Under God

Under God

I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

The principle of unity for the democratic Republic has been our topic. Unity is not religion or culture. It is politics, the willing action of a gathered people. We the People. It is the principle of pluralism. It is the principle of power. It is the power of concerted action against oppression. It is the principle of concerted action that includes all from whatever tribe, culture, origin as equals. It is the principle of human nature and existence.

In the 1950s at the height of the Cold War against "Godless Communism," the phrase was added to the pledge. Now it is often upheld by traditionalist Christians as a reaffirmation in their beliefs in the inerrancy of the Bible and the Christian foundation of the nation as a new Jerusalem or Promised Land. It is used to promote political policies: e.g. prayer in school, teaching of Creationism," condemnation of homosexuality, removal of transgendered persons from the military, party politics from the pulpit, unregulated economy, freedom of businesses to serve or not serve "immoral" persons, opposition to contraception, and the restriction of women to have an abortion.

And so, the new president promises the return to a universal wishing of "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holiday" as an expression of political correctness. It is, after all, the Judeo-Christian God that we mean to be under, not the God of some other religion. Clearly the declaration of independence meant that when it said, "endowed by their Creator" Or is it? 

Atheists, agnostics, and humanists often dispute the addition of "under God" because they believe it restricts their rights to be non-religious and to teach their children to oppose superstition. Some Jews and non-Christian God-believers object because the addition seems to promote Christianity as a standard for citizenship. The US Constitution does not even mention, much less require, belief in God; making clear that the Republic is constituted by "We the People." 

When Einstein, the scientist par excellence, was asked whether he believed in God, he expressed some agnosticism; but he then said that he could accept Spinoza's God. And I maintain he could accept the "God" of Whitehead: God as Nature or the Process or drive of the Universe. Such a God may indeed be a step above the Deists' God of Washington and Jefferson as Watchmaker or Unknowable Force that got it all started and left it unwind. "God" could be a metaphor, as Hawken’s indicated, for the end or purpose of human transcending through knowledge and action. Such a God does not necessitate, and indeed transcends, any religious tradition. 

So it is quite possible for a non-believer to proclaim the "under God" in the pledge without any dissimilation or hypocrisy as simply a way of expressing solidarity with his/her fellow citizens. Just as it would be for a Christian to proclaim the Nicene Creed, with its third century mentality and language, without at all taking literally the propositions of Jesus being a god or the second person of a Trinity, his mother as a virgin, his rising from the dead and so forth. 

Alcoholics Anonymous taught that to break the reliance of the addict on his dependent and imperfect self, he needs a "higher power" in any way he chooses to define it. In other words, the insight of the Twelve Steps is that human improvement, progress, and transcendence requires the humility of interdependence, rather than individualistic independence. Human transcending through knowledge and action requires the recognition of dependency on the higher power. 

In politics, the higher power is not some self-sufficient supernatural power, but the power of the people assembled to determine the good for all. The principle is the public space, the inclusive realm of democracy. The Republic becomes its own principle founded in the very nature of humanity as an interdependent and collaborative being in relationship with all others for the sake of the All. That is what “under God” in the pledge means in a free and open society including all regardless of race, origin, culture, or life-style.

The pledge then becomes not some anti-Communist loyalty oath through a particular cultural meme or creed. The pledge is an expression of faith in the democratic principle which is our means to, and meaning of,  a united citizenship in rich and dynamic diversity.