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PASTOR’S
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"Under
God" I remember as a child reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school every morning. Many times it was led by the principal or a teacher or sometimes even a student over the PA system as every student stood facing the flag in classrooms throughout the school. I also remember not really knowing or understanding what all those words meant. It was just one of the routines that we did every morning. And as kids, we didn't think twice about those two words that have caused some to bring suit in federal courts to have them removed from the Pledge. Those two words are "under God." The words "under God" were not originally part of the Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge was originally written by a Baptist minister in 1892 as a show of support and obedience to the state. It was first recited by school children on Columbus Day of that year after a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison. By 1942 Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance as the official nation pledge. The
movement to add the words "under God" to the pledge was actually
initiated in 1951 by the Knight's of As any good Lutheran would do, however, we need to ask the question "what does this mean?" What do the words "under God" mean when recited in the pledge? Who or what comes to mind when recited by a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist? Do they refer to the one, true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or do they refer to the generic "god" of the American civil "religion"? Questions like these have been bantered around for the past several decades. Even as
these questions are discussed and debated by judges and theologians alike,
there can really be no doubt as to who was in the mind of those who advocated
the inclusion of the words "under God" into the Pledge of
Allegiance, that being the one, true, triune God, Creator of heaven and
earth, the God who gave His Law to us through Moses, the Law upon which the
civil laws of our country is founded.
Those words refer to the One who established the kingdom of the left,
the civil realm, to keep order in the land.
When we pledge our allegiance to the Pastor Joe |
