When God Pledges Allegiance

A recent court case prompted me to rethink the relationship between God and nation. As per usual, the results surprised me. How delightful it is to surprise myself!

This past May, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that asking schoolchildren to recite the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance did not obstruct those children’s equal protection under the law, which is guaranteed by the state’s constitution. According to the court, the state was not seeking to promote or restrain religious belief. In asking students to recite the pledge, the state was conducting “a fundamentally patriotic exercise, not a religious one."

The court emphasized the voluntary nature of the pledge. No student was being forced to recite the pledge, the court pointed out. Massachusetts was thus abiding by federal law. In West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a student cannot be punished for refusing to recite the pledge. 

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette,_ 319 U.S. 624 (1943). 

For the plaintiffs in the Massachusetts case, the voluntary nature of the recitation was immaterial. Their point was not that their children were being coerced into reciting the pledge. Their point was that their children were being discriminated against and were in danger of becoming ostracized within the classroom. The plaintiffs argued what school prayer opponents have argued—successfully—over the past half century. The voluntary nature of the exercise, they insisted, did not diminish the emotional suffering caused by having either to abstain from the exercise (and thereby become socially marginalized) or to participate in it (and thereby violate their conscience).

The plaintiffs

expressed concern that the recitation of the pledge “marginalizes [their] children and [their] family and reinforces [a] general public prejudice against atheists and Humanists, as it necessarily classifies [them] as outsiders, defines [them] as second-class citizens, and even suggests that [they are] unpatriotic.” They claimed that “[i]t is inappropriate for [their] children to have to draw attention to themselves by not participating, possibly leading to unwanted attention, criticism and potential bullying,” and that at their children's ages, “ ‘fitting in’ is an important psychological need.”

Doe v. Acton Regional School District,_ S.J.C. 11317 (2014).

The plaintiffs were acting on principle. Their children hadn’t actually been bullied or marginalized; other children and parents had not, in fact, condemned them for exhibiting insufficient patriotism or Godliness. For the plaintiffs, the state’s error lay in unconstitutionally aligning itself with religion and, in so doing, failing to extend equal protection under the law to those students who didn’t believe in God. That is, an establishment of religion was being signified—as it was whenever God was mentioned in a recitation led by a state employee and carried out in a public institution.

Whatever the merits of the plaintiffs’ argument, I am struck by how fully and utterly they resisted any mention of God. I understand their antipathy toward organized religion. I feel a bit of it myself. But why battle against invoking the name of God? If one is a disbeliever, then why not simply remain silent when those words are read? Choose to dissent—and then, like any dissenter with the courage of her convictions, incur the costs. How deep is the animus of those who would litigate to remove from the schools any mention of the name of God!

When I first began my doctoral research over a decade ago, I empathized with these parents’ sentiments. At that time, I considered strict separation of church and state proper and necessary to ensure fairness in the classroom. Today, I feel somewhat differently. If the American people see fit to ask their children to swear allegiance to the flag, and if they wish to assert their devotion to God as part of that pledge, then the people probably are within their right to do so. For dissenters to abstain is perfectly reasonable, but I don’t know that their abstention requires special accommodation. The schoolchildren were not being asked to pray or read the Bible. They were being asked to permit their peers to acknowledge God in a brief, two-word phrase. Enduring that acknowledgement might infringe on the atheist minority, but even more would stifling it infringe on the majority.

Equally curious for me is the connection between God and country. What exactly do Americans have in mind when they swear loyalty to “one nation under God”? Are they simply asserting that Americans are loyal and obedient toward God? Or, are they suggesting that God is loyal to America and committed to its wellbeing? History would suggest the latter. Indeed, throughout human history, nations have imagined themselves specially favored in the eyes of God.

Perhaps it is inevitable for a nation to want God as a partisan of its cause, given the insecurities that any nation must endure. Still, the notion boggles my mind. Understanding God at all is difficult enough. Spiritual reality transcends human knowledge. But conceiving of God as a sports fan with team loyalty is bizarre. God the Partisan would be as small as nations themselves—a party to jealousies, injustices, and the worst sorts of violence. Of course, the God of the Torah and Old Testament was often such a party. But, for me, that is a dangerous conception of spiritual reality, one that propels believers into waging war rather than peace. Surely, God has nothing to do with national boundaries and national grievances.

If inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is a problem, the problem lies not in mentioning God’s name. The problem lies in glorifying nationhood to such a degree.