Related articles and links |  1 of 2

Conservative religious organizations were hardly indivisible in responding to the Supreme Court's decision-or rather, indecision-on the Pledge of Allegiance.

Focus on the Family's James Dobson, for example, said the Court "showed a lack of principle that is truly appalling," while American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow praised the justices' "proper conclusion."

The majority was probably right to throw out the case based on atheist Michael Newdow's standing, since the mother of his daughter has "exclusive legal custody," and she's an evangelical who wants her daughter to recite the Pledge as it is. If someone with no custody rights can bring a suit on behalf of his daughter against the wishes of a parent with exclusive custody, the term has no meaning. Besides, Newdow's daughter is also a Christian, so even if he won, his daughter would have continued to recognize herself "under God."

But it's almost irrelevant. Observers almost unanimously agreed that Newdow was going to lose. Other "under God" challenges are already working their way through lower courts, and analysts say they won't succeed either.

What we don't know, however, is why the justices will support the phrase. And that's why the concurring opinions are so important-they offer fundamentally differing views of religion in the public square.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist says the Pledge's religious language is okay because it's historical. "Our national culture allows public recognition of our Nation's religious history and character," he wrote. "The phrase 'under God' in the Pledge seems, as a historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the Nation's leaders, and to manifest itself in many of our public observances. Examples of patriotic invocations of God and official acknowledgments of religion's role in our Nation's history abound." Describing our Republic as one nation under God is merely a "recognition of the fact … that our Nation was founded on a fundamental belief in God."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agrees that the phrase is historically religious. "It is unsurprising that a Nation founded by religious refugees and dedicated to religious freedom should find references to divinity in its symbols, songs, mottoes, and oaths," she wrote. "Eradicating such references would sever ties to a history that sustains this Nation even today." But such references are not okay because they're old, she argues; they're okay because they've lost all religious meaning. "Whatever the sectarian ends its authors may have had in mind, our continued repetition of the reference to 'one Nation under God' in an exclusively patriotic context has shaped the cultural significance of that phrase to conform to that context. Any religious freight the words may have meant to carry originally has long since been lost." This is "ceremonial deism," and O'Connor says it serves "to solemnize an occasion instead of to invoke divine provenance."

Christians who truly believe themselves "under God" should find this argument far more troubling than the idea of children reciting the Pledge without the phrase. Good Christian theology warns against making strong distinctions between "secular" and "religious" purposes as O'Connor does here. We hold allegiance to our country, after all, only because we hold our wholehearted allegiance to God, and he has commanded us to be subject to the governing authorities. But we must never use the name of God blithely for patriotic purposes. Scripture repeatedly tells us that God is jealous for his name. We dare not ever invoke it without "religious freight." That would be the very essence of taking his name in vain.

next page... |  1 of 2

August 2004, Vol. 48, No. 8