A Pledge of Allegiance To What?

We are a week away from the 2020 Joke-A-Thon, and I find myself wondering about a whole lotta stuff I never really wondered about before. Not that I haven't thought about the separation of church and state...I have...but never before have I considered the ramifications of losing that separation in this country. Now, I wonder if we are on the cusp of exactly that. 

From the Washington Post:  

This is a Patriot Church, part of an evolving network of nondenominational start-up congregations that say they want to take the country back for God. While most White conservative Christian churches might only touch on politics around election time and otherwise choose to keep the focus during worship on God, politics and religion are inseparable here. The Tennessee congregation is one of three Patriot Churches that formed in September. The other two are near Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and in Spokane, Wash., and Peters says he is talking with several more pastors of existing churches who want to join them.

Stacy Kranitz for the Washington Post

The 50 or so people in attendance may identify as born-again or just as generic “Bible-loving” Christians. Peters’s flock is not affiliated with a specific denomination, but it does have a distinct identity. The Patriot Churches belong to what religion experts describe as a loosely organized Christian nationalist movement that has flourished under President Trump. In just four years, he has helped reshape the landscape of American Christianity by elevating Christians once considered fringe, including Messianic Jews, preachers of the prosperity gospel and self-styled prophets. At times, this made for some strange bedfellows, but the common thread among them is a sense of being under siege and a belief that America has been and should remain a Christian nation.

From his lectern during the worship service, Peters rails against perceived attacks on First Amendment freedoms, decrying government mandates and calling masks “face diapers.”

Having launched the Patriot Church outside Knoxville, Tenn., on the weekend of Sept. 11, he declares that the Christian faith in America is “under attack.” 

"One nation, under God," was controversial enough in 1954. It was certainly not a foregone conclusion that this was designed to be a "Christian" nation in the first place. A good example of the devolution of the separation of church and state is pretty well documented in the Pledge of Allegiance:

Eisenhower made the change to under God official on Flag Day, June 14, 1954, signing it into law and saying:

From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.... In this way 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 or in war.

And there you have it, boys and girls, when the separation of church and state, as provided for by the Founding Folks, was rendered null and void.  

I suspect the Founding Folks had an idea this kind of thing was possible, and did what they could, if not to stop it, to slow any progress toward that point. Look, it's not like there weren't people who wanted this to be a "Christian" nation in the first place. That's not news. But these days, those who are looking for a confirmation of some kind of "spiritual rebirth" of this nation see spiritual as decidedly their brand of Christian. Frankly, I don't see that as much different from any other philosophy pointing to itself as the only true philosophy. Doesn't much matter which ism you're talking about. The moment the true believers start believing everyone else should be converted/eliminated/oppressed/cremated the differences don't make a hill o'beans difference. 

But back to the Pledge of Allegiance. I used to stand so proudly to recite those words, even with the under God addition. I mean, I didn't know they had just added that, and I didn't care. My country won World War II. They beat the Nazis. My dad beat the Nazis. I was a proud American Jew. There was nothing Jew-ish about me. I was 100% American Jew and proud of it. Those extra words which, I would come to learn much later, bothered my parents, didn't bother me. Yet. 

High school was another story. High school was Vietnam and civil wrongs. High school was a government I so disagreed with that I didn't think of myself as a proud American Jew any more. I was just a Jew. I would stand when the loudspeaker in homeroom said to, but my hand would not go over my heart nor would my lips move. Not even a trip to the principal's office changed that. Mr. Tennent was scary on a good day, but he was no match for angry me. I told him I would continue to stand and remain silent, as was my constitutionally guaranteed right. I would stand for what America could be, but I would be silent because of what America was at that moment.

That stance would continue through most of college and grad school. Eventually I came to grips with my citizenship, but age, experience, and the ability to read had tarnished my image of America. Yeah, sure, the blinders were off. I learned about class, oppression, mobs, lynching, and Wounded Knee. I didn't think there was too much difference between a Democrat administration and a Republican one...until Dubya prevailed over Gore in the Supreme Court, and 9/11 happened. But at no time did I believe that a POTUS could be anything less than basically honorable, even if politically misguided and possibly the stupidest person on the planet. 

I hated Dubya and his wars. I thought he was wrong from the get-go...but he was still the leader of the free world and respected as such. I reveled in the election of Barack Obama and entertained the idea that maybe, just maybe... even if we weren't really turning a corner... there was a corner in sight. I wanted to believe we were on the way to becoming a kinder, more compassionate nation. 

Then came 2016. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. 

I have no illusions that our national nightmare is drawing to a close. No matter who wins this election, there will be discontent and I expect it will spill into the streets. The confirmation of Coney Barrett is not an accident; it's a set-up.  I do not believe there will be a transfer of power, peaceful or otherwise. 

And desperately I want to be wrong. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

VOTE. 

That's all. 

About next Monday night. ...I will not be publishing. There is no point. I will probably write late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Just wanted you to know.