The War For The Soul Of America - Keeping God In Our Pledge

Fifty years ago, young children all across America walked into their respective school rooms and with pride bursting in their young chests they recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and there was a new and deeper meaning reflected in the new addition to this pledge. The addition was "One nation under God."

What is interesting and insightful about this was its genesis. Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. Another person of the cloth was responsible for bringing the nation's attention to the need to amend it in 1952 and again in 1954, when "One nation under God," was added.

Now, fifty years later tens of millions of Americans who have raised families, many of who are now grandparents, are seeing this wonderful standard, this shining beacon light of our culture, not only being challenged but with it the feeling that the heart and soul of America is being ripped from its core.

We don't think the blame can be laid entirely at the foot of the parent from California, who claims that he is trying to protect his child from religious intrusion. No, we suggest that the genesis of this potential debacle occurred much earlier, long before this California parent was beginning to play in his neighborhood sandbox, and long before he was offended by the true meaning and essence of both the flag of our nation and what "One nation under God" truly represents.

When Madeline Murray O'Hair began her frontal assault in her infamous and successful effort to take prayer out of our school, she also helped initiate the once slow, but now rapid fire pace of the secularization of America - the effort to undermine and remove the character, the principles and the heartland values of our nation. Misguided Madeleine Murray O'Hair viewed the phrase as a uniquely American attempt at exclusion.

In actuality, our fore fathers, who were uniquely qualified to understand the tyrannical history of a forced belief system, understood that prayer in school and home was an open embrace for all belief systems or none. You were never expected to follow one belief system, just respect that we, as America, have one based on Judeo-Christian roots. Ms. O'Hair totally missed the point that prayer in school was an attempt at inclusion, at unity, which would encompass all who came to our nation's shores as well as remaining open to the millions who would come to our nation afterward. She got it all wrong and what has she wrought? What are we left with?

We are left with more than a mere lawsuit which on March 24th the U. S. Supreme Court has taken up, but with a concerted effort over the past several decades to erode the very fabric, the standards that guide us and determine who we are as Americans and the type of nation we are, the history of our creation.

Today it is politically correct to abandon the essence of America, and replace it with a politically correct secular ideology, which erodes and tears at the heart and soul of American families

There are those, including the parent in California, who are claiming that the removal of the words: "Under God" is truly necessary because we have to respect the separation of church and state in public schools. What we are really seeing is not a separation of church and state from public schools, but the true separation of the symbol of who we are from our children and the world and nation they will be inheriting in all areas of the public discourse.

As Americans, we should not be shocked, amazed or awed by the slow slide of our social values, when prayer was removed from the classroom. The lack of respect, courtesy, common manners and respect for our elders should not appall us.

As a young Detroiter and young New Yorker growing up we remember when we were reminded of how to behave, of how to speak in a civil tone, of how to refrain from profanity, and not just by our parents, but by Mr. Smith or Mr. Jenkins down the street on way from school on Deacon and Ethel Street in Detroit, or The Pauls, the neighbors on 56th Street on the way to the neighborhood grocers in New York, who had the watchful eye for polite behavior as well as the keen ear for correct language.

That era was incised out of our culture when the Madeline Murray O'Hair doctrine became the staple of American culture. Now, God is actively being removed from our culture, and has become front and center in our public debate. The war over the future of our American culture is on.

Well, before we talk about the war, lets harken back to the how and the why it is important to support these symbolic words and who led the fight for them.

Interestingly enough, two Wayne County, Michigan leaders, one a Republican U.S. senator and the other a Democrat congressman, joined together as Americans to cement our nation's heritage with our nation's character.

U.S. Senator Homer Samuel Ferguson from Wayne County, and a resident of Grosse Pointe, and Congressman Louis Charles Rabaut a Democrat from Wayne County and a native Detroiter; joined bipartisan forces to help rekindle the American spirit. And now for the rest of the story.

Rev. Doughtery, the originator of the phrase, had a young school age child, as does the litigant in the Supreme Court case. He was concerned about what the words were not speaking to. He was concerned as he prepared his text for his sermon before 500 religious leaders in Washington D.C., that there was something essential missing.

He found the answer in his child, who had recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school earlier that day, but without the phrase "one nation under God." He felt there was no way to distinguish our pledge from any other pledge of allegiance to the flag of France, Iraq or Russia.

He wanted to convey all of our strengths as well as the depths of all of our sacrifices as a nation. Well, two congressional leaders from Wayne County, Michigan felt the same way. And how fortuitous that it was these leaders from Wayne County, Michigan that took the lead? For it was ninety one years earlier that the Wayne County 24th MI Volunteer Infantry sustained 73% casualties, with 171 soldiers at Gettysburg the greatest loss by any Union regiment during the 3 days at Gettysburg, as they fought to preserve the values, and character of our nation's union. They also had the distinction and sadness of being escorts for President Lincoln's body, who was assassinated on the evening of April 14, 1865 in Washington, DC.

President Eisenhower, on whose watch those eloquently crafted words were inserted into our nation's pledge said, "Ought an individual be required to express a belief in God in order to express allegiance to our nation. No, but a responsible citizen should not be able to declare for all, how allegiance to our nation is to be expressed. I find it almost impossible to believe, that a non-believer in God is so threatened, so coerced, that constitutional protection must be granted and invoked - that his conscience is so broken by its utterance by others, while he tries to express allegiance. How is under God, to a non-believer in God, threatened by those who so believe?"

That is exactly our question as well. The phrase speaks to the very character of who we are as a nation and not to the simplistically crafted ideology that frames the phrase as an assault on the individual right of a parent to not have his child hear the words of the pledge because that parent believes that the phrase represents forced religion upon a child. President Eisenhower and U.S. Senator Homer Samuel Ferguson and Congressman Louis Charles had it correct in 1954.

After the official congressional inclusion of "One nation under God" in the Pledge of the Allegiance, the then president speaking before the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus in Louisville, August 17, 1954, and in recognition of their role in originating and sponsoring the amendment to the Pledge of Allegiance, said:

"We are particularly thankful to you for your part in the movement to have the words 'under God' added to our Pledge of Allegiance. These words will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded."

At the very cradle of our nation's creation, we were a nation founded on spiritual and moral principles and as President Eisenhower said, clearly upon "which our way of life is founded."

That is a statement that speaks to the character of a nation not to the religious purpose of creating a national religion.

If only that individual who brought the lawsuit had taken a couple more minutes, just a couple more minutes to read or to understand that very salient kernel of belief in how the phrase defines the character of our nation.

Helen Keller, although blind and deaf, personified the spirit of our nation. She spoke about character as a noted writer/lecturer. She said, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." That is what "One nation under God" represents. It can be likened directly to what President Washington said when he spoke of our name "American". "The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."

The words "One nation under God" is our standard, embodying the same meaning as the word American. The two are inseparable and indivisible.

Where do we go from here? As Americans, who live in a nation under God, we must draw a line in the sand and say clearly and convincingly that this assault upon our values and the attempt to strip our heritage from our culture must end.

In closing, let us remind you of another true patriot, and a wonderful American icon; Red Skelton. He was one of our nation's most beloved comedians and star of movies, radio and television. In January of 1969, Red Skelton gave his personal view of the Pledge of Allegiance. He spoke those words on his CBS TV "The Red Skelton Hour, in which he explained the meaning of each and every word of the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of his reading he spoke the most telling phrase of all, "Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said, 'That's a prayer', and that it would be eliminated from schools too?"

We must win the war for the soul of America, Our children's future and the future they will inherit depends upon it.

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is also Outreach Communications Vice Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit as well as co-founder of the Jackson, MI-based American Conservative Values Television Network. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show at www.wdtkam.com. daily3-4 PM, On-line and call-in nationwide to make your opinion count toll-free at 800-923-WDTK(9385).

Factoids: Francis Bellamy was also a Utopian Socialist who wrote the Pledge as a generic pledge for any country's flag. It was connected to the United States later on. Bellamy's brother Edward wrote the socialist themed novel 'Looking Backward'.

God doesn't really need our help. Sure, we do best we can to fight for what we believe in. But for the most part, we fall well short in our efforts. He has allowed man to "do his own thing", until he has made such a mess of this place, that only supernatural power can straighten it out. The good news is all this is about to end in the most dramatic and climatic way you can imagine. Get ready to see the Almighty finally start throwing his weight around down here on Earth, in a spectacular finale to man's 6000 years of cursed existence on this planet.

4 posted on 04/28/2005 4:00:03 PM PDT by HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath (Proverbs 10:30 The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.)

One thing that many folks do not realize is that Rev. Bellamy meant the Pledge to be a thumb in the eye to pro-secession Southerners who were still bitter about the Civil War. That is the intent behind the phrase, "One nation, indivisible....".

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