“In God we trust.” It’s our national motto. Yet even this simple statement of faith is being challenged by those who would remove any acknowledgment of God from the public square. Sadly, many Christians, and even our churches, are unwitting supporters of this censorship. We are censoring ourselves!
The national motto did not just spring into existence with it’s official recognition in 1956. It had been used on our currency since the time of the Civil War when our country was driven by national calamity to cry out to God. Most believe that the motto came from Francis Scott Key’s poem The Defense of Fort McHenry which had become a popular patriotic song set to the tune of The Anacreontic Song by John Stafford Smith. Destined to become our national anthem in 1931, this song was known as The Star-Spangled Banner. The last stanza contains the words, “in God is our trust” from which the national motto is derived.
Francis Scott Key was an eye witness of the British attack on Fort McHenry in 1814. He had watched the battle into the night from a ship in the harbour and wrote a poem recording his reaction upon waking in the pre-dawn hours. The first stanza asks a question: Is the flag which we saw waving over Fort McHenry as the sun went down last night, and which we could see by the flashes of exploding bombs after dark, still waving this morning? In the second stanza, Key dramatically answers the question: the first rays of dawn show that the flag is indeed still waiving! The battle has been won. The third stanza essentially mocks the British invaders who would take away our freedom. This stanza was dropped from the anthem during world War II out of respect for our former enemies, now allies. But with new enemies challenging our freedom, perhaps it should be reinstated!
It is the fourth stanza which Christians should insist upon including because it is there that Key gives all the glory to God! In far too many public performances of the anthem, even in or churches, we hear only the first stanza leaving out all mention of God and not even answering the question posed by the first stanza! Many. perhaps most, are not even aware that the other three stanzas exist. The entire text of the Star-spangled banner is printed on the reverse side of this insert. The official or service version of the anthem includes all but the third stanza. We urge you to learn it, to sing it and to teach it to your children.
The Greenhouse Institute is committed to promoting the performance of the unabridged national anthem wherever possible. In church settings we believe that the “truncated”: (first stanza only) version, while allowed in the National Anthem Code (1942), should never be used. The first and last stanzas at a minimum should be sung and including the second makes the story flow more logically. You can help get the word out by sharing this information with your Senior Pastor and your Worship Leader. Your congregation will be blessed in joining Francis Scott Key as they “praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a Nation … And this be our motto: In God is our trust.” AMEN.
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The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
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