God in America 2026: Is He Unconstitutional?

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: David New

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/5/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. And it’s also our bimonthly emphasis on the constitution and US history and current events where possible worked into that guest. As always, constitutional attorney, historian, author and public speaker, David New Now for a very, very long time, a generation or more I would say our nation, America has chosen a path not toward God, but away from God. And this choice has reflected itself in literally every observable way from, I’m going to say selfishly oriented and immoral cultural pursuits to unbiblical priorities where fear of God is at the bottom, not the top, and where government cements into law and policies, things which are unjust, immoral and corrupt. And each of us can see it every day for ourselves before us in the news routinely. And there exists an unfriendly attitude for a long time toward the public expression.

For instance, faith in God, school prayer in our classrooms was long ago declared illegal. The display of the 10 Commandments, though it remains a subject of endless litigation, it seems I would say the repudiation of the 10 Commandments has been rather institutionalized throughout government and or nation as a whole and as a result, such atrocities as for instance, well one leading one, the murder of the innocent, the unborn abortion continues to climb. It continues to climb now topping over 65 million since 1973 and incredibly an increasing number of states are institutionalizing within law this evil shedding of innocent blood with even our current president. Now, I don’t know if you know this, but it’s true, he ran as a pro-life president, has called on Republican leaders to nullify the Hyde Amendment, which is frankly about the last vestige in federal statute of anything recognizing the sacredness of life.

So I could go on and on. And here’s another one though I will cite before I go further. George Barna on this program and his research has confirmed that for instance, the number one religion in America at 94% of the American people, 94%, his numbers say the number one religion is not Christianity but syncretism. Or you could say the modern day version of Gnosticism where individuals according to their own feelings, they established their own set of values that they feel good about and form their own religion, which obviously by definition becomes idolatrous and where they view themselves as God. Now these facts lead to a fundamental question, a constitutional consideration, which is the focus of our program today that is, is God even constitutional in America today is God constitutional in America? Think about that and we’re going to discuss some ramifications of that question. The title I’ve chosen to frame our conversation as this God in America 2026, is he unconstitutional? Alright with that, David, welcome back to the program. Always great to have you back.

David New:

It’s always so nice to be with you and blessings to everyone that are listening with us today.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, like we’ve been doing in a number of the programs, we’ve started to do this not all the time, but often choose something that’s in the news about which you want to offer some comments. And one of them that I’m going to go to right now about, I mean to me there’s two major things out there. There’s what’s involved in Epstein files as an example. It just continues to pour out of the sewage pipes what is happening. I gave some comment on that briefly yesterday, but the other, this ongoing action involved with immigration and ice efforts in Minneapolis. So you have some thoughts about Minneapolis and specifically the decision for ice agents to use body cameras. Okay, that’s something most people haven’t talked about, but you have some thoughts. What would you like to say?

David New:

Well, I thought that was an extremely good idea and it’s an idea that’s long overdue. It should have been there from day one. But one of the things that does concern me is that President Trump is absolutely right to move against these individuals who are in this country illegally. He is right to target murderers and rapists and people who break the law. But many Americans believe he should stop there and leave the other people, the illegal immigrants alone who obey the law and contribute to our society. That is a serious mistake. All of them should go, they all should leave. If you recall, Roman society was divided into two groups between the Patricia, which was the aristocracy, the landowners and the plebeians, the common citizens. So you had two classes of citizens in the Roman society and if you allow people here who were illegally here, who violated the law by coming here and didn’t go through the legal process of becoming a citizen of the United States, you basically are going back to the old Roman system of two classes of people, the aristocracy and the Vivians.

And this is wrong. And you have to remember also ladies and gentlemen, that these people that are here illegally because they are here illegally, are taken advantage of in many, many ways. They get the short end of the stick in many areas. Employers will give them work, but they don’t get quite the same benefits as other employees or as citizens. All kinds of things go wrong. I’m so sad about what’s happened at Minneapolis and I’m afraid this thing that’s happened in Minneapolis has metastasized. It looks very bad for the midterms. I think President Trump may find himself in a difficult situation, but in this situation I think President Trump would’ve benefited if one of the two houses wasn’t Democrat control because it would’ve put the brakes would’ve given him some restraint. He has a lot of great ideas and the vast majority are just great, but he has some bad ones. And if one of the two houses was and the opposite party, he would’ve been forced to deal with them and negotiate with them more than he is now. So he may have hurt himself or we may have hurt him by not putting some kind of restraint because the people that are around him basically, or yes men.

Sam Rohrer:

Alright David, with that we’re have to hold it. And ladies and gentlemen, we’re not going to go further on that issue today. I think on another program I’m going to deal with this matter of immigration because God does tell us exactly how it should have been done. But we’ll get into that later. We’re going to move on now and consider this aspect is God constitutional in America. If you’re just joining us today, welcome aboard. Great to have you with us. And regardless of where you are listening or what time you’re listening to us, we do this program live every day, 12 to 1:00 PM Eastern time and quite a number of stations carry it live. So if you’re listening live as we’re doing this, great to have you there. But then the bulk of the over 500 in some stations that carry this program will then carry it at some point later in the day.

So I don’t know at which point you aren’t listening to us, but we are honored to have you as a part of the standing the gap today listening family. Now the theme today is this God in America 2020, is he God, is he unconstitutional? So David New is with me as this is our bimonthly emphasis. But before I get into we’re talking about the constitutional aspect. As I considered this question, I know that you have it, I’ve asked it and it’s almost like a foundational part before we build the house a little bit. And that is this question from a biblical perspective, from God’s perspective, if there was a question that would be posed, it would be in America 2026 is God still God? Now think about that. For most people, I’m going to say they don’t really care to consider this question since believe it or not, 94% in reality embrace the religion of syncretism.

We get that from George Barn surveys. We’ve shared it on this program. Now what does that mean? Well, that means that the number one religion in America, 94% of Americans according to the research hold to a religion of syncretism made up of, well a little bit, a lot of religions, a little bit of Christianity, a little bit of Judaism, a little bit of new age, a little bit of atheism, a little bit of Hinduism. And more so to ask 94% of the people, if they believe that there is a God, most all of them would say yes. But when the overwhelming majority do not believe that the Bible is all true, which is what the research shows about 60%. And the majority of those, I’m going to say even those who are born again, who say they’re born again or evangelical, don’t believe the Bible Bible’s all true or a majority of those who say they’re born again and evangelical, don’t believe that Jesus lived a totally sinless earthly life.

Imagine that. Well, when that’s the case, then it’s safe to conclude that their definition of God is not the God of the Bible. Yahweh is not their God. And when I consider how God would answer the question of whether he is God and feared as God, Yahweh the God of the Bible, we know what he would say because the people have said it in the research, it would be the same thing that God described Israel to be by the mouth of Isaiah as recorded in Isaiah 29 13 and other passages where God told the nation describing Israel, they draw near to me, drawn near to God and with their mouth and their lips, they honor me, but their heart is far from God and having no fear of God. The New Testament, the Apostle Paul described our current days, two Timothy, three Timothy there about perilous times coming in the last days and described the generation of people alive at that point.

Now I would say, but one of those was that the people would manifest a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. The word of God is not authoritative. Jesus Christ is not totally sinless when he lived here. That’s the idea. So in America is the God of the Bible. God, I think the answer is quite clear, David raising the question of whether God is actually unconstitutional in America is a question really worthy of considering on the program. And we’ll get to the actual statutory and judicial considerations that you’ve laid out in the next segment. But in a practical way, I addressed this in a foundational way in my introduction, which I just did, but in a general way to you, is God unconstitutional in the United States? How would you address that from your perspective?

David New:

That is actually a very difficult question to answer for many different reasons. Is God unconstitutional? In some ways, yes, and in some ways no. But just briefly talking about what you introduced this part, most people treat God. Say for instance, your grandpa’s living in your home, he’s 90 years old and he lives in you take care of him all the time. But basically people treat God like he’s an old grandpa. You’ll initially give attention to him, make sure he gets out of bed, you feed him and you tell him you love him and then you go about the rest of your day as if he’s not there. And that’s the way most people are when it comes to God. Jews, they pray to God three times a day because of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and they pray facing towards Jerusalem. And this is something that Americans have never done and it’s not such a bad idea that we started.

But in some ways the answer is yes. In some ways the answer is no. Different parts of the country of the United States will answer that question differently. If you compare California with Alabama or New York with Oklahoma, you will find that God is unconstitutional more than one of those states than the other. By far, God is pretty much not welcome in the California culture. He’s not liked and the government is likely to declare God or religion unconstitutional in a far greater number of ways and times than say Alabama. Of course there are exceptions are good people in California who love God, but by and large the culture is anti-God as it possibly could be. By contrast, the government and culture of Alabama is far more welcoming to God and would be very, very hesitant to ever declare God to be unconstitutional. If there’s any way they can avoid it, only federal law would force that.

Also, different ages of people have a different idea about God since older people tend to be closer to death, they tend to be more interested in God than younger people. Although we’re starting to see maybe a turn with many of the younger people that they may be becoming more interested in God and this can have a profound impact. Even income levels show a difference between God and the interest in God. And scripture itself says that if you look at one Corinthians 1 27 is that, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty in verse 26 for you, see your calling brethren, how not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or called rich people have a real problem. They think they’ve got it all. They don’t need God. Why do I need God?

There’s nothing in this world that I can’t have if I want it because I have lots of wealth. I remember when I was a chaplain, one of the chaplains at a prison in Concord, Massachusetts where the first shot was fired and they put a prison there. I wish they hadn’t done it, but that’s where they put it. And one of the things I told the people that attended church with us, the prisoners, as I said, God with great lengths to get your attention, God you committed crimes and now he sent you here to get your attention and to straighten yourself out, to get ready to meet your maker. I also told him, I told the prisoners, you are more free than the vast majority outside these walls are. You’re more free than they are and you’re more free than they’ll ever be because you have Jesus.

If you have Jesus, you’re free. It doesn’t matter how many walls around you. And they’d like that and it helped change their attitude in prison life and made it better for them. So there are different ways to look at this question. Is God unconstitutional? It depends. Now, technically we can’t say that the United States has declared God unconstitutional because of our national motto in God, we trust because of the pledge allegiance under God. So this precludes the possibility for the United States government to hold God unconstitutional. But there is one case, one case that comes closest to actually doing it than all the other cases. And we’re going to discuss that case in just a

Sam Rohrer:

Minute and stay with us ladies and gentlemen, because we will. Now we’re going to move from that which I stated before in reality as God would look at our nation and our people. Yeah, 94% have said, alright, now that being the case, zeroing in on the matter of law and constitutionality when we come back, we’re going to talk to David about that one act, that one judicial act and relative to law that would be closest to coming to say that God is not constitutional. I think you find it interesting. We’ll be right back. Alright David, let’s now go and look at what’s actually in law or judicial precedent or however that would be that bears down on what you set up in the last segment as an evidence or the one example that would indicate in probably the closest fashion that God is unconstitutional. Now clearly the Constitution we know, but you’re going to explain that. So I want you to go there right now and so share this with us. My guess is very few people, probably very few in office themselves, would be aware of this case.

David New:

Yes, you’re absolutely right. This case is not well known, but this case is the closest in my opinion, to declaring God unconstitutional. Now it’s very interesting. This case was decided one year before the Engle case. Now you remember the Engle case, Engle versus Vital. In 1962 the Supreme Court declared a prayer called the Regent’s Prayer unconstitutional. And the prayer was 22 words long. And this is the prayer that started the whole culture, war of God and the public life of America. It started the whole thing right here. This is the beginning of the culture war in 1962 with this 22 word prayer. Listen to this prayer, almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country. Let me say that again, almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.

That prayer was said in the New York Public schools and the Supreme Court in 62 said no more prayer in the public schools. And this started the fight. This started a massive war, a culture war in the United States. Now one year before, one year before the case that almost effectively declared God unconstitutional was decided, the Engel case was decided on June 25th, 1962, the case. The case that almost did it was decided on June 19th, 1961. So in a way, Engel is built upon Toca. The name of the case is Ocasio versus Watkins, Toca versus Watkins. This case comes closest to any case as declaring God unconstitutional. The case is from Maryland in Montgomery County. I practiced law in Montgomery County, Maryland from many, many years when I was living on the East Coast and what this case is about, it’s amazing. It was about a man by the name of Roy S Toca and he wanted to be a notary public.

He was also an atheist. Now he wanted to be a notary public and the state of Maryland said, you’ve got to express that you accept the existence of God because that’s what the Maryland Constitution says. He says, Uhuh not going to do it. So he files this case and he loses until he gets to the US Supreme Court and they reverse the lower Maryland courts. And they said, this guy has got to be admitted. Now I’m going to share with you my belief on the holding of this case because a lot of lawyers have a different view. Most lawyers think that this case says you can’t have any statements in your Constitution where they have to express faith in God. That is not the holding of this case is you can have like the Maryland Constitution where you are required to give a statement of faith in God.

But if somebody doesn’t want to do that, you can’t force them to do that and you’ve got to let them to go on and take the job. Okay? Now look what this means. This guy is a notary public, one of the least significant official positions to have. He’s an atheist. And look what it is, how small this position was and yet the profound impact it has. Ladies and gentlemen, if you think you can’t make a difference, please consider Roy s Toca. He was one person, he was only trying to be a notary public and he was an atheist and he had a profound impact on the world. So you remember when you go to church on Sunday, you may not think it makes a difference, but people are watching you. What you do matters. Well, okay, so Maryland loses and this guy gets to become a notary public and they say, well, it violates the First Amendment, the establishment clause, and all of this stuff.

So in that context, God was declared unconstitutional because of the First Amendment. Well, there’s a slight problem. Everything the Supreme Court said in that case was absolute nonsense. Listen to this. The word oath appears in the US Constitution in two places, an Article two for the President of the United States and an Article six. For the state judges and other people, they have to take an oath. Now an oath. The word oath means God, you might as well put the word God in there because an oath is only made to God. Even the liberals admit that. So it’s another word for God. Now, in this situation, the President, effectively when he takes an oath, he is saying God exists. Now, the US Constitution does allow an affirmation which is not an oath. And what that means is if you don’t want to say your belief in God, you were permitted to do that.

But remember that only applied to Quakers and people who for religious reasons would not give an oath. It was not put there for the benefit of atheists. Now, how do we know that it is legal for the government to require a belief in God before service to the government? How do we know that? The word oath is in Article two for the President. But the word oath doesn’t appear in Article three it says nothing about an oath for the Supreme Court, which is the Article three authority. It talks about an oath. In article two, the president article one has nothing about an oath either, which is about Congress, but the most likely reason the word oath does not appear in Article One is because each state had a different kind of religious oath that they wanted their people to take. So they left it out. But Article three doesn’t have an oath ATUs. So what happens? The Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 on September 24th. And in that law it point blank says that all members that come to the Supreme Court must say these words.

So help me God. So here it is, these people in 1961 are saying it’s unconstitutional to require a belief in God. And here the same people had to take that exact oath that was written on September 24th, 1789. By the way, that is still the law to this day. That oath is still required. And on September 25th what happened? That’s the day Congress finished their work on the Bill of Rights, on the First Amendment. This is how we can know this is total nonsense. This raises an interesting question. By the way, can a US Supreme Court justice be an atheist? Well, when you read, not only did it require the Supreme Court to say so help me God, it required US marshals. It required local level courts to say it. It required various groups within the federal government. They had to express a faith in God. And this law is still in effect for the Supreme Court. So all of these people that have been added to the Supreme Court, all of them had to say these words or they could give an affirmation. Now that might be an out for them, but it wasn’t meant for them. It wasn’t meant for an atheist. It was only meant for people who were Quakers and people who would not give an oath for a religious reason.

Sam Rohrer:

And ladies and gentlemen, and David, that’s a great little monologue right there. Ladies and gentlemen, were you aware of all that here? Very quickly, an oath. Here’s the definition. David referred to it. It’s not a promise, an oath, a solemn affirmation or declaration made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. So you get the idea. All right, that makes a big difference. When we come back, we’re going to continue and conclude by looking at this individual, this atheist, their view as it would approach the Constitution. Well, as we go into our final segment here today and try to wrap up this emphasis, David, what you shared in the last segment was really enlightening. I know for most of our listeners, I learned some things from what you shared as well. But one of the things I was thinking of going as you were speaking was this, you cited the definition of oath and then I read the definition of oath.

It’s a solemn affirmation or declaration made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed. Alright, that’s an oath. And that oath, that word is embedded within the Constitution. As you talked about that application when you went into law, you took an oath many times after being elected to a term of office. I took that oath having my hand on the Bible on one side and my other hand raised to God on the other. So does every person who’s in office, including those in the judiciary, as you said. Yet when it comes time to actually make a ruling, people conveniently forget what an oath means. And out of that comes the kind of example, the case that you cited. But I find it interesting, David, as a thought. And then I want to ask you some further thoughts here. But it is the fact that, well, you’ve got a book that you’re writing, you’re hoping to get out soon.

I want you to share just a bit about that. But in a book I wrote a couple of years ago that basically picked up 11 principles that were embraced by our founders, it was actually laid down in essence by William Penn here in Pennsylvania and his frame of government that our founders, many of them referred to, it actually laid out the concept of government, the principles that needed to be in order for God to bless this holy experiment in freedom, which is what Penn said. But the very first thing that was laid down was that in the process there needed to be the principle of integrity. And in my book, one of the senses that’s in there is that there can be no nation. Our founders affirm this. There can be no nation of integrity unless people of integrity have the most influence within it.

And it means a government of integrity, meaning they do what they say and they say what they do and they do what the words. And they don’t redefine words like oath and make it into a simple promise. No, it’s an oath before God, as an example. Literally means a government that is whole or morally complete. It means a government based on God’s definition of morality and marked by honesty, justice and uprightness and transactional dealings with each other. And then it goes on. But David, that goes to the heart of it because you can put into the constitution words of which there are great words, declaration of independence. There are great words, but unless you actually do what those words say and you uphold them and not redefine them, it’s kind of like the Israelites I read from Isaiah when God said they talk nice words, but their heart is far from me. And they do the opposite. David, we have a constitution, we have law, but if we redefine the words, we can redefine God. And that’s exactly one of the things that have happened. I just set that as a preface, but go further into this. Do you believe this whole fight by this particular fellow back in Maryland years ago, this atheist, you think that there’s another important lesson to be learned from that whole? Another reason? Can you tell us what that is?

David New:

There is, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to talk about an area of the Constitution that is seldom discussed, but it needs to be so please carefully listen to what I’m going to say. At the time of the Constitution, atheists in the United States were despised. They hated atheists. Atheists were the social lepers of their day. What does that mean? It means that when the Constitution was written, when they call the convention to hold the constitutional Convention, not one single atheist was present. None. Not a none. Why? Because many of the states had a religious test that they had to take about their belief in God. Belief In the Old Testament belief in the New Testament, you look at some of David Barton’s books and he’ll lay ’em all out for you. Now, what does that do? They put those religious tests in their constitution, not only for officers, but for anybody who took a position unquote public trust.

That refers to those who attended the delegate, the Constitution of the United States. They did it because they excluded, they want to exclude atheists from the government. That was the whole purpose of these religious tests. They were all creationists, every one of them, the whole culture. And they believe God governs not only in your religious life but in your government as well. So not one single atheist attended the constitutional convention, try to find one. And of the 39 signers who signed the Constitution, not one of them was an atheist. Now, I told you before that the affirmation besides an oath, you’re allowed to give an affirmation only applied to Quakers and people who for religious reasons would not take an oath, but it was not given to atheists as an option for them. Where do you find that? David? You find it in Jefferson’s own law.

Thomas Jefferson wrote a law. And in this law, while he was a member of the Virginia Congress or the House of Burgess, he wrote two laws, law number 98 and law number 119 and Ed Law number 98. He required everybody who serves the government of Virginia to say, so help me God. He banned Atheist two. Well, how do you know that David? Because of what? Law number 119. That law was written by Jefferson, and he wrote a law for the benefit of Quakers, who for religious reasons would not take an oath. They were allowed to give an affirmation. Now, let me read it to you. What this law says. Be enacted by the General Assembly that any person refusing to take an oath and declaring religious scruples to be the true and only reason of such refusal, he will be allowed to give some kind of an affirmation. The affirmation does not apply to atheists. They were excluded. Now, this is important for another reason. Listen, listen, the modern professors of law and historians and scholars say the Constitution is a secular document. How can we know that’s not true? How can we know that? Even tr called Thomas Payne the filthy little atheist. How can we know that the Constitution is not a secular document because of atheism, their attitude of atheism. They despised atheist and the secular constitution and atheist constitution 200 years ago. They might as well be the same thing.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, we’re out of time and that was excellent. Excellent. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you get bit the program. Go back and listen to it again, a lot of information in this today. David New is guest and next program we’ll talk about a book that he has coming out. Didn’t have time to get to that today. It’s still in process. We’ll talk to you about that and how you can get it. And if the program’s been helpful to you today, forward it to a friend, tell a friend how they can get it. Stand in the gap radio.com or on our Stand in the Gap app, share it with a friend, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow. The Lord are willing.