Tolle Lege!.

This book looks at the how America got "In God We Trust" on our coins and "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance during the 50s. The common wisdom of today is that it was mostly a reaction to the spread of 'atheistic' communism. As is usually the case, the common wisdom is wrong and only tells a part of the story.

A good history of a subject looks at all the nuances, moving parts and complexity of the times before showing how the common wisdom has gotten it wrong. This book does just that. The author's major thesis that he lays out in this book is that the corporations needed allies in their fight against Roosevelt's New Deal policies and realized that Christian Americans would be a perfect ally. The religious saw the government as a threat to "Freedom Under God" and this led to "Christian Libertarians".

The author looks at all the moving pieces and how they interacted primarily through out the 1950s and into the mid 60s. We came really close to having a constitutional amendment allowing for official sanctioned prayers in government building and schools. Billy Graham seems to be wrong about everything. From Graham telling us "there were no labor unions or strikes in the Garden of Eden", but there was a talking snake to his fervently desiring forced prayers within schools and steadfastly standing with Nixon. The Unitarians seemed to be right about everything and keep popping up through out the story on the correct side of history.

Overall the book makes for a good story and is well worth a listen to learn a more nuanced telling of history for a period of time when religion tried to rule our lives and did not respect the secular.