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BITTERSWEET OXYMORON:
SAY GOOD-BYE TO THE PLEDGE
“But I say unto you, Swear not at all … but let
your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil.”
-- Matthew 5:34, 37
In June the US 9th
circuit court of appeals upheld a suit seeking to forbid the words
“under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and half the nation came
unglued. Politicians scrambled all over themselves to show their
support for God (you could almost hear the heavenly sigh of relief),
and many Christian people expressed their discontent. But the
longer you think about it, the more you wonder why they care. They
either want the wrong thing for the right reasons, or the right
thing for the wrong reasons, or they’re just wrong altogether.
First of all, the pledge
is a standing offense. At best it is a propaganda mechanism to
indoctrinate children into unquestioning “loyalty”; at worst it is a
continually-required loyalty oath, an insult to any person who
conscientiously regards his given word as sufficient. To require
anyone to repeat his loyalty every day is to charge that his word is
worthless. That smacks of the War of Northern Aggression, when
Yankee officialdom required loyalty oath after loyalty oath. And no
matter how many times the penitents repeated the oath, they were
never satisfied. But then, that was the purpose, to set them on
“stools of everlasting repentance.”
The most ironic effect
of the court’s decision is the zealous fury of those who profess to
serve God. Just reflecting on the oath’s origin ought to disabuse
them of their misapprehensions. The pledge was invented by Francis
Bellamy in 1892. Bellamy was a defrocked Baptist minister turned
unitarian socialist. His cousin wrote the utopian socialist novel
“Looking Backward.” The pledge was Bellamy’s wedge to indoctrinate
the nation into socialist statism. It has worked pretty well.
Meanwhile, ignorant “conservatives,” spring to the pledge’s defense.
You know, “conservatives,” who always ignore “content” in favour of
“form.” Conservatives, who will conserve anything as long as it has
always been done that way (in their experience) without regard for
its essence. Now they all seem ready to die for their right to
pledge allegiance to the socialist, monist state. Huh? Yes, “one
nation, indivisible,” remember? As a believer in the Trinitarian
God, that ought to give you great comfort.
The real nature of the
pledge becomes evident when you see how school children were
originally taught to say it: with one arm raised in the air in a
fascist-style salute. Whoops – that became a bit too obvious
during the 1930s so it was dropped in favour of a hand over the
heart.
Anyway, the “under God”
never appeared in the original pledge, but was added as a sort of
afterthought, in 1954 under Cold War pressure to get God as well as
atomic bombs on America’s side. If I characterise the motivation
harshly, I mean it to sound harsh. I condemn as the worst
folly every such feckless and futile legalistic attempts to
substitute national lip service for heart service.
Speaking with the voice of God, the prophet Hosea says, “For I
desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than
burnt offerings.” Christ quotes these very words reproving the
Pharisees to “go and learn what this means.”
Listen,
conservatives and Christians, to what Christ says. The form
lacking the content – the lips without the heart
– insults God worse than total disregard and disobedience,
for it attempts to cover rebellion with self-righteousness. Without
ceasing the federal government wars upon the High God of heaven and
earth and upon his law, but somehow heedlessly reciting the pledge
daily with “under God” will make up for that rebellion?
Anyhow, in these latter
days of the multicultural millennium, the “god” of the pledge offers
no piety, only a fitting ambiguity. Does it mean the only true God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Or Allah? Or Shiva? Or the Great
Thumb? Who can say? It is the god of a thousand faces, the
cafeteria god of your taste.
That brings up the issue
of idolatry, specifically idolising the national flag. It
astonishes and mortifies the Christian heart, but many churches
actually begin their services with the pledge of allegiance.
What? What business does the symbol of an earthly and passing
nation even have to be present in the sanctuary of the Living
God? That’s so obtusely out of place itself – bordering on
blasphemy -- that we can’t even reach the issue of opening a worship
service by pledging allegiance to a national icon or idol.
Listen,
I love my country as much as anyone, but it is only a nation, only a
temporal thing. It has risen on the favour of God alone, and when
he is pleased to let it fall, it will fall. No nation has a claim
on the favour of God when it ceases to serve him, and band-aiding on
loyalty oaths to lip-serve some unspecified “god” won’t alter that.
My duty to Christ requires me to be a faithful and obedient citizen,
but to confound the nation with God is
to commit idolatry.
America will pass. God
will not.
IN THE PENUMBRA
Taking advantage of the
dust cloud the pledge flap threw up, the supreme court dealt a
potentially mortal blow to educational freedom. Following the
Establishment’s motto, “If you can’t beat them, buy them off” the
supremes okayed spending state educational vouchers at religious
schools.
Reflect first off that
this follows their standard method of corruption and conquest.
Offer them the money, and their greed will take the bait. Once you
have them taking your money, you rule them. This is not my anti-statist
paranoia speaking, but rather the supreme court’s standing
interpretation: what the government pays for, the government
controls. This holds nowhere truer than in the field of
education. Once the government’s camel gets his nose under the
tent, in a short time he most certainly will be sitting at the desk
fomenting regulations.
The vision is sure, the
interpretation certain. As soon as religious schools take government
money, the state will gain both the right and the power to rule
them. What is worse, the supremes’ voucher ruling will suck in home
schoolers as well. Thus the most powerful and effective rebellion
against state education seen in over 140 years – home schooling –
will be first lured, then co-opted, then controlled by the state.
Will the state swallow
everything? Is there no protection at all?
Yes. Just say no
to government money. From the first moment you take it, they
control you completely.
-- F. Sanders
For a thorough
discussion of the voucher decision, see Charlotte Iserbyt’s 7/8/02
articke, “Death Sentence for Private and Home Education, Courtesy of
the Supreme Court” on
www.NewsWithViews.com.
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