Under God, or Under What? (message delivered at National Day of Prayer Service)

“Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus saw through their duplicity and said, “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and description are on it?” “ Caesar’s”—they replied. “Then give to Caesar what is Caeser’s, and to God what is God’s.”(Luke 20)

On the Sunday before Lincoln’s Birthday in 1954, President Eisenhower chose to do what many presidents had done before him. His motorcade arrived outside the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C., and he made his way inside to worship in “Lincoln’s Church”—and sit in Lincoln’s preserved pew. The minister at New York Avenue at the time was Dr. George M. Docherty, a Scotsman who had yet to become a U.S. Citizen, and who had never talked with the president before.

The sermon that morning was titled, “Under God,” and made a case for adding those significant words to the Pledge of Allegiance his children were learning in school. His children had come home excited to describe the ritual of the salute to the flag. They placed their hands upon their heart, and repeated these words, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” But instead of hearing it from the perspective of one trained in the ritual, Docherty as an outsider could sit and brood over each word slowly in his mind.

Docherty then announced to the congregation, and to the president in attendance, that something very distinct to the American way of life was missing from the Pledge. He reasoned, “Apart from the mention of the phrase, the United States of America, this could be the pledge of any republic.” He then asked, “What therefore is missing in the pledge of allegiance that Americans have been saying off and on since 1892, and officially since 1942?” He found his answer clearly in the words and spirit of President Lincoln who said in his Gettysburg address, “Under God this people shall know a new birth of freedom”--with “Under God” being his definitive words.

Pastor Docherty looked over his congregation and explained, “We face today a theological war. It is not basically a conflict of two political philosophies—Thomas Jefferson’s political democracy over against Lenin’ communistic state. Nor is it a conflict fundamentally between two economic systems between, shall we say, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx’s Das Capital. It is a fight for the freedom of the human personality…. It is the view of man as it comes down to us from Judaio-Christian civilization in mortal combat against modern, secularized, godless humanity.”

Docherty explained that the current pledge of allegiance was omitting the theological implication that is fundamental to the American way of life. “Only when ‘Under God’ is added,” he explained, “can one rightly define what we mean by ‘liberty and justice for all’.” This wise pastor observed that a pledge without “under God” simply omitted that which most contributed to the character of the American way of life. At the same time, Docherty also properly cautioned Christians against a pledge holding out “Under Jesus” as that which best explains the character of our land. He reasoned, “It must be ‘under God’ to include the great Jewish community and the people of the Moslem faith, and the myriad of denominations of Christians in the land.”

As we can now imagine, this sermon greatly impacted President Eisenhower’s thinking on our nation, and her pledge of allegiance. Working closely with Charles Oakman of Michigan, Eisenhower had this sermon placed in the Congressional Record of the 83rd Congress, and the words “under God” added to our country’s official Pledge of Allegiance. This version of the Pledge of Allegiance has served our country well now for over fifty years, but has (Like this National Day of Prayer Service) recently come under attack.

On April 15 (tax day) of this year, a U.S. District Judge in Wisconsin ruled that this annual National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. Judge Barbara Crabb said the Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment's establishment clause, which bans the creation of a "law respecting an establishment of religion" in the Constitution.

"It goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context."

Perhaps anticipating the anger that her ruling would create, she also noted there was no law preventing Americans from praying or organizing non-governmental days of prayer, and wrote this:

“ A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination."

The National Day of Prayer was established by Congress in 1952, and in 1988 was set as the first Thursday in May. The lawsuit against the National Day of Prayer was brought in Wisconsin by a group of atheists and agnostics called the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued that it violated the separation of church and state.

To his credit, the Obama administration has continued the practice of calling the nation to pray today. His office argued that the National Day of Prayer was legal because it simply acknowledged the role of religion in the United States. But Judge Crabb disagreed saying:

"It is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision whether and when to pray."

So the judge agreed with the atheists and agnostics that there is no place in American government for a call to prayer. First she argued a call to prayer should be abandoned because it serves no secular function in this context. Never mind that prayer improves health outcomes in the midst of a healthcare crisis. Never mind that God can clear an oil slick much better than man. Never mind that prayer improves business ethics. Never mind that prayer improves a marriage and strengthens a family. Evidently there is nothing happening to the fabric of America prayer could improve.

But then Judge Crabb seems to reverse course and argue that a call to prayer should be halted because it has such a powerful effect on a community. Prayer can have such a personal and powerful effect upon people that the government should be discouraged from influencing people to lean upon it. What Judge Crabb envisions is a government that stays out of endorsing anything pertaining to God.

This argument against prayer and against acknowledging God is amazingly similar to the one made a few years ago by Mike Newdow (remember him?). Newdow argued that “one nation, under God” violates the Constitution’s separation of church and state. He appealed to the same laws and made the same arguments as the group in Wisconsin. So a “National Day of Prayer” and “Under God”–are both under attack by atheists and agnostics waving the Bill of Rights.

The fact that Judge Crabb used a system of laws clearly founded upon Judaio-Christian values should not escape anyone’s notice. The very God-based legal system that guarantees “liberty and justice for all” became the tool used to try and ferret out religion from civic life.

But these attempts to overturn religious expression would have in no way surprised Pastor Docherty. As a matter of fact, Docherty concluded his 1954 sermon in front of Eisenhower by asking, “What then of the honest atheist?”

Docherty noted a new breed of person in America, one who “does not believe in God; not because he is a wicked man, but because he is dialectically honest, and would rather walk with the unbelievers than sit hypocritically with people of faith.” His sermon characterized these people as often fine in character; and in their obligations as citizens and good neighbors, quite excellent. However, then he goes on to say in no uncertain terms, “But they really are spiritual parasites!”

“Parasites” is what he called them. Not meaning the word in any derogatory fashion, he was simply classifying them. A parasite is an organism that lives upon the life force of another organism without contributing to the life of the other. Docherty explained that people like the folks in Wiscosin and Newdow are “living upon the accumulated spiritual capital of Judaio-Christian civilization, while at the same time, denying the God who revealed the divine principles upon which the ethics of this country grow.” The danger 50 years later is that the parasite dining on the spiritual capital of God’s people will eventually suck the life completely out of our civic society.

Only in America may an atheists or agnostics deny God and God’s revelation and fight against any talk of God in a legal system founded upon God’s Word! Without a legal system based upon God’s revelation they would never have a voice.

So what should we here gathered tonight do? The great sociologist Lesslie Newbigin warned our society to take religion’s place in society seriously. He encouraged the Judaio-Christian civilization in America not to abandon her role in determining public truth. Newbigin especially encouraged Christians to understand how important it is for them to maintain their role as “first among equals” with a privileged status in America. He argued his case this way, “Only Christianity holds out the cross. Only the cross suspends judgment and offers space for grace.” Not everyone will use this space to find grace. Some like those in Wisconsin will even use the space to attack the only possible system their beliefs could survive under.

It has often been stated that, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” If we suspend the place of God in our civic society something else will creep in to fill the void. So before we remove “under God” from our Pledge or the National Day of Prayer from our calendars, let’s determine what system others propose to put in its place.

“Under God” or under what?
A National Day of Prayer or a national day for what--profits and pleasure?

There was once a young minister who took four worms and placed each one in a jar with a lid upon it. In the first he placed the worm in a jar filled with cigarette smoke, in the second the jar was filled with beer and in the third it was filled with pure chocolate. The fourth worm was placed in a jar of fresh air. The minister then reported that the next day: the worm in smoke—was dead. The worm in beer—was dead. The worm in pure chocolate was dead (smiling but dead). The worm placed in fresh air—alive and happy.

The young minister then made the fatal mistake of asking the church for the moral of the illustration. “What is the moral?” he asked. And a young man from the youth group stood up and said, “Pastor, I think the moral is THIS… if you smoke, if you drink and if you eat lots of chocolate…YOU PROBABLY WON’T GET WORMS!”

With this the congregation burst into laughter and the minister tore up his message and sent everyone home. The moral of the story for us ministers is this-- be careful when preaching by analogy. With that in mind—I dare to close by presenting one.
In 1863 American writer Edward Hale first published the short story, “A Man Without a Country.”It is the story of American army lieutenant Philip Nolan, who develops a friendship with the visiting Aaron Burr. When Burr is tried for treason, Nolan is tried as an accomplice. During his testimony, Nolan bitterly renounces his nation, angrily shouting "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" Upon conviction, the judge icily grants Nolan his wish: he is to spend the rest of his life on warships of the United States Navy, in exile, with no right ever again to set foot on U.S. soil, and with explicit orders that no one shall ever mention his country to him again.

The sentence is carried out to the letter. For the rest of his life, Nolan is transported from ship to ship, living out his life as a prisoner on the high seas, never once being allowed back in a home port. None of the sailors in whose custody Nolan remains are allowed to speak to him about the U.S., and his newspapers are censored.

Nolan is a man without a country. He is a man without a word about home. Around Nolan no one speaks of country, of liberty, of the blessings of citizenship. Nolan dies aboard ship as a man longing for home, longing for a word—wishing it could have all been different.

As lost as a man is without a country—how much more is a nation lost without God?