Dedication To all the pastors worldwide, whether enjoying freedom or enduring persecution, who, according to their consciences, seek to speak the truth in love.
Foreword by US. Senator Rick Santorum
In 2002, Michael Newdow, an atheist lawyer with a daughter in a California public school, challenged the constitutionality of the Pledge of allegiance. Newdow argued that although his daughter was not required to recite the pledge, she was injured 'when compelled to watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-rune school led her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God and that our is 'one nation under God'. A federal Ninth Circuit appellate panel agreed with Newdow, ruling that the words 'under God' constituted an establishment of religion and hence, violated the First Amendment. Despite popular outrage and bipartisan criticism of the decision in congress, a second Ninth Circuit panel reaffirmed the original ruling in early 2003, again declaring the Pledge of allegiance unconstitutional.
The American people were overwhelmingly surprised and outraged at the ruling, as well they should have been. However, the uncomfortable truth is that the Ninth Circuit's decision declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional has a certain perverse logic, given the Supreme Court's confused church-state jurisprudence over the past half-century. The decision of the Ninth Circuit simply confirmed what conservative critics of the supreme Court have been saying for decades, namely that so-called 'strict separationist' interpretations of the first amendment's 'Establishment Clause' based on the 'wall of separation' metaphor is not merely neutral toward religion, but hostile toward religious sentiment the results in driving religion out of the public square. despite their protestations, this is the direct result of the influence of 'strict separationist' advocacy organizations such as the american Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and People for the American Way.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins, 'Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...' For over the past half-century, a small but
*14 influential cadre of academics, activists and activist judges has tried to insist that the First Amendment's 'no Establishment Clause' requires a 'high wall of separation of church and state'. for decades these activists and jurists sought to defend this view as an accurate description of the views of the founders generally, and that it expressed the intent of the authors of the first Amendment. Their favorite citation was Thomas Jefferson's private letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he referred to a 'wall of separation' between church and state.
However, as Dr. Lillback shows, as a simple historical matter, our founders were more than willing to accommodate religious expression and symbols in the public square. Indeed, in word and deed they encouraged it. That is why Justice William Rehnquist was right to declare over two decades ago in his dissenting Opinion in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), that'The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned'.
Justice Rehnquist was probably being too charitable. Not only has the 'wall of separation metaphor' been useless, it is often more incoherent and pernicious that that. One here recalls the famous quip of senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan remarking on the massive confusion generated by a series of Supreme Court decisions which ruled that while a state could permissibly lend school books to parochial schools without violating the Establishment Clause, it was unconstitutional to lend teaching aids and maps. Ghat caused Senator Moynihan to ask about the constitutionality of an atlas, a book of maps.
Senator Moynihans's caustic quip was a pithy way of saying that a consistent application of the high wall of separation principle leads to absurd results. as one informed commentator observed,
The Pledge case reveals that something has gone drastically wrong with Establishment clause jurisprudence. If the Pledge is unconstitutional, so too are teacher-led recitations of the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln claimed'that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of r.' Teaching public school students that the Declaration of
*15 Independence is true - that our rights are, in fact 'endowed by our Creator' and that the American Revolution was just according to the 'Laws of nature and of nature's god' -would violate the Constitution. Even an invited performer signing 'God
Bless America' at a government-sponsored event, like a local county fair, would be constitutionally suspect. ('Establishing Free Exercise' by Vincent Phillip Munoz in first Things, December 2003)
When the Declaration of Independence can in some light be thought constitutionally suspect, and would be but for public outcry at a judicially-imposed decision, it is long past time to reexamine the basis for the precedents that lead to such absurdities.
The fundamental problem, of course, is not simply the bad history and the absurdities that would result from a consistent application of the 'high wall of separation' principle. The fundamental problem, as Dr. Lillback suggests, are activist judges willing to impose their own ideological understanding of the proper relation between religion and public life. typically, such an understanding is based on the highly controversial opinion that religion is a purely private affair, that religiously informed argument in the public square is at best a barrier to enlightened discourse and at worst sows the seeds of intolerance and bigotry.
The consequences of this view go well beyond the impact on individuals' and groups' rights to freedom of expression and religion, they cut to the hear of what is required to sustain our democracy. This grand experiment is not guaranteed to last forever, and our founders understood the necessity of the electorate to be a virtuous people for freedom to be maintained, and that religion is essential to form virtue. a diminished or ghettoized civic religion will only diminish our democracy and threaten its sustainability.
Here we must be clear. If the American people, for whatever reason, through their elected representatives decide that the Ten Commandments should be removed from local court houses, that 'under God' should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, that 'in God We Trust' be
*16 removed from currency and coinage, that legislative and military chaplains should no longer be paid out of public funds, that Christmas nativity scenes should be removed from areas of public display, or that the Supreme Court should no longer open with a declaration of 'God save this honorable court', then it is perfectly in keeping with the Constitution and the democratically determined decisions of a free people to do so. while I do not think such decisions would be wise, the Constitution does not require the presence of such symbols. It does, however, permit them, and activist judges exceed their authority when they require their removal, and they deserve derision when they try to persuade us that support for such can be found in either the test of the constitution, in the meaning, or intent of the authors, the history of the American republic. And if confused Establishment Clause precedents logically lead to such absurd and pernicious results, then it is long past time to reconsider those precedents.
The Article
*17 The following is an article I wrote, published by The Providence Forum in the fall of 2002:
September 11th and the 9th Circuit Court:
At Least For the Moment, we are still 'One nation Under God'.
When the Ninth Circuit Court declared that the Pledge of Allegance was unconstitutional, many finally began to understand. In spite of all our national expression of dependence on god in the aftermath of September 11th, there is still a relentless movement afoot to strip our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage from our official culture. its message is. 'Sure, in the privacy of your home, say the Pledge, but don't force your belief in god down the throats of the rest of our secular nation.
While this decision made the headlines of our national news, a more quiet, but just as potent assault was occurring in the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. The verdict reached by a single judge, without a jury of the people, in less than 24 hours, was that the Ten Commandments that had been on the wall of Chester County's Court house, had to come down. Once again, the theme was, 'to have such statements in public is to violate the first Amendment by making our secular nation acknowledge God'. It was ironic, indeed, that the same court opened with the declaration 'God save the Court of the United states!' we must be clear. this movement will not stop if they are successful here. god in government is the enemy. Nothing less than his utter and total removal from public discourse is the goal. 'For such a time as this', The Providence Forum has been called into being. Our existence through your support has enabled us boldly to remind our culture in federal courtrooms, on courthouse steps, at Independence all, in
*18 academic institutions, in the presence of the president himself, that our Judeao-Christian heritage gave birth to this great nation of religious and civil liberty.
In spite of our nation's spiritual interest expressed recently in the memorial services on the first anniversary of the terrorists' attacks, the day may come when we are forced to censor even the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But let us until then not fail to declare that the first teaches us of 'our Creator', of 'the God of nature', of 'the supreme Judge of the world', and the 'protection of Divine Providence', and the later was written in 'the year of our LORD, 1787' May our Lord graciously use all of our efforts to preserve and advance this legacy of liberty bequeathed to us by our founders.
Perhaps in the wake of news stories such as ominous potential terrorist attacks, the homosexual abuse of boys by priest, the malfeasance of auditing firms in league with deceiving corporate entities, and the violent volatility of the financial markets, we may once again wish to be 'one nation under God' after all!
By the way, a good reason to get registered and to vote is that our elected officials appoint our federal judges. Your vote indirectly elects judges who either believe or do not believe that we are 'one nation under God'. Dr. Peter A. Lillback
*23 Chapter 1 GOD IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE : Public Schools And the Pledge of Allegiance
'However, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would fail to see the problem with requiring public school students to recite their allegiance to 'one nation under God'.
Your comment clearly raises the question of the legitimacy of using the Pledge of Allegiance in public setting. We might ask, 'Can official 'secular' documents make reference to God'? Ultimately, your question raises the matter of which worldview will impact our national thinking.
('We are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war. ' President Dwight D. Eisenhower...photo)
Your candid astonishment that 'anyone' could miss the 'problem' of requiring public school students to recite their allegiance to 'one nation under God' is peculiar indeed. Long before your letter was written - about a half-century ago -Congress passed the act that incorporated the words 'under God' into the pledge. At that time, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with the United States Congress, perceived a very different problem facing America than the one you fear. it was to find a national point of transcendence that would enable america to remain strong in the face of daunting challenges to the very fabric of american freedom.
The Historical Context of the Pledge of Allegiance
You are undoubtedly aware of the history of the Pledge. However many Americans do not know that the phrase 'under God' was not in the original form when it was written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister from Boston in 1892, which was the four-hundreth anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. Sixty-two years later, on flag Day, June 14, 1954, President Eisenhower signed the legislation that added 'under God' to the Pledge. Explaining his support for Congressional Act,Joint Resolution 243, he declared...(see above)
* 25 These words are particularly significant coming from President Eisenhower. Only a decade before, he had been the military commander to the most powerful force ever assembled in history. yet in his view, the most powerful weapons for our nation in peace or in war were not economic or military, but spiritual. In his mind, the government had nothing to fear from faith, for America's government understood the importance of faith in the nation's past and its need for such trust in its future.
In fact, the Pledge's new language of 'under God' had its source in Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg address. Lincoln believed that the healing of a nation torn asunder by civil war and grieving in the face of the unparalleled human carnage of the Gettysburg battlefield could only be found when the afflicted nation saw its proper place as being 'under God'. thus, in the Gettysburg Address, delivered on Nov 19, 1863, 'the theologian of American anguish' encouraged his fellow citizens affirming,
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -
*26 that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, of the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Given this history, background and sources, it is no wonder that school children and adult teachers used to say daily the Pledge of Allegance. Perhaps you can remember saying it ourself.
Yet you are concerned that children might be 'required' to pledge allegiance to a flag that represents 'one nation under god'. Clearly, we must be concerned about protecting the religious liberty of our students. but is it possible that this liberty of conscience exists precisely because historically we have claimed to be a 'nation under God'?
Recent Cultural and Constitutional Viewpoints Impacting the Use of the Pledge of Allegiance
What has transpired in the half century between President Eisenhower's enacting the words 'under god' into the pledge and into law in 1954 and the opposing view of the U.S. Ninth Circuit court's 2002 ruling that holds that the use of the pledge is unconstitutional? To answer this,we must come to grips with the massive shift of worldviews and cultural values that has occurred in the past half century.
An incredible sea change has in fact occurred in public opinion, worldview, and governmental policy in these last decades. actually, to better understand this, a good place to start is by considering your own words as a pastor expressing his concerns about what he sees as God's role in the public square.
Initially, notice the assumption that is made by your statement 'requiring to recite their allegiance'. the fact is that no one in America is 'required' to say the pledge! Free speech is our First
amendment constitutional heritage. The very way you have couched the matter masks what is really transpiring in the Court's decision. today, we are encouraged and permitted to recite our allegiance to the flag by using the words 'one nation under God'. should we choose to do so, we are doing it in a lawful way. should we choose Not to say it, we are doing so in a constitutional way. Where is the reality of 'required' action in this discussion? It is in the Ninth Circuit
*27 Court's move to strike the 1954 Congressional Act, Joint resolution 243 as unconstitutional!
While the Supreme Court's decision not to review this decision leaves the pledge in force in all areas except the Ninth Circuit, if that ruling were ultimately to become the opinion of the Supreme Court, we would be 'required' to forego saying the pledge ever again in a public setting. what then becomes of our free speech? What then becomes of religious liberty for those who can in good conscience say the pledge in its legal form? They will no longer be encouraged and permitted to do so. They will be required not to recite their allegiance.
Isn't it interesting that you have unconsciously misstated the entire matter? By allowing our rhetoric to be controlled by inaccurate terminology, we are not only going to love our historic freedom to say or not to say the pledge, but we will have unconsciously abandoned a freedom for a court mandated lawful behavior. Sadly, we will never even know what hit us. this process of the erosion of our liberties was well understood by the great architect of our Constitution, James Madison, when he said,
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations. (James Madison, Virginia Convention, June 6, 1788. In Padover, The Complete Madison, 339)
Worldviews in Collision: Competing Answers to Ultimate Questions
Christian cultural analyst, the late Francis Schaeffer, agreed with Madison's insight. Schaeffer argued that our culture's movements away from Christianity's values are the consequence of a conscious shift in how people interpret their world.
The basic problem of the Christians is this county...in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and peices instead of totals. They have very gradually.
*28 become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion. But they have not se
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