Invitation to Worship -Dan Fancher

Thirty-one words or twenty-nine? How long is your Pledge of Allegiance? A Federal court in California recently caused quite an uproar when it ruled that it is unconstitutional to recite the Pledge in schools if it includes the passage "one nation under God." It’s easy to dismiss this little tempest if you picture merely a classroom of sleepy students droning a string of semi-intelligible syllables. But in questioning a number of friends and family members, I learned that many of us have "Pledge of Allegiance stories," mini-dramas of principle, courage, and sometimes embarrassment and fear.

A friend of mine immigrated from post-War Germany as a boy. Not yet a citizen, he recited the pledge for years believing that it was a condition of attending school in America. He was a teenager by the time he learned that reciting the Pledge was indeed an optional statement of belief.

As a high school student my sister Nancy was, because of her high academic standing, commissioned to lead the school in the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom. She did not take her daily performance lightly, and, to the consternation of most of the rest of the school, she did not pause between "nation" and "under," because she had been taught by a very strict fifth-grade teacher that there was in fact no comma there. "One nation under God, comma, indivisible." This foreign phrasing had the whole school out of whack for several days, and at the same time it was like sending out secret code. She made an instant connection with everyone who had had that same elementary school teacher.

I recently heard Daniel Ferri, a sixth-grade teacher from Chicago, speak on NPR about his experience with a student named Chad. On the first day of school several years ago, Chad came up to Mr. Ferri and explained, nervously, haltingly, that his family’s religion prevented him from expressing allegiance to the flag. The teacher thought, "Does he have to do this every year on the first day of school? How did his other teachers react?" Here is Mr. Ferri’s response in his own words:

Children’s Sermon "There Are Many Ways To Love a Country"

adapted from the Rev. Ken Sawyer

There are many ways to love a country. Most people do love their country, wherever they live. And most of us probably love ours.

It is a fine country, with much to love, like:

• the beauty of our land, the hills and mountains, the woods and cities, the rivers and oceans, the birds and trees;
• the wonderful diversity of the people, which means we Americans are different in so many ways and we like it like that;
• our culture, our music, our art, our movies, our sports, our many religions;
• our ideals and our values, like freedom and justice, fairness and equality. Not that we are as great as we mean to be, not yet, but we go on being a good example of how hard people can try to make a great country.

There are many ways for people to show that they love their country. In ours, for example:

All of us can show it in some ways (don’t litter, recycle, show tolerance and kindness, be fair).

If you’re a grown-up, you can also vote. Even if you’re a child, you can keep up with what’s going on, and try to figure out what you think. Some people show their love that way. Some people don’t. They love their country, but that’s not how they show it.

Some grown-ups love the country by serving in the military forces, or working for the government in other ways. Others love their country by protesting against what the government does. But they do this because they love their country, even though they disagree with some things their government does.

Some people show they love their country by singing certain songs that say that this is a great country. You can do that, too, if you like. Some people do, some would rather not. Some people would rather not sing ever, no matter how great their country is. Other people really like it.

Some people really like bumper stickers, other people don’t. Unless the bumper stickers are mean or hurtful, why not go ahead if you want? And if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. It’s a free country, and we love it as we choose.

Some people think our flag is something special, that it stands for the country, and one important way of showing you love the country is flying the flag. For other people, the flag is a reminder of a time when they disagreed with something the country was doing, and they don’t have a good, warm feeling about it. Or they just don’t have any feeling for flags. While other people do. There’s more than one way to love a country.

Some people pledge allegiance to the flag, and children may be asked to do that sometimes in school. And you may really like doing that. It may seem like a good way of saying, you love the country. So you can say that if you want… but if you don’t want, you don’t have to. This is America, and one of the things we most love about our country is its freedom, especially our religious freedom, and if you don’t want to talk about "one nation, under God," you certainly don’t have to. But if you want to say the pledge, that’s fine to do, too, if that’s what you believe.

Showing you love your country can be a complicated thing, because it is so important to many people, especially when times are hard, like when we’re fighting something like a war. Here in church, both grown-ups and children try hard to listen to each other and respect each other’s different views, because we know they matter to people, and we’re a church, we care for each other.

In the end, every one of us of every age loves our country best by finding our own ways and then letting everyone else love America in their own ways, with a ribbon or a bumper sticker, a vote, a petition, a quiet personal resolve, a flag, or a prayer in their own house of worship.

And so let us pray. That means we sit real still, listen real hard, and try to do better at being the people we know we should be.

We pray for the health and wellbeing of all the earth’s creatures, for our American brothers and sisters far away who risk much in our service, and also for the innocent victims of violence in the middle East, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We pray for the growth of love in the hearts of the unkind and reason in the minds of the cruel. We pray for wisdom for the leaders of the nations, and for success in all their efforts for justice and peace. We give thanks for the safety of our homes, for the love of those who surround us, and for the hope of a happiness that all the world might know. So may it be. Amen.
 
 

First Reading "By Blue Ontario’s Shore" from Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman

O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,
Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,
Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,
 
 

The war, (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth forget), was you and me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.

I dare not shirk any part of myself,
Not any part of America good or bad,
Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
Not to justify science nor the march of equality,
Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov’d of time.

I am for those that have never been master’d,
For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.

I am for those who walk abreast of the whole earth,
Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.

I will not be outfaced by irrational things,
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,
This is what I have learnt from America — it is the amount, and it I teach again.
 
 

Second Reading "The Free Mind," by William Ellery Channing

I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith:

Which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come; which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental impulse:

Which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion:

Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

I call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically copy the past, nor live on its old virtues:

But which listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions.

I call that mind free which sets no bounds to its love, which, wherever they are seen, delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering:

Which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the lights of God's children, and offers itself up a willing sacrifice to the cause of humankind.

I call that mind free which has cast off all fear but that of wrongdoing, and which no menace or peril can enthrall:

Which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost.
 
 

Sermon "The Free Mind: Thoughts on the Pledge of Allegiance"

Judy: Late in June, when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court handed down its decision that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional, my first thought was "Oh, good grief. There’s going to be a HUGE FUSS about this! Here we go again!" Or as Ellen Goodman wrote, "Surely this case deserved a good leaving alone." I imagined an outcry from the Religious Right, and a plethora of commentary about whether ours is a Christian nation or not, God’s role in American political life, the intentions of the Founding Fathers, and so forth.

I wasn’t mistaken. Not only was the religious rhetoric predictable, but reassurances from the pundits "in the know" (and frequently in the government) were quickly offered that this decision couldn’t stand — no way was it going to be allowed to stand! Even the President of the United States is said to have commented publicly that ''We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God." (Which makes one wonder if he was suggesting a Theist litmus test for appointments to the bench, and that clearly is unconstitutional!)

I was away on vacation for three weeks, and I didn’t read the newspapers much or listen to the news on the radio, so I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that the fuss died down rather quickly. Maybe it will pick up again as school starts, with parents and teachers wondering just what the kids are supposed to say each morning, as they put their hands over their hearts and face the flag hanging at the front of their classrooms. Maybe people are so confident that this was a stupid decision — or so confident that it was a legally sound and appropriate one — that they believe the outcome is predictable and they’ve stopped thinking about it.

But it’s worth thinking about. As Dan said, many adults have Pledge of Allegiance stories in their past, stories that they still remember vividly. And as the daily activities of our federal government seem to be leading us closer and closer to a war in Iraq, as our military forces continue their efforts to flush out terrorists in an undeclared war in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and who knows where else?), it is our responsibility as citizens to give careful thought to the language we use when articulating our loyalty to our country. And it is our responsibility as religious people to determine what, if anything, is the relationship of God to the workings of the government.

This is hard work. If done well, it’s intellectually demanding work. And who wants to work so hard when it’s so darn hot outside (and inside)? There’s the temptation to make jokes about the issue of the court’s decision, and for a while, the jokes were flying thick and fast.

Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerbino recommended that we keep the word "under," — after all, it’s a perfectly good, politically neutral preposition — but we consider replacing "God" with such possibilities as: "surveillance,"… "one nation, under surveillance… or how about "under-appreciated," "under construction," "under warranty," or, my favorite, having been in Quebec City earlier this summer, "one nation under Canada."

There’s nothing wrong with a good laugh, but there are other ways to respond to this issue as well. Dan and I are going to offer you a few "hooks" on which you might hang your own thoughts as we look at some of the serious questions that this issue raises. We’ll consider the Founding Fathers, and what their intentions were for this new nation. We’ll look at the history of the Pledge itself, why it was written and by whom. We’ll discuss some of the practical questions: does the wording matter at all? To whom does it matter? And we’ll consider some of the political and patriotic angles, too. Our intention is to offer a framework, pose what we hope are the right questions, and stimulate your own thinking, so that, to paraphrase Channing, your free minds will not be passively framed by outside circumstances, will protect themselves against the usurpations of society and will not cower to human opinion (even ours).

Quoting the Founding Fathers to make your argument is a bit like quoting the Bible: depending on the point you want to make, you can probably find something that someone said which perfectly aligns with your own opinion. After all, there were 55 participants in the Constitutional Convention, and they wrangled for months over the wording of the document which lays out the workings of the new country’s government. It would be foolish to attempt to generalize about their religious leanings or their personal values.

Many of the men whose voluminous writings have been best preserved and documented were religious, but they were unitarians (before there was an official denomination) or Deists rather than Theists. That is, they subscribed to a natural religion with three foundational beliefs: one was a belief in human reason and morality; another was the belief in one God who created the world and the laws governing it, but refrained from interfering with the operation of those laws; and the third was rejection of every kind of supernatural intervention in human affairs. When you hear a phrase like "the laws of nature and nature’s God," you are hearing the words of a Deist, rather than someone who believed in a supernatural God.

But there were also participants in the Convention who were devout Baptists, Methodists, Theists, clergymen of several denominations, and who undoubtedly brought their more traditional religious convictions into the deliberations as well. Many of these men were the lesser lights of the Convention, at least in terms of the preservation of what they wrote about their religious convictions, leaving us with little or no reliable information on just what they thought.

So rather than get into one of those "They were too!" "They were not!" arguments, I suggest that we look at the results of the deliberations of these 55 individuals, which make it very clear that their intention was to create a government free from institutional religious influence.

That there should be no religious test for officers of the government is written right into the body of the Constitution; that the government shall not establish any religion nor prohibit its free exercise is the first amendment. As early in our history as 1797, the Treaty of Tripoli read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." Ratification of this treaty passed in the Senate unanimously, with no debate.

The history of U.S. Constitutional Law is loaded with decisions which have continued to articulate the rights of people to practice their religion — and to practice no religion — without interference from the government. If there is any tradition which can be rightfully invoked here, it is the tradition that there is no place in the workings of the United States government for the expressions or the practices of religion.

Dan: Yet it happens all the time anyway. In addition to the "one nation under God" line in the Pledge of Allegiance, our coins and bills read "In God We Trust." The oaths of office for federal judges and even the President end with "so help me God." Supreme Court sessions open with a prayer, and there are chaplains on the federal payroll. So what gives?

Many of the arguments in favor of retaining these religious references stem from a statement made by Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in the majority opinion of a 1963 school prayer case. He wrote:

I find the "ceremonial deism" argument troubling, not to mention illogical and highly disingenuous, especially when put forth by representatives of conservative Christian groups who wish to retain and increase the religious content of public life. First, logic: The words "republic" and "liberty and justice for all" have been recited by rote just as many times as "one nation under God," yet I have heard no one suggest that those concepts have been rendered meaningless. Indeed, I fear that the Homeland Security Administration will accomplish that, but that is a topic for another day.

Second, the disingenuous part: Picture a second grade classroom after the opening bell. The intercom crackles to life. The class stands, turns to the flag, and puts hands over hearts. An authoritative voice, or perhaps the measured, rehearsed voice of a fellow student, begins . . . "I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America . . ." We seem to have the makings of a ritual here, and spiritual people of all stripes value their rituals and seek to imbue them with meaning, not justify their emptiness. Rituals touch the emotions and promote feelings of belonging. For professedly religious people to discount the importance of rituals is simply dishonest. In most Christian churches the Lord’s Prayer is spoken in every service, and the Apostles Creed nearly as often, yet who would describe them as devoid of "significant religious content" because of their frequent repetition?

Some conservative commentators have gone so far as to say that the addition of the words "under God" to the pledge in 1954 was never intended to be a coercive prayer, but was designed only to promote patriotism. This was prime time for anti-Communist hysteria, and it seemed important that the United States go public in distancing itself from "godless communism." A June editorial in the New York Daily News stated that the words "have nothing to do with avowing fealty to God." But I prefer to go right to the source – the words of President Eisenhower, who signed it into law: "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and every rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."

Not surprisingly, it was during this same era that "so help me God" was added to oaths of office, and the phrase "In God We Trust" was added to currency, and became our national motto. So these things which seem to date from the smoky battlefields of the Revolutionary era are actually very new!

When I hear how fiercely some will argue to keep what they purport to be "meaningless" language in our civic rituals, I have to read between the lines. This is what I hear them saying: "It is very important to me to be able to proclaim my devotion to my God in our civic ceremonies. It is also very important to me to make those who believe in other gods or in no god to feel like outsiders."

But people want to belong, and to do so they do what they have to do, giving rise to many more personal Pledge of Allegiance stories. The Rev. Gerald Sakamoto of the San Jose (California) Buddhist Church Betsuin said, "[W]hen I do the pledge, I kind of quietly do not say ‘under God.’ If I say ‘under God,’ it’s not a true statement from my Buddhist perspective. And to say ‘under God’ as just a string of words is to do disservice to those who do believe. I feel deference and respect for the words."

It’s way of arguing that, indeed, the specific words spoken matter very much. Some people leave out "under God" already; some substitute "many faiths," so that they are saying "one nation, many faiths, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." In their own way, they are valuing the expression "under God" more than those who would force it upon all of us.

Judy: The pledge itself is hardly an icon of American Revolutionary history. It was written in the summer of 1892 (a mere 110 years ago) by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, for the celebration of the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the New World. It was published in a children’s magazine where Bellamy worked, after being fired from his church for his socialist sermons, and was used in Columbus Day celebrations all over the country.

Originally the pledge said "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all." Bellamy had thought of writing "with Equality, Liberty and Justice for all," but he knew that other Columbus Day committee members opposed equality for women and for African Americans, so he left out those words under protest. (Of course, you can put the word "equality" back in if you want, as some people do, just as some anti-abortion groups end the pledge "with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.")

In 1923 the National Flag Conference, under the leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed "my Flag" to "the flag of the United States of America," apparently wanting to make sure that the millions of new American immigrants understood what flag was intended. Bellamy disliked the change, but his protest was ignored.

In its updated form, the pledge finally received official recognition from Congress in 1942 — 1942!! — and then, under pressure from the Knights of Columbus, was changed again in 1954 with the addition of the words "under God." In a letter to the New York Times published on July 14, 2002, Francis Bellamy’s great-granddaughter Sally Wright, of Pleasant Hill, CA, wrote

The cynic in me says "What a fabulous opportunity for every public office-holder, especially those in the U.S. Congress, to show their patriotism and almost literally wrap themselves in the flag!" It seems to have been only minutes after the decision made the news that all of Congress paraded out to the Capitol steps to recite the Pledge (the 31 word version) and sing "God Bless America." What a photo op! It would have been political suicide not to participate, notwithstanding the admonition of Jesus in the Book of Matthew to "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them." (Mt. 6:1).

But in addition to the issue of "being seen," I am also wondering about what is not seen — that is, what other issues and events in our political life during this summer of 2002 are being conveniently masked by the red herring of the Circuit Court’s decision on the Pledge?

Of much more concern to me was the Supreme Court decision in favor of a school voucher plan that will allow public money to be used in private schools, some of which teach religious doctrines. The matter of public funds being used for private, sectarian religious teaching is a much larger threat to the separation of church and state than whatever we say to our flag. Yet the timing of the Pledge decision was such that the school voucher decision didn’t receive anything like the public scrutiny and reaction that it deserves.

Once more, Congress wants to allocate funds to abstinence educators who blame teen sex on the loss of prayer in the schools. Meanwhile, a coalition of Christian conservative organizations joins with fundamentalist Islamic nations to block the rights of women in United Nations resolutions. What kind of coverage are these matters receiving? And what does that relative silence say about the role of religious beliefs in government programs and activities?

It has been less than a year since religious terrorists took hundreds of American lives by flying airplanes into buildings, an act that deeply shook our sense of national self-confidence and security. Yet within just a few days, many Americans were rallying around the flag of religious and cultural pluralism. Yes, there were those who made personal threats against anyone who appeared vaguely Arabic, but many more were moved to affirm the growing diversity and heterogeneity of our nation. We prided ourselves in being one nation "indivisible."

As I’ve been thinking about this morning’s service, an image keeps coming to mind. It’s the photograph that runs about twice a year in the local newspaper (and probably many local newspapers throughout the country). The specific image varies with each edition, but essentially the photo is the same: it’s a picture of new American citizens reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at their swearing-in ceremony in the local courthouse. Their faces shine with a glow that lights up their pink, brown, tan, cinnamon, ivory-colored or coffee-colored skin — skin that is clear, wizened, taut or wrinkled. They are short, tall, plump and slender, young and old and in-between. It’s a Norman Rockwell moment, and it never ceases to bring tears to my eyes.

I want everyone to be able to participate whole-heartedly, with love and gusto and passion, in the thrill of that first recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as new American citizens. Everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of them — people whose religion is of the earth and sky, monotheists, atheists, Hindus who worship hundreds of gods, Muslims whose one god is named Allah, people for whom the whole concept of God is outside of their experience or their life’s orientation. This is their country now, just as it is the country of the Deists and the Theists, the right-to-lifers and the political opportunists and the spin doctors and the Circuit Court judges.

Whitman said "I dare not shirk any part of myself,/Not any part of America good or bad/…I am for those who walk abreast of the whole earth/Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all." Our country is founded on several concepts which are very powerful and which also are rare in the history of civilizations: the concepts of democracy, freedom, and equality for all. As the United States becomes ever more diverse, as that "all" includes more cultures and languages and faces and belief systems than our Founding Fathers could have imagined, it becomes more and more important to honor our founding principles by including as many Americans — new and old — in the meaningful civic rituals we share. This is how we shall inaugurate one to inaugurate all.

Amen.

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