light of the earth. In this vision, America became the chosen nation. Its enemies became the Amaleks. Its expansion across the continent became a new Exodus, its wars a new conquest of Canaan. The God of Joshua fit this narrative perfectly. The Jesus of the Gospels did not.
In 1948, Israel was reborn. The United States was the first nation to recognize the new state, and the bond between the two would deepen in the decades that followed. Together, they invoked the same God—the one who promises land to his people and calls them to defend it with the sword. Since that day, every enemy has been named Amalek:
The Palestinians in their villages.
The Egyptians in Sinai.
The Syrians on the Golan Heights.
The Lebanese in their cities and camps.
The Iranians in the shadows.
Each one declared Amalek. Each one marked for eradication. And as Israel fought its wars, America stood behind it, whispering, “In God We Trust.”
Jesus cannot be hidden. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). He is a lamp that exposes violence and greed. He cannot bless drone strikes or sanctions. He cannot give permission to bulldoze homes or drop bombs on cities.
But the God of Amalek can be hidden. He speaks through power, through kings and presidents, through generals and settlers. He sanctifies conquest and calls it destiny. “In God We Trust” is not a confession of faith. It is a declaration of allegiance to power. It means:
We trust in a God who blesses our bombs.
We trust in a God who gives us oil fields and deserts.
We trust in a God who lets us call every enemy Amalek, every war holy.
This is not the God of the carpenter from Nazareth. This is the God of kings, conquerors, and empires. America claims Christ but follows Caesar. It prays to Jesus but trusts the God of Amalek. And every Amalek it destroys writes its own name in the book of judgment. “You cannot serve two masters,” Jesus said. “You cannot serve God and empire” (Matthew 6:24).
But America tried. And the world burns.
Tonight, as rockets burst in the July sky and hymns to liberty are sung in parks and plazas, remember this: the words “In God We Trust” are not innocent. They are not a confession of faith, but an invocation of power—a blessing on the cannons and the coins, the bombs and the banks.
If you listen closely between the cracks of the fireworks, you might hear another voice—the voice of the Nazarene, still calling from the hillsides, still inviting this nation to leave the father’s house, to step into the wilderness, and to build a family where no one is master and no one is slave.
Will America listen? Or will the night sky blaze again next year with louder fireworks to drown him out? Let me suggest this: on this July 4th, take the liberty to say “In God We Trust” one last time. And tomorrow, let a new era begin: “In Christ We Trust”,and leave behind the house of the biblical God.
