Genuine Christians don’t trust in God.
Real Christians trust in the eternal, heavenly Father of the resurrected and ascended Lord, Jesus Christ. There is a difference, a BIG difference between
these two deities.
Trusting in God does not require anything of us, because God-trusters always make God in their own image.
The generic God of the God-trusters is a God of convenience. And what is America today if not the wasteland of endless, ad nauseum convenience?
Idolatry’s promise of religious convenience is at the heart of why God-trusters embrace their ever-convenient God. Like all idolatry, trusting in the God of American civil religion is easy-peasy religion, because that God is always on our side. What’s not to like?
Who wouldn’t want to be on God’s side when you already think you know that God’s side is always your side?
He is always, predictably, the God of our nation, our history, our wars, our empire, our manifest destiny, our foreign policy, our political party, our consumerist lifestyle, our race, even our skin color, if and when appealing to such racial niceties becomes necessary.
How nice it is to believe in an agreeable God who wants for your nation what you do, who believes in the rightness of your cause just as you do, who excuses the world-wide bloodshed caused by your country for the same reasons you do.
How insufferably convenient to embrace a religion of such logical redundancy. Clear-headedness is never expected of anyone.
This is always the way with idolatry.
This In-God-We-Trust God emerges from our own selfish desires, hopes and priorities. For even when we fail to achieve our desires, this God of the God-trusters is flexible enough to adopt failed outcomes as the deepest desire of his heart. So, America can do no wrong, even when she fails abysmally and wreaks havoc among those who suffer from her miscalculations.
On the other hand, if there is one thing the Bible tells us about the one, true God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the eternal Father of Jesus of Nazareth: God is never convenient.
Following Jesus of Nazareth is not convenient, not at all convenient. That’s why so few people really do it, consistently, day in and day out, for a lifetime.
When Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) devoted a chapter in his book, 
The Social Contract (1762), to the centrality of civil religion in the modern nation-state, he emphasized the civic dangers of Christianity. In fact, he believed – rightly, in my opinion – that the gospel of Jesus Christ, when embraced by true believers, posed the single greatest threat to the long-term survival of any modern nation-state. He even went so far as to insist that the Roman Catholic church (the only form of Christianity he knew) be outlawed if the nation-state hoped to survive.
Rousseau’s fears can be boiled down very simply: The Christian God was not controllable. The Christian God is neither predictable nor convenient – at least, not from a human point of view.
Jesus Christ can never be relied upon to cast his vote for “my side.” And he always demands an allegiance transcending national, political and social
loyalties.
The atheist Rousseau understood Christianity better than most American Christians.
If we understood the import of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Christians would be the first to ask that idolatrous phrases like “In God We Trust” be erased forever.
We would abandon the silly, meaningless conflicts over state-sanctioned “prayer” in public schools.
We would shun idolatrous ceremonies demanding that we “pledge allegiance” to a flag.
We would laugh hysterically whenever we hear the next televised nattering nabob boast about winning some war over saying “merry Christmas” in the public square.
We would speak up and declare, “No, I do not trust in your God of convenient nationalism. I trust in the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ; Savior of ALL people everywhere; King of the universe; the Lord whose kingdom of righteousness makes public inconvenience a hallmark of the faithful.”
