The Pledge of Allegiance, Atheism, and American Civil Religion

When I was sixteen (or perhaps seventeen) I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia.  It concerned recent remarks in that paper concerning the necessity of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in remembrance of our forefathers who had apparently come to Virginia seeking religious freedom.  Of course, as a history student, I knew this was untrue, that the Virginia Company was first and foremost a company and that the original settlers were employees there to make a living.  

The Pledge was important at that time because there was a presidential campaign on, and George Bush (père) was making a big deal of it.  In a stunning rejoinder--this is my memory; I'll remember it as I like--I reminded the original commenter and the larger public of the historical fact, adding that many of the Founding Fathers were deists.  For the coup de grâce, I included the text of the original Pledge, written in 1892:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

I concluded the letter by noting that the phrase "under God" in the pledge had been added in 1954, suggesting that the original commenter was mixing things up.

The Pledge became my pet cause that year.  In a mock Congress, I brought a bill removing the phrase from it within one vote of passing.  This may have had something to do with the realization that, by neglect more than trauma, there was no longer room in my life for God.

Now, a quarter-century later, the Pledge is once again in the news, this time with a case in Massachusetts with plaintiffs claiming that the offending phrase "under God" is a violation of the Massachusetts state constitution which guarantees equal protection based on creed.  This is a new tactic; establishment-clause challenges have been declared non-starters as long as participation in the pledge is voluntary.

The current challenge has been brought by an anonymous atheist parent, who has argued that the phrase "under God" discriminates against his or her child by excluding the child.  David Niose, attorney for the plaintiffs (full disclosure: I have a passing, on-line acquaintance with Niose, which means we follow one another on Twitter and have exchanged a tweet or two), has argued that when the Pledge as it currently stands is spoken, atheists and, presumably, other children who may not believe in a single deity, "are denied meaningful participation in this patriotic exercise."  Further, he argues, the Pledge "validates God belief as truly patriotic and actually invalidates atheism."

This argument, which I think is probably the best one leveled against the practice of saying the Pledge as currently written, is interesting.  With it, Niose positions his clients as patriotic Americans whose chief desire is to have their children be able to say the Pledge with conviction.  Suggestions that the children simply not say the Pledge at all fall flat since standing up to peer pressure and the connivance of authority figures seems a bit much to ask of young children.

Of course, resistance is predictable.  Niose and his clients are not just striking at the placement of God in the Pledge, they are striking at the heart of what the late sociologist Robert Bellah called the American Civil Religion (ACR).

The ACR is a set of references and symbols, invocations of God, that serve to call our attention to the "higher purpose" of the nation and to remind us that political authority is grounded in the otherworldy.  They remind us, in a sense, that we are answerable in our political actions to a higher authority and that, when this duty is observed, that authority will look with pleasure on our new order of the ages as the Great Seal (not to mention the dollar bill) has it.

Bellah's contention was that ACR was invoked when politicians make ritual references to God in speeches, in the Pledge, and in the motto "in God we trust."  Such routine use had effectively neutered any sectarian content--Bellah was writing in the 1960s, when the tendency for politicians to wear religiosity on their sleeves was much less pronounced--and were, in a way, proof of how secular American culture had become.

Indeed, the insertion of "under God" into the Pledge bears out the ideas of the ACR.  Bellah quotes Eisenhower as saying "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a religious faith- and I don't care what it is" (emphasis added).  It was during Eisenhower's administration, as the Cold War was getting into full swing that the words were added.

As I have suggested elsewhere, when faced with an existential threat we, as a nation, have adopted stances to rally as many Americans as possible in support of the country.  Adding the words "under God" was one such action, though it assumed belief in the deity was somehow normative.  By this addition, the unspecified deity was enlisted in the American cause.  Americans, for their part, could find assurance that they had the support of divine providence, unlike the "godless communists" who opposed them.

The ACR, then, was a component of the American orthodoxy which, as much as any orthodoxy, functions to give form to what it means to be an insider and helps identify the outsider.

At their best, constructions like the ACR can provide a sense of unity.  This sense of unity is at its base a religious sense, but the ability to unify is one reason religion has persisted.  But in order to maintain its force, it requires an outside threat.  Once the outside threat is gone (in this case the "communist menace") the weapon itself remains, often to be wielded against internal dissidents.

This is what the plaintiffs in the Massachusetts case are up against.  They perceive the reference to God in the Pledge as invalidating their core belief.  Originally intended to unite, the words have become a wedge.  Their opponents wield the sword of ACR in an attempt to bring them back into line.  They will argue that this is a slippery slope, which will lead to the erasure of all mentions of God from the public square.  

Perhaps this erasure would be a good thing; it is not my purpose to argue that here.  Rather I would like to point out that the reference in the Pledge is fundamentally different from, say, references on coins or in political speeches in that it is a daily affirmation in public schools of the deity. 

In the Pledge case before the court, then, it seems that these facts are relevant: some Americans don't believe in God; requiring (or strongly encouraging) them to affirm belief in a higher power violates their rights of conscience; atheistic Americans are as American as anyone else.

Further, as we reflect on this, we should remember how the Pledge came to be in the first place.  It was written in 1892, for a nation not yet thirty years removed from the trauma of the Civil War and which was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage.  Francis Bellamy, the author, was a reform-minded minister, a socialist, and deeply interested in stressing American unity.

Bellamy did not find it necessary to invoke God to serve this purpose.

When God was introduced in those Cold War days, the introduction must have seemed necessary.  But the crisis that occasioned that introduction is gone.  We may soon reach the point--we may already have reached the point--where words once meant to unite have ceased to do so.

Which means it's time to change the words.  If the Pledge is to be meaningful, it must allow all Americans to say it honestly.  And it's not as though there's no precedent for change...