In God We Still Trust

from the October 07, 2008 eNews issue

I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
- John Adams, Works, Vol. X, p. 85, to Thomas Jefferson on December 25, 1813.

While Congressional leaders may condone scratching "In God We Trust" from the new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., other Americans are working to make sure the Bible remains both honored and active in the United States.

The PC CVC

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Robert Byrd are overseeing the construction of a $621 million center to welcome visitors to the U.S. Capitol. Sometime near December, thousands of visitors will be able to stroll through the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) and learn all about the Capitol. That is, they will learn "all" that is secular and politically correct unless plans get changed. Anything about God or religion appears to have been scrubbed from the architect's plans.

The CVC will include exhibits that represent parts of the actual Capitol, including those grand rooms where the members of Congress meet to banter over and decide on laws. Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia is concerned that the CVC is on its way to being a "shrine to political correctness." He notes:

"As many people know in looking at C-SPAN, behind where the Speaker stands, there is [sic] a number of columns, and above those columns there is the inscription 'In God We Trust.' In the mock-up that's meant to simulate that area in the new Visitor Center, they've taken 'In God We Trust' out, and they just have gold stars that go across it," says Forbes. "And then when they made a picture of the Speaker's podium, they cropped the part that said 'In God We Trust.'"

Concerned about things like this, 108 members of Congress wrote a letter to the architect, requesting that he turn over his plans for closer inspection. The architect forwarded the letter to Speaker Pelosi and Senator Byrd, but they have not responded. While some might believe that the visitor's center will seem more tolerant with the removal of the U.S. motto, this sort of censorship is actually intolerant – intolerant of America’s religious heritage. It is also quite simply inaccurate.

Bible Reading "Harmless Error" For Jury

On the other hand, down the street at the United States Supreme Court, the justices declined to hear the "jury Bible reading" case along with a number of other cases it rejected on Monday. During deliberations on a death penalty case, the jury foreman read from Romans 13:1-6 in an effort to sway the other jurors. After five hours, the jury decided that the defendant, Jimmie Lucero, deserved the death penalty for shooting his three neighbors to death in 2003. Lucero claimed his rights had been violated because the jury foreman used the Bible to make his case to the other jurors. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Lucero's case, therefore upholding a lower court decision that the jury foreman's reading the Bible did not get Lucero off the hook.

While the lower court considered the Bible reading harmless, it did still consider it an error. This is a different attitude than that of the first US Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, who also served as president of the American Bible Society. Jay said of the Bible:

"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."

Bible Bus Starts Scripture Writing Tour

Zondervan is currently sending a blue RV to 40 different states as part of its effort to create a Bible in which every single one of the 31,173 verses is handwritten by a different person. This handwritten Bible will then be sent to the printing press to make it available to the general public by Christmas 2009. The Bible Across America tour commemorates the 30th anniversary of the New International Version (NIV) published by Zondervan and widely read by Christians across the country. The public is welcome to attend the Scripture writing events held at specific churches in 90 cities in order to get in line and maybe write one of the 500 verses allotted for that day.

Billy Graham, President Bush, and the current presidential candidates have also been invited to write scriptures, along with other celebrities. There will be an index listing who wrote which verse.

"Before the Gutenberg (the first Bible printed on a printing press), they were all handwritten," said Zondervan's Steve Sammons. "In our digital age, we lose sight of what it means to have a tangible product we create by our hands."

Regardless of whether one uses the NIV or not, there's an ownership that happens when 31,000 people work on a project like this. People who might never have read God’s Word otherwise will get copies for Christmas 2009, and will read the Bible because a friend of theirs handwrote one of the verses.

Bible Behind Bars

One of the greatest ways God's Word is being spread around today is in the prisons. Christian ministries like Prison Fellowship, Champions For Life, and Daughters of Destiny reach into dark places where people have been imprisoned by anger or drugs or shame long before they were imprisoned by bars. Prison ministries offer inmates the love and forgiveness of God, along with hope for a better future. Each addresses inmates' needs in different ways. The Library for Hope ministry ships thousands of Bibles and Christian books into prisons so that prisoners have Biblically-based reading material. After giving their lives to Christ, it is important that inmates also have good books to fill their minds. Working with fifty-five book publishers, Library of Hope has sent 55,000 books into prisons this year.

In God We Trust

Despite the disapproval of certain members of Congress, significant numbers of Americans still depend on God’s Word. Perhaps the Speaker of the House doesn't think Americans need to trust in God, but that doesn't mean they don't. As the culture wars continue, Americans need to make In God We Trust even more personal and persistent than simply words stamped in metal, or posted on the wall behind the Speaker's podium.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. – 1 Peter 1:24-25