A Nation Under God
Copyright 2001 by Richard Bonomo. This essay may be freely republished
in newpapers and non-profit publications provided it is published in its
entirety and as written. Publication in commercial books, or
any publication of incomplete or modified text is only by the permission
of the author.
An essay submitted to the Wisconsin State Journal as a guest editorial
on 10/25/2001
A longer essay on this topic is or will be available on this web site.
(This version had to be kept short to meet editorial limitations.)
After absorbing and reflecting on the continuing multi-faceted debate regarding
the Pledge of Allegiance, I make the following assertion: the phrase "under
God" in the Pledge is neither a prayer nor, per se, a religious
statement, but the re-assertion of an American political dogma. Those who
assert that public invocations and acknowledgments of the Deity violate
our constitutions display, I think, in almost every case, a great lack
of understanding of what the framers thereof intended. Furthermore, this
particular matter does not, to my mind, even enter the realm of public
religious activity. The Pledge is by no means a prayer, as it is not particularly
addressed to God, but to ourselves and those who may be around us at the
time. It is not, per se, a religious statement either, in that it
is not attempting to assert anything about God nor about a belief
in Him. The Pledge does, as does many a civil statement of note,
simply presume a corporate belief (which is not meant to imply a
unanimous
belief) in God. The assertion made by the Pledge is a re-assertion of this
principal American political dogma: the State is not omnipotent;
it does not have the capacity to define right and wrong. The State's
claims regarding the morality of its actions are circumscribed by Divine
law. The State may not do as it pleases with human persons
because the dignity and the natural rights of men come from God, and no
executive, no legislature, no panel of judges can act in a manner contrary
to that dignity or those rights without due cause without forfeiting his
or its legitimacy and perhaps his or its right to exist.
The 20's through the 50's saw the rise of totalitarian regimes (the
Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist China, and others)
who dared to assert, as tyrants throughout the ages have always been wont
to assert -- though perhaps now on a scale never before seen -- that the
State, or the Party, was the ultimate authority in all matters, was the
very definer of right and wrong, and was thus unconstrained by any external
law. In the face of this, having made the Pledge -- privately composed
in an earlier form circa 1892 -- "official" in 1942, and after a grass-roots
campaign by ordinary American citizens, the Congress of the United States,
in 1954, added the words "under God" to the pledge. This was to make clear
to all men that we understood that being able to do something does not
mean we are free to do it, for there is an overarching moral Law which
circumscribes our behavior as a nation.
As tolerance is a virtue to be exercised by minorities as well as by
majorities, let us say this Pledge proudly and loudly in the public arena
and in our public and private schools, while respecting the consciences
of those who decline to participate in all or part of it. Let all men,
including fanatic theocrats who fancy themselves religious men, and nations
come to know that this secularly governed religious society recognizes
its corporate subservience to our Creator.
May God bless the United States, and may He bless all men of good will
wherever they may be.