One Nation Under God and Rental Shoes
Introduction: The web is wild with posts concerning the Indiana Lieutenant Governor’s “sermon” on July 26, 2026. I thought I’d add to the conversation with a multi-part series examining the words of Micah Beckwith’s message.
In Beckwith’s simplistic view, all of America’s problems started when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the foundational principle of the separation of church and state in its landmark ruling in Engel v. Vitale. The court, in a 6-1 ruling, declared state-sponsored, official recitation of prayer in public schools a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In short, the government has no business composing official prayers for its citizens to recite. For Beckwith, this is when the wheels came off our once grand nation.
During his July message at the Elkhart First Baptist Church, Beckwith made his position perfectly clear. It was his first argument, right out of the blocks:
“You know that prayer and Bible reading was a necessity in the early part of this nation in our public schools. Many of you might have even been around when we were still praying and reading the Bible in our schools before 1962, right? This was part of our heritage or our history.”
Beckwith then tells the story of Joshua building the pile of 12 stones to serve as a visual reminder for the Israelite people that God brought them into the promised land. Joshua could point to the stones and declare God’s faithfulness.
He continues, “And in America, we are here because God’s the One who got us here. But you know what? Those stones have been torn down since 1962 and beyond. We’ve been seeing God moved out of politics and out of schools and out of everything in government, and then we wonder, “Wow, why are we forgetting where we’ve come from?” …Then we say, “Wow, man, our nation’s going to hell in a handbasket real quick.”
Beckwith’s logic is flawed in so many ways.
For instance, does Beckwith also believe God left the bowling alleys in the 1960s, because they declined from nearly 12,000 alleys in the mid ‘60s to only 3,200 today. Did God leave the approximately 5,000 drive-in movie theaters in the 1960s? Because there are less than 300 today. Did God also abandon the car hops or Howard Johnson’s? Could there be more than one reason our society changes?
And in case you think Beckwith waffles on the issue of God being removed from our public discourse, just a few weeks before, in a June 26 interview for the “Conservative Review” podcast, Beckwith said of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision about a football coach’s First Amendment right to pray, “They [the U.S. Supreme Court] said, ‘Hey, the heritage of America is a Christian heritage and so that’s why Christianity takes precedence over all other faiths.’ Everyone can worship how they want, but you don’t get to implement Islam in our public spaces. You can’t put the Quran up on school walls, but you can put the Ten Commandments up on school walls. Why? Because of our Judeo-Christian principles. That’s our heritage.”
He loves that word, Heritage, and he’s right. For years the Bible and daily prayer were included in the school day. But there’s a problem: The First Amendment protects personal religious exercise for everyone, not simply Christians. It doesn’t stop personal prayer or remove Bibles from the school. Students remain free to pray voluntarily; however, it DOES prohibit composed, coordinated prayer and prescribed Bible reading, as it would any religious text.
I’m always shocked when Christians are convinced the Founders built this country on Judeo-Christian values. For one thing, the term “Judeo-Christian” didn’t come into vogue until the 1930’s and 1940’s to separate the U.S. from the Communist threat. It’s also used to frame Western values as strictly biblical. The difficulty comes when we treat our nation as wholly Judeo-Christian, millions of American citizens who are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, secular, or of other non-Judeo-Christian traditions become marginalized.
To help Beckwith realign his misguided heritage hopes, I suggest he take a close look at the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. A majority of whom owned slaves in their lifetime, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Samuel Chase and Benjamin Franklin. Several Presidents owned slaves while they were in the office and brought them to the Residence to serve. The list includes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James Polk and Zachary Taylor. America’s heritage is built on both admirable ideals and deep injustices. Historical longevity does not establish a constitutional legitimacy and certainly not moral virtue.
Let’s take it a step further. Several key founders were deeply influenced by Enlightenment thought, including its emphasis on reason, natural rights, religious liberty and limits on religious authority. Their personal religious beliefs varied considerably—from traditional Christianity to Unitarianism and Deism—which makes attempts to package “the Founders” into a single theological tradition problematic. Yikes.
Another unfortunate fact for the Heritage Faithful, the First Amendment is not just a good idea, but the law of the land, proposed by a two-thirds supermajority of Congress and sent to the states, where three-quarters of the State Legislatures approved. It ensures protection of five specific freedoms, one of which is the Establishment Clause, which prevents the U.S. Government from establishing an official religion…of any kind. As it turns out, you can practice any faith or no faith at all. This Amendment stops the government from creating a national religion or even picking a favorite religion.
The case against Beckwith’s Heritage dreamland runs into another reality. In 1797, just 21 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, The Treaty of Tripoli was ratified unanimously by the Senate and signed by President John Adams. Here’s the kick: the treaty clearly states, “The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”. That’s gotta hurt.
For a man who claims to teach “History and Constitutional Literacy, spending countless hours helping to shape the next generation of Americans and instilling a love for our nation’s founding principles”, Beckwith doesn’t seem to understand the tenants of our Democracy. He certainly doesn’t understand that heritage and constitutionality aren’t synonymous.
