Reconsidering the Pledge

In a post on the Post/Newsweek ON FAITH blog, David Waters notes the recent passing of Rev. George Docherty, the minister whose 1954 sermon at D.C.'s New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is said to have spurred President Eisenhower to back a campaign to add the words "under God" to the text of the Pledge of Allegiance.  As a Washington Post article on Rev. Docherty's death explains, the minister drew the phrase from a passage in Lincoln's Gettysburg address and exhorted his congregation, which included President Eisenhower, to support a revision of the Pledge that would emphasize a contrast between the "godless Communism" of our Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union, and what Rev. Docherty saw as "the definitive factor in the American way of life", religious belief.  Blogger Waters suggests that the Pledge again needs updating, now to reflect the nature of America's core commitments in a time of new threats. He writes:

In his 1954 sermon, Docherty argued that Judeo-Christian America was engaged in "mortal combat against modern, secularized, godless humanity." Today, pluralistic America is engaged in mortal combat against anti-modern, fundamentalist, religionized humanity.

It isn't our belief in God that makes us different. It's our belief in the liberties (religious and other) enshrined in the Constitution. The American creed is faith in liberty for all, not the religion of most.

JFB