Jul 15, 2026 · 57 min · 11 segments
In this episode of the Didius podcast, the Reverend Schlies discuss the cliché “In God we trust.” What is the proper place of patriotism in the life of the Christian?
Joseph SchleeHost
I would assume, actually, I don't know when it started to get printed on the money.
I would say that sometimes the critique we maybe would make is that just like people kind of think of America as a melting pot of like cultures and whatnot, that that language kind of gets applied to religion too, where it's like, what makes our nation so great is that really, not that you can worship any God, but that like all of our gods are kind of like, we all trust in a God and in God we trust.
Which is ironic because that's the same attitude that the Romans had about their gods.
They're like, oh, you got a sun god? As long as you put him in the pantheon, then it's fine.
Yeah, and you're like, what's the name of yours called? Oh, yeah, that's his name? That's cool.
They're probably the same thing, you know? Yeah, whether or not it was intended to become a like universalistic concept where we're all worshiping the same God, looking at the same mountain from different sides, whether or not that was the intention, that's definitely how people kind of think of it.
Which is like, if you were, I mean, just as a test case of how nuts people would go, if you were to change that phrase to like, in Jesus we trust.
They would freak out about that because in their mind, God is supposed to be someone who you don't define who that person is.
Sometimes the phrase is thought of that way, and maybe there's an aspect when it was originally put on the money that was supposed to keep it generic and broad.
Maybe the only reason you could say that is because some of the founding fathers were deists, but not all of them.
Very famously, Jefferson had a Bible where he took everything out of it that... was miraculous so that all that was left was kind of like the moral instruction because he thought that was the only value of Christianity was the commandments as opposed to what Christianity is actually about, which is the message of salvation in Jesus.
I would assume, actually, I don't know when it started to get printed on the money.
I would say that sometimes the critique we maybe would make is that just like people kind of think of America as a melting pot of like cultures and whatnot, that that language kind of gets applied to religion too, where it's like, what makes our nation so great is that really, not that you can worship any God, but that like all of our gods are kind of like, we all trust in a God and in God we trust.
Which is ironic because that's the same attitude that the Romans had about their gods.
They're like, oh, you got a sun god? As long as you put him in the pantheon, then it's fine.
Yeah, and you're like, what's the name of yours called? Oh, yeah, that's his name? That's cool.
They're probably the same thing, you know? Yeah, whether or not it was intended to become a like universalistic concept where we're all worshiping the same God, looking at the same mountain from different sides, whether or not that was the intention, that's definitely how people kind of think of it.
Which is like, if you were, I mean, just as a test case of how nuts people would go, if you were to change that phrase to like, in Jesus we trust.
They would freak out about that because in their mind, God is supposed to be someone who you don't define who that person is.
Sometimes the phrase is thought of that way, and maybe there's an aspect when it was originally put on the money that was supposed to keep it generic and broad.
Maybe the only reason you could say that is because some of the founding fathers were deists, but not all of them.
Very famously, Jefferson had a Bible where he took everything out of it that... was miraculous so that all that was left was kind of like the moral instruction because he thought that was the only value of Christianity was the commandments as opposed to what Christianity is actually about, which is the message of salvation in Jesus.
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