Congress undermined American unity in 1956 when it replaced our 175 year old national motto, E Pluribus Unum ("Out Of Many, One"), with "In God We Trust" theology, thus demoting to an implied outsider status the agnostics, atheists, deists, polytheists and other citizens who do not ascribe to this theology. This government assertion of a fixed ideological orthodoxy is intellectually and spiritually stifling. Ideological contention is a necessary and desired result of the freedoms that are the real source of our unity and strength. The 1956 motto, by claiming that our unity rests on disregarding the reality of such sincere individual disagreement, is self-defeating.
What would you do if our official Pledge of Allegiance declared we are "one nation that denies God exists"? Would you skip the phrase "that denies God exists" and let others know that you dissent? Would you feel alienated, pressured to conformity and self-censorship to retain your privacy and the respect of your community? Similar questions confront millions of the best kinds of American citizens who consider it sacreligious to mention God in national pledges, or who think God is disinterested in nation states, or who believe in multiple Gods or Godesses or in no Gods. Congress dishonored the patriotism of these law-abiding, productive citizens in 1954 when it added "under God" to the national pledge law.
The national government established monotheism as a national religious belief towards the end of the McCarthy era, beginning with the annual National Day of Prayer law in 1952. Influenced by the Cold War, the United States of America undercut its promise of government respect for freedom of conscience for all citizens by adopting laws that declared the civic community to be monotheist.
Everyone is entitled to embrace or reject faith and profess or not profess their beliefs without government counsel. Liberty and justice are best respected when government laws and institutions are indifferent regarding agnosticism, animism, atheism, deism, monotheism, pantheism, polytheism, etc. Those "isms" are personal beliefs belonging to individuals, not to governments. Limited government doesn't express favoritism regarding competing candidates for government office or competing commercial products. Similiarly, limited government doesn't express favoritism regarding competing metaphysical worldviews. On such matters of individual conscience limited government is silent.