Tonight, when you tune in to the networks to watch President Obama give his State of the Union address, you will see four things: the president entering the hall, the president ascending the rostrum to be greeted by the vice president and the speaker of the House, the president giving his speech, and the reactions of members of the Congress and others in the hall.
Here is the one thing you will not see, and probably have never seen. You won’t see what is behind the president and above the vice president and the speaker of the House. And because you won’t see it, you won’t know that you are missing something of surpassing importance.
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Think about it for a moment. Why have almost no Americans (excepting those who watch on C-SPAN) ever seen what is located above the president, the vice president and the speaker of the House? Why do network television cameras never pull back and give a wide-angle view of the president delivering his speech? That is certainly routine for TV: It is considered uninteresting to TV viewers to have a fixed view of a subject.
I discovered the answer when I attended President Obama’s speech on health care to a joint session of Congress.
I saw chiseled in the marble wall behind the speaker and vice president, in giant letters, the words, “In God We Trust.”
My immediate reaction was to wonder: Why had I never seen that before? I have, after all, been watching State of the Union addresses for about 40 years.
Here is my theory — and I say “theory” because I cannot prove it.
A generation of Americans has been raised to regard any mention of God outside the home or church as a violation of the deepest principles of our country. To the men and women of the left-leaning news media, in particular, “In God We Trust” is an anachronism at best, an impediment to moral progress at worst. The existence of those giant chiseled words so disturbs the media that, consciously or not, they do not want Americans to see them.
I do not for a moment believe that there is any conspiracy here. In some ways, I actually wish there were. I wish a handful of media executives had gotten together and conspired to instruct their various cameramen to avoid a wide angle view of the president. But, alas, no such conspiracy is necessary. The words “In God We Trust” emblazoned in giant letters behind the president of the United States just don’t sit well with the secular media. So you won’t see them.
We have been led to believe that America is supposed to be a secular country. But that was never the case. We were founded to be a God-centered, God-based country with a non-denominational government. And that is what those chiseled words affirm.
Yet millions of Americans — religious and secular alike — would be stunned to see what every member of the House sees almost every working day.
When I mentioned this to some congressman after I addressed the Republican members of the House two weeks ago, they told me that just as remarkable is the fact that when the president is speaking in the House chamber, he is facing a giant sculpted image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments.
Imagine how this scene would go over in American homes — behind the president of the United States are the words “In God We Trust,” and in front of him is Moses carrying the Ten Commandments.
This would astound and even confuse an America raised to believe that the words “separation of church and state” are in the Constitution, that those words prohibit the government from acknowledging even a non-denominational God, and that no speaker at any public-high-school graduation ceremony may say “God bless this graduating class.”
That is why, I am convinced, no camera tonight will give you a long or wide view of the president. It might change more than Americans’ views of the presidential rostrum. It might change Americans’ views of America.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website,dennisprager.com.
In fact the Christian God is all over Capital grounds both state and federal.
See: In God We Trust
Americas Historic Sites Reveal Her Christian Foundations
By Stephen McDowell
Who decides whose cameras are allowed and what may or may not be recorded? Are there not any besides the main stream media or Cspan? Who among us trust the main stream media?
While it may not be a conspiracy in the classical sense it appears that the unspoken rule, nod and a wink thinking pervasive today is that "God is Dead".
When things go very wrong in life, we tend to plead for strong forces to make them right again: police, FBI, U.S. Marines, and the Almighty. Thanks to the Constitution, we are free to complain about these four elements. And thanks to God, almost all of us will be forgiven.
Here's a picture of the inscription Dennis is talking about. As you can see, it was in fact broadcast during the 2010 SOTU address. Apparently Dennis needs new glasses.
Well, happily the folks at "Sadly, No!" have already shot this particular idiocy down with what is CLEARLY a screen shot of the last SOTU showing those chiseled words.
It might behoove Prager to do a couple things, first of which would be some actual research. The next thing is think about what the producers and directors have to work with: Panoramic shots are nice and pretty and all, but the fact is the attention has to be on the president because it is he who is doing the speaking. In order to both focus on the president and include those chiseled words would require the camera, equipped with a very wide angle lens, to literally be shoved into the president's face.
More importantly, if this is the most earth shattering realization you could come up with, this truly is a pathetic site and an even more pathetic author.
Giant letters? Emblazoned across the wall? You lie!
I saw the letters, they are tiny in situ.
A Cristy friend told me that Christ was reported to have said, "A liar is worse that a thief." Why do no Chrities pay attention to what their own "god" is supposed to have said?
Whether, or not "In God We Trust" etched in stone is visible tonight is irrelevant. Prager's point is meaningful. The left and its voice, the so-called mainstream media, are loathe to acknowledge America's God connection.
While there may be "room for atheists" in America, they have no more right to force atheism upon religionists than I have to force my faith upon them. Yet, they do it regularly. In fact, atheism has become the policy of the land and to breach that publicly in any way is to incur wrath and sometimes punishment by force of law. This was certainly not the intent of our Founding Fathers, who, without exception, believed in a Supreme Being and a higher law than man's. It is why Judeo-Christian principles were firmly planted in Founding Documents of the land. The only reason God was not mentioned in the Constitution, is that the document itself did not deal with the issue. It dealt only with personal liberty and its protection. Elsewhere, the Founding Fathers manifest their abundant faith in God.
It's a great comfort to me that I will see the day when vehement and vitriolic atheists must face the folly of their arrogant and foolhardy rejection of faith and of God. I wish they'd come with those of faith and believe. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Isn't eternal life better than eternal death? If an atheist is right, he'll never know it. If believers are right, atheists will, one day, know it. Come with us. It really is a better way. Life will be better. You will see.
Well done Mr. Prager. Your article really has the crazies in a twist today.
WaHoo! One flippin' screenshot of a past SOU speech (from some wacko blog site) with the words in frame, TOTALLY blows your point to dust. Hardly.
The sad fact is, the attempt to erase God from American life is consciously fought (daily) in our courts, government, and pop culture.
Is it really too much of a stretch to believe MANY Americans have not seen the Christian motifs, in the chambers, on TV before? Hardly.
Every shot, and I mean EVERY shot on TV is carefully decided. This is especially true in the field of journalism. It is no happy accident that many Americans are unaware of the Christian imagery in the Capitol building.
In a society where the murder of a baby is accepted as a "woman's choice," teenagers having sex is celebrated on television, and a sculpture of Christ being trampled by the tiny feet of ants is "art," this is a little more than a "conspiracy" theory. Our culture celebrates the immoral, while trampling the moral. A white memorial cross honoring our WWII fallen, and of marble statue of the 10 Commandments, should not be the enemy.
Maybe in the SOU instance this has more to do with the framing of the camera, maybe. Funny. They say a picture is worth a thousand words... Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein sure thought so.
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist’s Association
With an overwhelming number of Americans self-identifying as Christian, how exactly is the pervasive thinking today that "God is Dead"? I'm confused. For clarity, here is some actual, you know, data:
