Церемониальный деизм: Религиозные ритуалы и государство в США.

American ritual invocations of religion by government
Ceremonial deism is a legal term used in the United States to designate governmental religious references and practices deemed to be mere cultural rituals and not inherently religious because of long customary usage. Proposed examples of ceremonial deism include the reference to God introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, the phrase "In God We Trust" on U. S. currency, and the Ohio state motto, "With God, all things are possible". The term was coined in 1962 by the then dean of Yale Law School, Eugene Rostow, and has been used since 1984 by the Supreme Court of the United States to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

It has been unsuccessfully argued that the government requiring or promoting the phrase in "under God" violates protections against the establishment of religion guaranteed in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. David Niose argues that reference to religion is not more likely to be harmless merely because it is "ceremonial." Used for the purpose of defending religious references by the government as harmless, he says the term "ceremonial deism" is grossly inaccurate and even dangerous, and argues that genuinely discriminatory governmental actions often escape scrutiny, partly because they are shielded by the euphemism of "ceremonial deism". Professor Martha Nussbaum at the University of Chicago Law school stated in 2008 that "'Ceremonial Deism' is an odd name for a ritual affirmation that a Deist would be very reluctant to endorse, since Deists think of God as a rational causal principle but not as a personal judge and father."