We Are Indeed One Nation Under God

Today is big here in Pagosa Springs, Colorado where Sylvia and I are spending our summer. On Friday we ate lunch with a bunch of senior citizens at the Archuleta County Grey Wolves Center. Before lunch we stood to face the flag and pledge our allegiance. Today we'll watch a parade through downtown and later fireworks near the high school's playing field. We'll all feel patriotic and on our lips will be a prayer for God to bless America.


You possibly know that the Pledge of Allegiance was written back in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister. He read it at the Boston public schools' celebration of Columbus Day. His original pledge read,

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

In 1954, as our nation struggled with atheistic communism and the 'cold' war, Congress added the words "under God" in a bill that was signed into law. In 2002  Michael Newdow,  a physician with a law degree, made an attempt to eliminate the phrase. It remains in the official pledge, however, due to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling overturning a decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. On March 12, 2010, in a 2-1 ruling, the same 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said no federal law requires students to recite the pledge or the religious reference in it.Thus the phrase does not violate a citizen's right to be free of a state-mandated religion.


Anyone is thus free to include the words 'under God' in his/her pledge. The law of our land does not demand it, however. I sense that most of us here in Pagosa Springs will speak the words regardless of the recent controversy. 

As a Christian, I ask, what the phrase "one nation under God" means to me. I turn to one of several Bible verses. The Apostle Paul writes,

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Romans 13:1-7 - ESV)

 The apostle thus reminds us that we have this great land and its government because God put it in place for our well being. His hand has guided and directed us to where we are this day. The government of this nation derives its authority from our Creator and God. As Paul says, every ruler is "God's servant for your good" and "minister of God." So my conscience is bound to obey my rulers and the laws they pass unless they clearly disobey the commands of God. In that event, I must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:17-42). Thus I believe in the phrase "one nation under God" and will pray for my nation. 


If you are a believer in God's mercy in Jesus Christ, I humbly invite you to join me on this and any other day to speak the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and include the phrase, "one nation under God." 

More Dull German History—The Stuff That Led to Nazism

Are you ready for yet another brief history lesson? History is important because the mistakes, hatreds and prejudices of the past will ever emerge anew, albeit in different forms. This time I speak about the rise of nationalism in Germany and how that led to Nazism and their horrible attempts to cleanse Germany of Jews, Gypsies and others to create a pure Aryan race.

Of course, there's no one definition of nationalism. A nation is not a state. A nation is not simply an ethnic group, although many would like to make it so. It seems that a nation is defined as a group of people who view themselves as united. So in the United States, we have always struggled with what it means to be a nation. We have continued to this very day with a healthy tension between the rights of individual states and the control of the federal government.

But back to Germany in the late 19th century. Until 1871 Germany was nothing but a fragmented patchwork of states of all kinds and sizes. It had been so since the 16th century reformation. Some were called kingdoms. Others were called duchies. Yet others were city states. There were Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, Austrians and Hungarians. The two most powerful nations dominated by German-speaking aristocrats were the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire. The Austrians had many ethnic groups. German-speaking people had no absolute numerical majority. In 1867 the Austrian House of Hapsburg agreed to share power with the central European Kingdom of Hungary, forming the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the second largest in Europe, after Russia.

Not to be outdone, the Kingdom of Prussia under Prince Wilhelm Frederick and his Chancellor or Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck created the Second Reich—Hitler later formed the Third Reich. Wilhelm was declared German Emperor. The emperor was president of the new federation, with a bunch of other dukes and principalities sharing in the rule of the new nation.

 I won't go into all the complicated politics, jealousies, tensions, attempted assassinations and revolutions that ultimately led to the horrors of World War I. The only point I wish to make is that Bismarck's new empire was a disappointment to those who longed for a unified Germany. The Second Reich did not include Austria.

In the imagination of these pan-Germans, there was no room for Jews. They were not part of the Aryan race, but rather a rootless, desert people who exploited true Germans. They had no right to be called Germans.

Anti-Semitism was strong across Europe and particularly in Germany and France. By the time of Bismarck, over sixty years before Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, the idea of a German race, the Aryans, dominated the imaginations of millions. Hitler did not create anti-Semitism. He exploited it to his own ends as he formed a truly German-Aryan nation that included Austria.