Protestant-Catholic-Jew by 1950s

Twelve Ten Commandments monuments remain in public squares in Minnesota, originally part of an effort to promote both biblical values and the 1956 film by the same name.

Sociologists found the 1950s to be a high-water mark in terms of American religious participation: churches, parishes, and synagogues were as packed as ever, and new forms of rapprochement across religious lines obtained, united during the Cold War in opposition to the godless materialism that most Americans saw afflicting the Eastern bloc. Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said in a speech “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is.” At Eisenhower’s bidding, Congress added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and “In God we Trust” to its coinage in 1956. The paired term Judeo-Christian may roll off the tongue today, but it was really in the 1950s when the serious differences between the Jewish and Christian traditions became less compelling than their commonality as part of “a tradition.” The sociologist Will Herberg framed this American religiosity -- or religious Americanism -- Protestant-Catholic-Jew in his 1955 book by that title.¹ 

In October of 1956, Metro Goldwyn Mayer released Cecil B. DeMille’s monumental Ten Commandments, aligning the Hebrew captivity under Pharaoh with contemporary despotism, often with a Red backdrop. To promote the film, the Fraternal Order of Eagles began erecting stone Ten Commandment monuments in public squares throughout the country; twelve of them still remain in Minnesota, including Duluth and Faribault.