One Nation Under God…or Not?

Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

10/6/02

 

Meditation for 10/6/02

Creative Spirit, Spirit of Life

That which we cannot fully know or understand…

 

Autumn is now coloring our yards and trees

like a child anxious to use all her Crayolas--

red-orange, burnt sienna, raw umber and goldenrod--

Dabbling our world with its own color.

 

This week rain soaked our dusty rooftops and streets

Washing away any leftover heat from a summer now past

Cleansing our corner of the world with its own water.

 

Each day now, the evening falls sooner

Night arriving earlier despite our protest,

Draping the world in its own darkness.

 

And this week our nation moved one step closer

To invading a country that we have been told

Threatens the world.

May the coming days bring our elected officials

Clarity of mind and purpose

And commitment to preserving peace for as long as possible

So that our world need not be bathed in its own blood.

 

Meanwhile, our individual lives continue to tell their own stories:

Some people this week found new jobs and some found new love.

Some found sudden illness and some found surprising loss.

Some people this week went hungry and some went on vacation,

And some found new hope arising out of the ruins of old pain.

 

May each of us in the days to come

find the means to make sense of our lives,

Our unique narratives of joy and sorrow,

The only stories we may call our own.

And may we discover possibilities within our limitations,

resiliency emerging from our disappointments,

and peace of mind and spirit…

 

the same peace out of which we all emerged

and into which we will all eventually return.

Amen.

 

 

 

Reading

“The American Commitment” by Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies (1902-1957) who served All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, DC.

 

“The American commitment is to universal justice, the rights of all people, not the special interests of some.  It is a commitment to fair play, to patience, to tolerance, to neighborliness.  It is a commitment to the common good.  It protects liberty with unity, the opportunity of each with the good of all.  It is compassionate, humanitarian.  It believes in humanity and its future.  It is the Golden Rule.  It is based upon the claim of conscience and the faith in goodness.  It begins not in a system but within the heart.

 

It battles prejudice and false opinion.  It seeks the truth.  It is opposed to barriers of exclusiveness.  Its principles are universal.  It despises cowardice, including moral cowardice.  But it also has no use for obstinacy, inflexibility, and intolerance.  It prefers honesty to cleverness, kindness to self-sufficiency, goodwill to narrow-minded aims.  It is a way of life now and a faith, a vision of the future.  It is a purpose to be served.

 

If anyone asks by what right I define these characteristics as American, I point him to those Americans the rest of us revere as great.  I say that America is defined by the moral progress she has sought, and by exemplars, not by the hour of perfidy and by her little-minded, greedy foes.

 

And if anyone tells me that these characteristics are more than American, that they are universal, I will reply that that is why they are American.  Because this nation was not founded on the divisive and the separate, but upon the rights of all people.  Can we restore these standards?  Can we seek again the touch of greatness?

 

The future will depend upon the answer.  Upon what takes place in heart and conscience.  A nation, like an individual, must have a soul.”

 

 

Sermon

I don’t remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school while I was growing up.  I know that my classmates and I were encouraged to recite its words, but I don’t remember actually doing so.  I am certain that I recited it as a member of the Boy Scouts, but again I don’t remember doing so.  I’m certain I recited its words several times when, as a high school student, I spent a week at an American Legion-sponsored mock-government event called Boy’s State, but I don’t remember doing so. I do remember listening to the words of the pledge as a child, though.

 

In the record collection I shared with my siblings was a square, plastic-coated cardboard recording of Red Skelton doing his then famous “Pledge of Allegiance” speech.  We must have gotten it from Burger King, because I remember watching the company’s logo spin around on the turntable as the record played. In this speech, which you can still access on the internet, Skelton tells the story of how a teacher had explained the pledge to his class one day, breaking down each phrase to its essential meaning.  I listened to that recording countless times as a child, probably because I was intrigued by the fact that a square, cardboard record would actually play on our record player.  I think I also listened to it because there was something mysterious and charming about it.  It was so earnest. The words seemed so important. It seemed as though Red might break into tears at any moment.  An adult male almost crying…now that was fascinating to me. 

 

And that pretty much sums up my personal history with the Pledge of Allegiance.  As an adult, I have devoted little thought to the Pledge. I have mostly accepted it as a throwback to an era before my time…no stranger than the fact that our national anthem is a song about rockets and bombs or that the back of our dollar bill features a pyramid with that creepy eye on top. But I have occasionally wondered why we expect our children to make a vow of loyalty to a flag that most of us do not also regularly make.  And I have at times speculated why people who don’t believe in God are curiously left out of a pledge of loyalty to a nation that prides itself in being a home of religious freedom and liberty.

 

But in general I have given the Pledge of Allegiance little attention.  Until late June of this year, that is, when a three-judge panel of the 9^th Circuit Court ruled 2 to 1 that a California school district’s policy requiring teachers to lead children in the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First Amendment, specifically the part about prohibition against the establishment of a state religion.  The portion of the pledge most in question in this decision was, of course, the phrase “under God.” In the ruling, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin (an appointee of President Nixon) wrote: “A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical…to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.” The ruling conveyed that the “under God” portion of the pledge amounts not only to state endorsement of religion, but also a subtle form of coercion over elementary school students. Goodwin wrote: “Although [individual] students cannot be forced to participate in recitation of the pledge, the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge.”

 

My initial reaction to the news of this decision was surprise.  I was not surprised because the court ruled the way it did; after all if the courts have agreed that school prayer is not appropriate, why would requiring teachers to lead their students in a pledge to our flag that contains the words “One nation under God” be appropriate?  My surprise was that someone actually took this to court.  I confess that soon after I heard the news of the ruling, I made some perhaps unfair assumptions about Mr. Michael Newdow, the Sacramento atheist who brought the case so that his eight-year-old daughter would not have to recite the pledge in her second-grade class.  I figured he was either a hopeless literalist who needed to lighten up, or he was a desperate pit-bull trying to get back at the school board, or his ex-wife, or the faith of his childhood, or all of the above. The thought also crossed my mind that he might be a cranky Unitarian Universalist trying to make a point and push a few buttons (no confirmation of this yet) which brought to me a strange mixture of pride and concern. I felt pride because questioning the status quo is always an appropriate activity for our liberal faith. But, I admit I was also concerned because enough misconceptions about Unitarian Universalism already exist. I wouldn’t want Unitarian Universalism to become synonymous with atheism, for the reality is there are countless numbers of UUs who do believe in God.

 

As the news of the court’s decision spread and the predictable furor ensued, I became less concerned with the possible personality flaws of Mr. Newdow and more concerned about the reactive presumptions being made by our media. 

 

The Washington Post claimed  “If the court were writing a parody, rather than deciding an actual case, it could hardly have produced a more provocative holding than striking down the Pledge of Allegiance while this country is at war.”  To which I must respond, saying that the words “under God” should not be recited in school is not “striking down the Pledge.” 

 

The San Francisco Chronicle fretted  “the separation of church and state should not preclude Americans from reciting the pledge of allegiance.”  To which I must respond, the court’s decision does not preclude anyone from reciting the Pledge…on their own time.

 

And the Indianapolis Star chimed in:  “What’s next?  Shall we throw away our coins that say, ‘In God We Trust’? …Shall we delete ‘so help me God’ from the oath of office…?  If [the Court’s] ruling is allowed to stand, it won’t be long before we do all those things.  And it won’t be much longer after that before our nation, deprived of its anchor and its faith, collapses.”  To which I must respond, “If this country which takes so much pride in the notion of religious freedom has been held together all this time only by the glue of God, then why do we need courts at all?”

 

Our elected officials were equally reactive. The Senate unanimously approved a bi-partisan resolution that expressed support for the reference to God in the pledge, and instructed the Senate’s legal counsel to intervene in the case.  I’m sure if there is a God, he, she or it is probably thrilled to have the backing of the US Senate and its legal counsel.  Congress responded to the court’s ruling by gathering the next day on the front steps of the Capitol to recite the Pledge of Allegiance en masse.  This must have been quite a spectacle, not only because having all representatives there on time is no doubt a rarity, but because history has shown that it’s entirely possible that not all of them even know the words.

 

During the 1988 presidential election, you see, after Republican candidate George Bush (the elder) criticized Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis for his decision as Massachusetts governor to veto mandatory recitation of the pledge in the state’s public schools, Bush himself had to be encouraged by his campaign manager to memorize it.  Apparently, the teachers and students in the New England private schools Bush attended, (Greenwich Country Day School and Phillips Andover Academy), did not recite the pledge.  By contrast, it is worth noting, Dukakis and his mother, a public school teacher, recited the Pledge in the public schools. 

 

Our current President Bush said soon after the 9^th circuit Court of Appeals’ decision:  “There is a universal God, in my opinion.  The Almighty is, obviously, an important part of my life, [and] a very important part of the life of our country.  And that’s why the ruling of the court was out of step with the traditions and history of America.”

 

I now interrupt this quote from our President so that we may share some history:

 

The Pledge of Allegiance was created in 1892 by a socialist named Francis Bellamy. The year before he wrote the Pledge, Bellamy was forced to resign as minister of a Baptist church in Boston for speaking out against capitalism and preaching sermons like “Jesus the Socialist” and “The Socialism of the Primitive Church.”  He then joined the staff of the Youths’ Companion a national family magazine for youth.  The Pledge was written for the magazine to be used during a nation-wide public school observance of Columbus Day in honor of the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of America.

 

The original pledge was “I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which is stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.”  Bellamy reportedly considered including the words “fraternity” and “equality” in the pledge but decided they were too radical and controversial for public schools.  Based on the reaction to the Circuit court’s ruling, one wonders if “fraternity” and “equality” might be too radical even today.

 

When the pledge was first recited, it was done so with a “stiff, uplifted right hand salute.” But during WWII, this practice was discontinued.  The words “my flag” were changed to “the flag of the United States of America” because it was feared that the children of immigrants might confuse “my flag” for the flag of their homeland.  The phrase “under God” as most of you now know, was added in 1954 by Congress and President Eisenhower during the height of the Cold War to strengthen the contrast between the generally “God-fearing” US and the generally “God-less” Communists.

 

So, if we are really as concerned with tradition and history as President Bush claims, perhaps we should reinstate the stiff right hand salute…or better yet, embrace the Pledge as it was originally written.

 

But as we return to the words of our President, we can see this is not what he has in mind:  “America,” he said, “is a nation that values our relationship with an Almighty.  Declaration of God in the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t violate rights.  As a matter of fact, it’s a confirmation of the fact that we received our rights from God, as proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence.”

 

Disturbingly, if not predictably, Bush then said the ruling “points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God.  And those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.”  Common-sense judges…sounds good in theory, but I, for one, have come to realize during Bush’s time as chief executive that “common sense” to our President is synonymous with whatever he thinks…or maybe with whatever his advisors tell him he should think.

 

Despite my issues with President Bush’s notion of “common sense” I acknowledge that there are many in our country who share his views and those conveyed by the lone dissenting judge on the Circuit Court panel, Ferdinand Fernandez (appointed by Bush the elder) who contends that there is only a “miniscule” risk that the use of the phrase “under God” would “bring about a theocracy or suppress someone’s beliefs.”

 

And I would not be surprised if the Supreme Court--which by the way, opens each oral argument with the cry of “God save the United States and this honorable court”--overturns the ruling on the grounds that the “under God” portion is simply what late justice William Brennan described as “ceremonial deism”-- traditional references to a higher power so frequently invoked that they have lost any specific religious meaning.  But I have to wonder, if the primary argument on behalf of maintaining the “under God” portion of the pledge is that God doesn’t have any specific meaning, then why say it at all? 

 

Furthermore, in our pluralistic society where there are almost as many ideas about God as there are people, is a nation truly “under God” an appropriate goal?  I guess it all depends on what God we are talking about. 

 

It’s easy to be held accountable to a God who always agrees with us.  If this is the God we are “under” then we can be certain that we are not only the chosen people, but we have the right to impose our vision of the divine on others.  If this is the God we are “under,” then of course our nation has the right to use up more than its share of the world’s resources; of course we have the right to invade other countries, to deny civil liberties to people we have reason to believe are not “real” Americans, to proclaim with righteous indignation our need for UN-backing when we have not been UN-backers ourselves.  No problem, you see, for we have the “big guy” or “big gal” or “big it” on our side.  But what are those of us to do who find this kind of God untenable…if not downright dangerous?  Is there a better way?