Grace Y. Kao* and Jerome E. Copulsky†
Recent court challenges to the constitutionality of teacher-led recitations of
the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools have centered on the question
whether the Pledge is to be understood as a religious or secular ritual,
given its post-1954 addition of the phrase “under God.” After a brief discussion of Establishment Clause jurisprudence on this question, we argue
that the category of civil religion usefully illuminates what is at stake in
constitutional debates about the Pledge and in similar rituals. We develop
four perspectives through which the Pledge of Allegiance in particular,
and civil religion in general, can be understood to function: preservationist,
pluralist, priestly, and prophetic. Thus the ongoing controversy surrounding the Pledge of Allegiance is best understood not as a dispute between
“believers” and “atheists,” but on the contested meaning, significance, and
propriety of civil religion in America itself. In the end, we suggest that
even without the contested phrase, the Pledge would remain a potent
ritual of civil religion, serving all four functions, and urge further serious
study of the religious significance of the phenomenon of civil religion.
*Grace Y. Kao, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Program, Department of Interdisciplinary
Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 204 Major Williams Hall (0227),
Blacksburg, VA 24061, [email protected]
†
Jerome E. Copulsky, Assistant Professor and Director of Judaic Studies, Department of
Interdisciplinary Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 215 Lane Hall (0227),
Blacksburg, VA 24061, [email protected]
A version of this paper was presented at the Law, Religion, and Culture Consultation of the
annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on
November 21, 2005. For their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper, we would like to
thank Brian Britt, Michael Kessler, Martin E. Marty, Erik Owens, Nelson Tebbe, Jonathan Tepper,
Nathaniel Walker, Robert Yelle, and the two anonymous reviewers from the JAAR.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, pp. 1–29
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfl065
© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of
Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]
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The Pledge of Allegiance and
the Meanings and Limits of Civil
Religion
Page 2 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1
On June 23, 1999, the Senate unanimously agreed that one Senator would lead the entire
Senate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each legislative session (S. Res. 113, 145
Cong. Rec. S 7451). In 1989, both the House and the Senate designated September 8, 1989 as our
National Pledge of Allegiance Day, so as to commemorate the Pledge of Allegiance’s first
appearance in print on September 8, 1892 (P.L. 101-90, H.J. Res. 253).
2
The Reverend George Macpherson Docherty delivered a Sunday sermon on this matter on
February 8, 1954 at Washington’s New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, to a congregation that
included President Eisenhower and the First Lady (Ellis 2005: 103–105). The full text of this
sermon can be found at http://www.nyapc.org/congregation/Sermon_Archives/?month=1954-02.
3
We will use the same abbreviations that the Supreme Court used when it elected to review this
case. Newdow I (Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 292 F.3d 597 (CA 9 2002)) refers to the original Ninth
Circuit Court decision. Newdow II (Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 313 F.3d 500 (CA 9 2002)) is an
order by the California Superior Court enjoining Newdow from including his daughter as an
unnamed party or suing as her “next friend.” Newdow III (Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 328 F.3d 466
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The Pledge of Allegiance is revered today by most Americans. It is
recited on a daily basis by millions of public school children and their
teachers in classrooms across all fifty states. It concludes every naturalization ceremony. The U.S. Senate opens each legislative session with a
collective recital of the Pledge.1 Many school boards, city councils, and
community organizations (e.g. American Legion, Elks, Masons, Boy
Scouts) incorporate recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance into their
official meetings. The Pledge has become the most popular and
recognizable of American civil ceremonies. It has also, arguably,
accrued religious significance because of its theological referent.
Things were not always so. From its birth in 1892 to 1954, the Pledge of
Allegiance made no mention of “God.” Baptist minister and Christian
Socialist Francis Bellamy had composed the original version for the
September 8 issue of The Youth’s Companion’s quadricentennial commemoration of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. The Pledge was
then modified several times during the National Flag Conferences of 1923
and 1924, until Congress wrote this version into federal law on June 22,
1942: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.” On June 14, 1954, after a successful campaign by the
(Catholic) Knights of Columbus and an influential sermon by a
Presbyterian minister, Congress added the phrase “under God,” and in so
doing, embedded belief in God as well as the nation’s subordinate relationship to that God within an expression of fidelity to the state.2
On June 26, 2002, in response to a legal challenge by Dr. Michael
Newdow, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the words “under God” in the
Pledge of Allegiance violate the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.3 The public reaction to the
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 3 of 29
(CA 9 2003)) is the amended version of Newdow I plus the Ninth Circuit’s denial of rehearing en
banc. Unless otherwise stated, all subsequent references to the Ninth Circuit decision will be to this
amended opinion (Newdow III). (All case citations designate (1) the parties, (2) the volume number
of the reporter in which the case appears, (3) the name of the reporter, (4) the page on which the
case begins, and (5) the year the decision was rendered.) Also, please note here “F.3d” stands for
Federal Reporter, 3rd series and “CA 9” for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
4
After the 2004 Supreme Court ruling, Michael Newdow filed a similar suit on behalf of several
unnamed parents and their children (Newdow v. Congress (No. Civ. S-05-17) (E.D. Cal)). On
September 14, 2005, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento concluded that he was
bound by the Ninth Circuit’s previous decision in 2003 (“Newdow III”), which could put this issue
on track for another round at the Supreme Court. However, on August 10, 2005, a three-judge
panel on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Myers v. Loudon County Pub. Sch. (No. 031364) that a Virginia statute providing for daily recitation of the Pledge of the Allegiance does not
violate the Establishment Clause, because the addition of the “under God,” though religiously
significant, does not alter the nature of the Pledge as a patriotic activity.
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ruling was immediate and overwhelmingly negative. The following
day, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to affirm the exact wording
of the Pledge and the House of Representatives passed a similar resolution, 416–3. On the day that the Supreme Court actually heard
oral arguments in Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1
(2004) (hereinafter “Elk Grove v. Newdow”), an Associated Press poll
found that nearly nine in ten American (87%) wanted the phrase
“under God” to remain in the Pledge. The Supreme Court, however,
has yet to affirm or deny the permissibility of teacher-led recitations
of the current text of the Pledge, since they ultimately ruled on procedural grounds of Dr. Newdow’s standing as a noncustodial parent
and not on more substantive issues concerning the First Amendment.
Thus the legal controversy surrounding the Pledge of Allegiance is
far from over, especially in the light of Newdow’s continued litigation
on this same issue, now with co-plaintiffs whose legal standing is not
in dispute.4
This essay examines the meaning and significance of the ongoing
controversy about the Pledge of Allegiance through the analytical lens
of “civil religion.” In Part I, we discuss the phenomenon of “civil religion” and identify the Pledge of Allegiance as one of its key rituals in
American life. In Part II, we examine the way the religious content of
the Pledge has been construed by the courts and other parties. We
contend, in Part III, that the ongoing controversy surrounding the
Pledge of Allegiance is best understood not as a dispute between
“believers” and “atheists,” but as a struggle over the meaning, significance, and propriety of civil religion in America. To that end, we formulate and evaluate four distinct, but not necessarily mutually
exclusive, modes of civil religion—preservationist, pluralist, priestly, and
prophetic—and consider the meaning and desirability of the Pledge of
Page 4 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Allegiance from each of these angles. The Pledge of Allegiance will
most likely continue to serve as a ritual of civil religion regardless of the
inclusion—or removal—of the phrase “one Nation under God.”
Nevertheless, in Part IV we explain the shortcomings of the priestly and
preservationist interpretations, show how the current version’s religious
language compromises its ability to serve both pluralist and prophetic
functions, and submit that these problems could be alleviated by a
reversion to its pre-1954 text.
According to Robert Bellah’s influential 1967 essay “Civil Religion
in America,” there is a “religious dimension” of American life that has
emerged alongside of denominational religion while remaining distinguishable from it. This religiosity provides a “genuine apprehension
of universal and transcendent religious reality as seen in or, one could
almost say, as revealed through the experience of the American people”
(1991: 168, 179).5 Civil religion in America utilizes key biblical tropes
(e.g. chosen people, covenant, promised land, the Exodus, sacrificial
death, and rebirth) to interpret the nation’s history, central institutions,
present circumstances, and destiny. In short, America—envisioned as
the “new Israel”—is to “be a society as perfectly in accord with the will
of God as men can make it, and a light to all the nations” (1991: 186;
cf. Cherry 1998: 8–21).
If Bellah is correct, crucial historical moments and civic rituals do
not merely exist to underwrite a sense of patriotism or national solidarity; they also affirm the theological claim that the nation and the state
are not absolute unto themselves, but subject to divine authority. As
Bellah writes in reference to President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural
address, “in American political theory, sovereignty rests, of course, with
the people, but implicitly, and often explicitly, the ultimate sovereignty
has been attributed to God” (1991: 171).
The scholarly literature on civil religion in general, and in America
in particular, is quite extensive and cannot be adequately surveyed
5
See especially Bellah 1974, 1976a, 1976b, 1976c, 1980, 1986, 1987, 1991 (c1967), 1992 (c1975),
and 2000 for more on his understanding of civil religion. To be sure, our focus on Bellah is not
meant to suggest that he is the originator of the idea. Earlier and alternative conceptions of either
civic or civil religion can be found in the work of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Rousseau,
Tocqueville, and Durkheim, among others (see, e.g. Beiner 1993 for a comparison of some of these
thinkers). The modern locus classicus of the term is Rousseau’s discussion in “Of the Social
Contract,” Book IV.
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THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL RELIGION AND THE PLEDGE
OF ALLEGIANCE AS A KEY RITUAL
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 5 of 29
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IN LIGHT OF
ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE JURISPRUDENCE
To grasp the nature of the debate requires a brief précis of the field
of contestation. The “religion clauses” of the First Amendment to the
6
For a small but diverse sample see Bellah and Hammond 1980, Gehrig 1981, Demerath and
Williams 1985, Hammond 1994, Potterfield, Moseley, and Sarna 1994, Angrosino 2002, Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life (2002) and Stackhouse 2004.
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here.6 In this essay, we use the term “civil religion” to refer to a symbolic
system that binds members of a political community to one another
through shared historical narratives, myths, rituals, and some notion of
transcendence (e.g. the people, the nation, its overarching values, and/or
God). Regarded functionally, civil religion can “provide sacred legitimati
[on] of the social order” by integrating society’s members, mobilizing
them and their resources, and endorsing important social and political
institutions and authorities (Liebman and Eliezer 1983: 5). While we
can detect the existence of civil religion in the political sphere (e.g. in
the speeches of political leaders) as well as in popular culture (e.g. the
bumper sticker “God Bless America”), the presence and activity of civil
religion in some instances is either expressly mandated by law, or otherwise endorsed by federal, state, and local governments through official
holiday celebrations, parades, inaugurations, and other rituals.
To be clear, civil religion is not the same as a state (or established)
religion. Nor is it identical to what others have called “public religion,”
by which individual or communal religious actors or groups comment
on matters of public concern in the public sphere (Dean 1994;
Weintraub and Kumar 1997; Marty and Blumhofer 2005). The sphere
of civil religion is narrower, concerning itself with the polis or political
community. There is, of course, a semipermeable membrane between
and among “private” religious commitments, public religion, and civil
religion in America. Indeed, “public religion” can either complement or
challenge civil religion. Still, while the boundaries here are often ambiguous, it is possible and desirable to distinguish between “public religion” and a “civil religion” that operates independently of traditional
religious communities or institutions—especially when civil religion
receives state sponsorship or support by its agents.
In the case of the Pledge of Allegiance, we are considering a very
visible, indeed, perhaps the most ubiquitous, instance of American civil
religion—a practice expressly endorsed by the state and ritually
re-enacted nearly every day when public schools are in session.
Page 6 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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U.S. Constitution provide: “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The
first portion, or what is generally referred to as the “establishment
clause,” was made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth
Amendment in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).
Michael Newdow, the atheist father behind Elk Grove v. Newdow, has
contended that teacher-led recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance
in public schools amount to a governmental stamp of approval of
monotheism and accordingly conflict with that clause.
To understand that the meaning of the Establishment Clause, or the
well-known principle of “separation between church and state,” is not
self-evident, it would be helpful to review the various tests that the
Supreme Court has historically relied upon to determine the extent of
permissible state conduct: the Lemon, endorsement, and coercion tests
(McConnell et al. 2006). Under the three-pronged test first articulated
in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), a case involving aid to
church-related schools, the Court determined that government conduct
(1) must have a legitimate secular purpose, (2) must have a principal or
primary effect that does not advance or inhibit religion, and (3) cannot
foster an excessive government entanglement with religion. In the wellknown crèche case Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor introduced the “endorsement” test—a test that
prohibits government from creating “insiders” and “outsiders” to the
political community by showing either endorsement or disapproval of
religion. In two subsequent cases involving religious displays on public
property, Allegheny v. the ACLU, 465 U.S. 573 (1989) and Capitol
Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995),
O’Connor further clarified that “endorsement” would be determined by
the “reasonable observer” standard. Finally, the “coercion” test, the idea
that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in
religion, was advanced by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the graduation
day school prayer at issue in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992). It is
worth underscoring that these tests are constantly being scrutinized,
modified, defended, and even rejected (in whole or in part) by Supreme
Court Justices themselves. Admittedly, in a prior case regarding the
constitutionality of a Pledge of Allegiance school policy—Sherman
v. Community Consolidated School District 21, 980 F.2d 437, 446–48
(7th Cir. 1992)—the judges did not utilize the various tests established
by the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of the Pledge
of Allegiance, but relied upon on dicta within previous Supreme Court
decisions to conclude that no part of the Pledge of Allegiance is
unconstitutional.
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 7 of 29
With an eye toward determining whether an Establishment Clause
violation has in fact occurred, the courts, filers of the amicus curiae
briefs, the executive branch of the Federal Government, and some
legislators have offered a wide range of opinions concerning the
religious significance (or lack thereof ) of the contested phrase in the
Pledge.
While some have dismissed the reference to God in the Pledge of
Allegiance as too generic to be constitutionally problematic, the Ninth
Circuit sided with Newdow. They found the state-supported phrase,
“one Nation under God,” to be a religious profession that was “identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a
nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or
a nation ‘under no god,’” because all those professions fail the test of
religious neutrality (Newdow III at 487). Even though Elk Grove
Unified School District (EGUSD) did not compel its students to
recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ninth Circuit found that their
Pledge recitation policy “impermissibly coerce[d] a religious act” (Id. at
487, 490).7
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas not only agreed with the
Ninth Circuit that the Pledge involves a religious profession (through
its affirmation of the existence of God), but also that the practices in
question must be regarded as “coercive.” In fact, for Thomas, teacherled recitations of the Pledge in public schools pose even more serious
difficulties than the “coercion” that was struck down as unconstitutional
in Lee v. Weisman (1992). For “[ p]rayer at graduation is a one-time
event, the graduating students are almost (if not already) adults, and
their parents are usually present,” while very young students who are
“removed from the protection of their parents” are exposed to recitals
of the Pledge of Allegiance on a daily basis (Elk Grove v. Newdow at
75). But Justice Thomas did not use this shared assessment to support
the Ninth Circuit, but to argue that the precedents in question were
wrong—that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lee v. Weisman “depended
on a notion of ‘coercion’ that … has no basis in law or reason.” In
short, Thomas interpreted the “text and history of the Establishment
Clause” as a “federalist provision intended to prevent Congress from
7
In West Virginia v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), students finally won the right to abstain
from either saluting or pledging allegiance to the flag, over ten years before the 1954 insertion into
the Pledge of the phrase “under God.”
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The Pledge of Allegiance as a Religious Proclamation
Page 8 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
a vestige of the awe all of us, including our children, must feel at the
immenseness of the universe and our own small place within it, as well
as the wonder we must feel at the good fortune of our country. That
will cool the febrile nerves of a few at the cost of removing the healthy
glow conferred upon many citizens when the forbidden verses, or
phrases, are uttered, read, or seen (Id. at 492–493, emphasis added).
Fernandez essentially advocated for the use of religious language in the
Pledge of Allegiance and in other ceremonies for the purposes of “civil
religion”—to infuse ordinary patriotic activities with a sense of
transcendence.
Other approaches tried to articulate more concretely the civic
importance of the phrase “under God” in ways that neither denied its
religiousness, nor ran afoul of the Establishment Clause. Some invoked
the Declaration of Independence’s claim that God endows us with
certain inalienable rights as part of a larger argument that a concept of
divinity is indispensable for America’s most cherished political doctrines of individual liberty and limited government. Still others claimed
that the current wording of, and current practices regarding, the Pledge
serve as an ongoing reminder that God has blessed the American
nation and that this blessing is not unconditional.9
As we have seen, the phrase “under God” in the context of the
Pledge of Allegiance is so ambiguous as to permit all of these
8
Incorporation is the legal doctrine whereby provisions of the Bill of Rights are made applicable
to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Establishment
Clause was first “incorporated” or made enforceable to the states in Everson v. Board of Education,
330 U.S. 1 (1947). Justice Thomas’s reading of the Establishment Clause as a federalist provision is
shared by Steven D. Smith (1999), Geddicks (2004: 997–999), and McConnell et al. (2006),
among others.
9
See Kao 2007 for a discussion of the relevant amicus briefs. See 148 Cong. Rec. S6100-6112
(daily ed., June 26, 2002) for examples of these arguments from selected Senators.
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interfering with state establishments,” which is why he concluded that
it ought to resist incorporation (Id. at 80–88).8
Others sought to defend the constitutionality of the Pledge of
Allegiance in ways that do not deny its religiosity but are not premised
on Thomas’s radical account of constitutional law. In his dissent to the
majority decision of the Ninth Circuit, Judge Fernandez denied that the
current text of the Pledge would either lead to such baleful effects as
religious discrimination or “bring about a theocracy” (Newdow III at
491–492). Moreover, should we lose our ability to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance in public schools or to “us[e] our album of patriotic songs in
many public settings,” we would forfeit
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 9 of 29
The Pledge of Allegiance as a Secular Ritual
The legal strategy that the Bush Administration and others took to
defend the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance’s contested
phrase was to minimize or even deny its religious import altogether.
U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olsen argued that the phrase “one Nation
under God” in the Pledge should be understood in a descriptive, not
normative fashion—as merely acknowledging the “undeniable historical
facts that the Nation was founded by individuals who believed in God”
(U.S. Brief at 33). The late Chief Justice Rehnquist agreed, suggesting
that the phrase “one Nation under God” is simply one of many “patriotic invocations of God and official acknowledgement of religion’s role
in our nation’s history,” requiring only “fidelity to our flag and our
Nation, not to any particular God, faith, or church” (Elk Grove
v. Newdow at 41–42, 49–50). He provided a number of examples of like
invocations, such as Lincoln’s use of the words “under God” in his
Gettysburg Address and The Supreme Court’s Court Marshal’s opening
proclamation (“God save the United States and this Honorable Court”).
A secular reading of the Pledge of Allegiance was also shared by the
National School Boards Association (NSBA), who claimed that the
phrase in question “neither suggests nor requires supplication to a
deity” (Br. for NSBA at 2–3). If petitioner EGUSD is to be believed, the
Pledge does not even take a position on the perennial question, “Does
God exist?” (Elk Grove Reply Br. at 16; cf. Kao 2007).
Does the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance merely
acknowledge the role that religion has played in American history—
without even presuming the existence of God? Such an interpretation
appears to be unwarranted, since the Pledge makes no mention of the
nation’s history or any of the aforementioned events. This “acknowledgment-but-not-endorsement” strategy rejects the plain sense of the contested phrase, which clearly implies both the existence of, and the
nation’s dependence on, God. President Eisenhower seemed to state as
much when he signed the Pledge bill into law in 1954 with these words:
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interpretations and still others. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say
that all of these interpretations can be “read into” the Pledge. All are
clearly attempts to give the phrase “one Nation under God” some real
theological and political import. Notwithstanding the various reasons
why the phrase might be considered to be of great theological, political,
and social consequence, the question of its permissibility under the
Establishment Clause still remains. We will also return, in Part III, to
the limitations of some of these religious defenses of the Pledge of
Allegiance from the perspective of religious traditions.
Page 10 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
The Pledge of Allegiance as “Ceremonial Deism”
There is an intermediary position between interpreting the Pledge
of Allegiance as theologically significant and denying its religious
import altogether. It is to regard the Pledge of Allegiance as an essentially secular, patriotic ritual whose meaning and power are enhanced
by its ( post-1954) theological referent. (This seems to be behind Judge
Fernandez’s suggestion that the phrase “one Nation under God” confers
a “healthy glow.”)
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor attempted to desacralize the phrase “under God” while simultaneously co-opting the
power of religious rhetoric to inculcate loyalty to the state. She defended
the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance in terms of “ceremonial
deism” (Newdow III at 492; Elk Grove v. Newdow at 60–70). The term
“ceremonial deism” was coined in 1962 by Eugene V. Rostow, Dean of
Yale Law School, and used by Justice Brennan in his dissenting opinion
in the crèche case of Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 US 668 (1984). Brennan
defined “ceremonial deism” as practices or references that are
protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have
lost through rote repetition any significant religious content … [and
that] are uniquely suited to serve such wholly secular purposes as
solemnizing public occasions, or inspiring commitment to meet some
national challenge in a manner that simply could not be fully served in
our culture if government were limited to purely non-religious phrases.
(465 U.S. at 716–717)
Following Brennan, O’Connor concluded that the phrase in question
can remain, since no “reasonable observer” of current practices concerning the Pledge would understand them to be signifying any “government endorsement of any specific religion, or even of religion over
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“[M]illions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and
town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation
and our people to the Almighty” (100 Cong. Rec. 8618 (1954)). Those
who offer a completely secular interpretation of the post-1954 version
of the Pledge appear disingenuous when they claim that there is no
actual appeal to God, but merely a reference to unmentioned references
to God. This was pointed out indirectly by Michael Newdow; when he
was asked during oral arguments before the Supreme Court about the
elasticity of the meaning of the phrase, he responded: “I don’t think
that I can include ‘under God’ to mean ‘no God’, which is exactly what
I think.”
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 11 of 29
10
Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 US 573 (1989). O’Connor also raises the question of the “coercion”
test at the end of her concurring opinion, but concludes that coercion here is inconsequential,
since “such acts [of ceremonial deism] are not religious in character” (Elk Grove v. Newdow at
70–72).
11
An amicus brief of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU, and
Americans for Religious Liberty reports President Bush as having stated the following in a letter to
an American Buddhist leader:
As citizens recite the words of the Pledge of Allegiance … we affirm our form of government, our belief in human dignity, our unity as a people, and our reliance on God ….
When we pledge allegiance to One Nation under God, our citizens participate in an
important American tradition of humbly seeking the wisdom and blessing of Divine
Providence. (Letter from President George W. Bush to Mitsuo Murashige, President,
Haw. State Fed’n of Honpa Hongwanji Lay Ass’ns (Nov. 13, 2002)
President Bush also stressed the importance of the “universal God” or “the Almighty” in his own
life as well as in the “life of our country” when reacting to the Ninth Circuit ruling as “out of step
with the traditions and history of America” (White House Press Release, “U.S., Russia Continue
Joint Efforts to Fight Terrorism,” June 27, 2002; available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2002/06/print/20020627-3.html).
12
Yehudah Mirsky 1986 has recognized that the U.S. Courts have so far failed to acknowledge
the idea of civil religion and thus have not used the conceptual and analytical tools that it could
provide. See also Cloud 2004: 336–337 and Epstein 1996.
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non-religion” (Elk Grove v. Newdow at 58).10 For O’Connor, our centuries-old “references to God and invocations of divine assistance” actually
serve to “solemnize an occasion” rather than to “invoke divine provenance” (Id. at 58, emphasis added).
But O’Connor’s view, and the “ceremonial deism” account more
generally, seems to stand in tension with quite common readings of the
text. On President George W. Bush’s own interpretation of the Pledge
of Allegiance, for example, citizens who recite the Pledge participate in
an important tradition of humbly seeking the wisdom and blessing of
the Almighty.11 This puts President Bush himself—and the millions
who agree with his interpretation—on the side of the “not-so-reasonable” observer. If the President does not understand the reference to
God in the Pledge of Allegiance “as merely solemnizing an occasion,”
how should O’Connor expect young schoolchildren would or should?
As we have seen, the ongoing dispute over the Pledge of Allegiance
is not simply between those who would keep it as it is and those who
would seek to alter it or even remove it completely from public life. The
meaning of the Pledge and the passions evoked by the phrase “under
God” cannot be fully captured through the lens of First Amendment
considerations alone. By evaluating this ritual through the analytical
category of “civil religion,” we believe that we can provide a fuller and
more insightful interpretation of its religious and civic meaning.12
Page 12 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IN LIGHT
OF CIVIL RELIGION
Civil Religion and the Preservationist Impulse
Under a “preservationist” understanding of civil religion, the continued use of traditional expressions, tropes, and rituals of civil religion is
necessary to maintain cultural coherence, a sense of national identity,
and the stability of our central institutions. Most preservationists view
America as a “Christian” (or increasingly, a “Judeo–Christian”) nation
and accordingly find it appropriate for our symbolic systems to reflect
and reinforce that identity.13 To illustrate, Harvard Professor Samuel
Huntington interprets the entire Pledge of Allegiance controversy as
13
It is important to distinguish this normative preservationist approach from the more historical
one discussed earlier and as championed by the likes of Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor,
the petitioners of Elk Grove v. Newdow (2004), and the Executive Branch of the federal government
as represented by Solicitor General Ted Olsen’s Reply Brief for the United States as Respondent
Supporting Petitioners.
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This section details four ways that civil religion in general, and the
Pledge of Allegiance in particular, participates in the kind of “sacred
legitimation of the social order” discussed earlier. Our analysis of civil
religion is based on two distinctions—the first regarding its content (i.e.
the scope of the religious sources that can be incorporated in this civil
religion), and the second, its character (i.e. its posture toward the state).
The first distinction itself turns on the question of inclusion or exclusion: some commentators want civil religion to operate in a conservative
or culturally “preservationist” fashion, while others encourage a more
“pluralist” model, whereby rituals are attentive to and reflective of the
increasing religious diversity of the nation. The other distinction,
between priestly and prophetic modes, is especially apropos when
rituals of civil religion involve religious language. On one reading of the
Pledge of Allegiance, the phrase “one Nation under God” works as a
“priestly” convention in buttressing the claims and bolstering the legitimacy of the state (i.e. “under God” means “God is on our side”). On a
different reading, the phrase “one Nation under God” serves a “prophetic” agenda, so that it is God and not the state that commands
American citizens’ ultimate loyalty. The Pledge of Allegiance can be
interpreted from all of these vantage points. By describing these possibilities and assessing the merits of each, we raise questions about the
meaning, purpose, and desirability of both the Pledge of Allegiance and
American civil religion.
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 13 of 29
14
For a fine-grained analysis of specifically evangelical Christian views about politics, see
C. Smith 2000.
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“sharply pos[ing] the issue whether America is a secular or religious
nation” (Huntington 2004: 81–83). Since he concludes that America is
a “predominantly Christian nation with a secular government,” whose
“Anglo-Protestant” political ideals stand at the heart of our “common
culture,” he submits that Michael Newdow rightly feels like an “outsider” because of his atheism, just as “non-Christians may legitimately
see themselves as strangers” (2004: 82–84). While Huntington concedes
that “atheists and nonbelievers” have the right to refuse to recite the
Pledge or participate in any other “religiously tainted practice of which
they disapprove,” he still insists that all who stand outside of the cultural mainstream must accept its hegemony or face permanent alienation (2004: 82, 106). If Huntington’s diagnosis is to be accepted, rituals
of civil religion such as the Pledge of Allegiance serve to articulate and
reinforce a coherent national identity as well as provide a means for
outsiders to become members of the political community. (Recall the
fact that the Pledge of Allegiance is collectively recited by newly-minted
American citizens at naturalization ceremonies.) Should these rituals be
removed from public life, cultural fragmentation and disintegration of
our collective identity loom as menacing possibilities.
As provocative and “politically incorrect” as Huntington’s views
may appear to some, there is empirical evidence to suggest that a significant portion of the American public shares his views. Sociologist of
religion Robert Wuthow (2005) engaged in six-year research project to
document how Americans today experience and think about religious
diversity. His data show that while support for tolerance is palpable,
50% of all respondents strongly believe that the U.S. was founded on
Christian principles, 52% that America has been strong because of its
faith in God, 32% that the U.S. in the twenty-first century is still basically a Christian society, and 24% that foreigners who come to live in
America should give up their foreign ways and learn to be like other
Americans (2005: 200).14 Supreme Court Justice Douglas’ midtwentieth century assessment of our national self-consciousness, that
“we are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose a Supreme
Being,” still commands broad assent, as does the idea that this Supreme
Being should be understood along Christian or “Judeo–Christian” lines
(Zorach v. Clausen, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)). Thus, it is not surprising that
this “preservationist” concern has been articulated in a number of the
legal arguments discussed earlier in support of the Pledge as well as in
Page 14 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Civil Religion and the Pluralist Impulse
While preservationists would ignore dissent from minority voices
for the sake of a uniform national identity, others are calling for civil
religion, and not these non-conformists, to change. Those who accordingly espouse a “pluralist” or a “multiculturalist” vision of civil religion
encourage the expansion of the forms of civil religion even beyond this
now familiar “Judeo–Christian” gloss. According to Martha Nussbaum,
for example, a “reasonable ‘civil religion’” for America today would
include “a celebration of the diversity of traditions and comprehensive
doctrines that are contained within a nation, as a source of its strength
and richness” (2005: 16; cf. Rouner 1999 and Feldman 2005).
Perhaps the seeds for this positive reception, greater inclusion, and
participation of religions beyond Judaism and Christianity in traditional
rituals of civil religion have already been sown. Consider the case of
Islam in America. Islam began receiving ceremonial distinction and
official recognition in the U.S. from the 1990s onward in previously
unprecedented ways: Muslim imams offered the invocation for the first
time in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1991 and in the U.S.
Senate in 1992; Muslim chaplains were established in the Army in
1993, the Navy in 1996, and in the Air Force in 2000; the White House
held its first Eid al-Fitr (end of Ramadan celebration) in 1996; Islamic
15
See Hamburger 2002 for the argument that the development of the doctrine of “the
separation of church and state” was motivated by nativist, anti-Catholic prejudice in the midnineteenth century. See Laycock 2003 for a trenchant critique of Hamburger’s claims.
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the authors’ of certain amicus briefs desire to retain the reference to
God as the pre-political source of rights.
Nevertheless, the very heritage that such preservationists are striving
to protect is itself a selective retrieval of certain events, symbols, memories, and interpretations—one that distorts or suppresses any evidence
that does not conform to their desired image. In fact, conceptions of a
“Christian” founding (or a “secular” founding, for that matter) do not
take into account the maddeningly complex history of church–state
relations in America. But preservationists are not just waxing nostalgic
for a “golden age” of unified national identity. They are also willing to
use such a vision to exclude or marginalize whomever is currently
regarded as the religious or cultural Other—Quakers and other dissident
Protestant sects or denominations in colonial times; Mormons in the
nineteenth century; Jews and Catholics until the second half of the
twentieth century; and atheists and members of many other religious
traditions still now.15
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 15 of 29
16
The full text of the invocation as well as the program itself can be found online at: http://
www.cathedral.org/cathedral/programs/wtc9.11/PresPrayer.html (accessed Oct. 1, 2005).
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symbols (viz. a star and crescent) were displayed on the White House
Ellipse for the first time in 1997 next to the National Christmas Tree
and a large Hanukkah menorah, and the Pentagon hosted its first
Ramadan meal for Muslims in 1998. During the National Day of Prayer
and Remembrance Service at the Washington National Cathedral three
days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Dean of the
Cathedral, the Very Rev. Nathan D. Baxter, even addressed his invocation to the “God of Abraham and Mohammed and Father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ.”16 The rest of the service contained standard elements of
civil religion in its solemn and popular varieties: remarks by President
George W. Bush, a sermon by “America’s pastor,” Rev. Dr. Billy
Graham, readings from Scripture by rabbis and ministers, and the
singing of Christian hymns and songs of an expressly patriotic nature
(e.g. “God Bless America,” “America the Beautiful”). Yet, amidst these
familiar forms of civil religion stood another novelty: a prayer with
readings from the Qur’an led by Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, an imam
and former director of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
Finally, following his victory in the Nov. 7, 2006 midterm election, the
first-ever Muslim member of Congress, Minnesota Representative Keith
Ellison, used the Qur’an for his swearing-in ceremony—one once
owned by Thomas Jefferson.
If the preservationist desires cultural and religious differences to be
reduced in the American “melting pot,” pluralists advocate a patchwork quilt, by which such public displays and official recognition of a
plurality of religious traditions are the means by which new and historically marginalized groups make their presence known in America civic
life. As might have been expected, however, the ceremonial recognition
of other religions and the expansion of civil religious expressions to
include them have met with resistance and occasional hostility. The
aforementioned Islamic symbols on the White House Ellipse in 1997
were desecrated when the star was removed and spray-painted with a
red swastika (Dinan 1997). President Bush experienced some backlash
by his evangelical Christian base for going beyond the “Judeo–
Christian” script when publicly stating his belief at a press conference
that Christians and Muslims pray to the “same God” (Pruden 2003).
Conservative radio talk show host, Dennis Prager, has publicly chided
Representative Keith Ellison’s decision to take the oath of office on
the Qur’an because such an act “undermines American civilization”
Page 16 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
17
Perhaps owing to media criticism, they later issued a clarification affirming the truth of
Christianity, but conceding that “it is not our position that America’s Constitution forbids
representatives of religions other than Christianity from praying before Congress” (Koff 2000). We
thank Professor Diana Eck for originally bringing to our attention these cases of resistance to the
Hindu priest and the Dalai Lama.
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(2006). Minnesota State Representative Arlon Lindner boycotted the
His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet’s address to the
Minnesota Legislature on May 9, 2001 because “the Buddha religion
… has historically been considered a cult” and falls outside of the
“public religious ethic that prevails in this country, Judeo–Christian …
[which] is the moral and spiritual foundation of our Constitution,
Bill of Rights and most of our laws” (Helms 2001, Lindner 2001).
The Family Research Council regarded the first-ever Congressional
invocation by a Hindu priest in 2000 as “one more indication that
our nation is drifting from its Judeo–Christian roots.”17 Even the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) pastor who participated in
an ecumenical “Prayer for America” service at Yankee stadium on
September 23, 2001 faced suspension and formal charges of unionism
(i.e. worshipping with non-LCMS Christians), syncretism, and idolatry by his co-religionists not so much for the content of his prayer,
but for sharing it alongside of other Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and
Hindu, and Sikh clerics (Neuchterlein 2002). One could enumerate
many other examples of backlash.
It is therefore an open question whether religions outside of the
dominant “Judeo–Christian” paradigm will find genuine acceptance as
bona-fide American religions anytime soon. A separate but related question is just how elastic civil religion can or should be in light of our everchanging attitudes about and demographics concerning religion. One
could, for example, read the history of religions in America as a humble
but progressive narrative of gradual incorporation and greater inclusion:
the early English Puritan establishment of the first colonists soon gave
way to a “tacit, ‘disestablished’ civil religion in the dominance of the
‘Protestant paradigm,’” with Catholics eventually gaining mainstream
acceptance after centuries of “nativist” persecution, and the term “Judeo–
Christian”—incorporating Jews into the mix—gaining widespread use by
the mid-twentieth century (Elshtain 2001: 51; Herberg 1955). Put differently, just as Catholics were largely seen as wholly un-American, undemocratic, and quintessentially Other throughout much of American
history, but have gradually been seen as “Americanized” and are today
considered part of the mainstream, so it is possible for commonplace
attitudes about other religions currently regarded as foreign or strange
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 17 of 29
18
More specifically, non-Protestant religions might adopt the notion of religion as voluntary
and henceforth “compete” for adherents, decrease the actual and perceived dependence on foreign
religious authorities, organize themselves at the Protestant-inspired denominational and
congregational level, involve themselves in public debates, and offer services and activities beyond
those of an expressly religious nature (e.g. education, recreational activities, social services) by
participating in civil society. See McGreevy 2003 and ( particularly on the difference between a
“church” and a “denomination”) Casanova 1994.
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(e.g. Islam, Sikhism) to change over time, as well. To be sure, as
Catholics in America gradually developed a distinctive “American
Catholicism,” such acceptance is likely come only after members of
these other religions adopt the organizational structure and mindset set
by Protestant denominationalism as well as “prove” themselves to be
good and loyal Americans over successive generations.18 The story of
religion in America is not only one of increasing religious tolerance,
then, but also that of the canopy of civil religion being stretched over
these other religions, as the growing use of the term “Abrahamic” in
place of “Judeo–Christian” to describe the character and values that
define the United States attests (O’Keefe 2003).
Now, some defenders of the current version of the Pledge maintain
that its wording is already sufficiently pluralist, that “God” is sufficiently
broad to include practically any notion of divinity. Nevertheless, it must
be remembered that this is a decidedly weak form of pluralism. For it is
clear that any mention of deity in this context, no matter how selfconsciously vague, would be considered problematic by those who do
not believe in any God. This is why Michael Newdow and his nonmonotheistic supporters strenuously insisted that we should not put
schoolchildren in a difficult position of choosing between fidelity to
their non-monotheistic beliefs and an expression of national patriotism.
A decidedly more “pluralist” model can be found in the suggestion of
Margo Lucero, a substitute principal and eighth-grade guidance counselor at a Colorado middle school, to replace the words “under God” with
“under your belief system” to encourage a spirit of inclusion and tolerance (Richardson 2005). Perhaps such a pluralist emendation of the
Pledge of Allegiance would, as Nussbaum suggests, appreciate the broad
spectrum of religious or philosophical views among the American
people and celebrate its diversity of faith. But celebration of diversity is
not the same as the political legitimation of the state, the acknowledgment of a shared moral tradition, or the forging of solidarity to a
common cause. Indeed, the celebration of such diversity and the plurality of “comprehensive doctrines” runs counter to the attempt to articulate exactly what it is that unites American society. While the
preservationist stance stresses shared narratives, rituals, and normative
Page 18 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
concerns and accordingly expects others groups to assimilate, the
“shared values” under any movement toward pluralism may become
mere tolerance itself, or else the belief in the essential goodness and
desirability of such diversity. Thus, if the objective of civil religion is to
help forge a shared understanding of national identity and purpose, it
would be very difficult for a self-consciously pluralist civil religion to
achieve such ends.
In this section we deal with the posture that civil religion takes
toward the state. According to Martin E. Marty, the “priestly mode” is
“celebrative, affirmative, [and] culture-building” (1974: 145).19
Interpreted in this light, civil religion serves to aid in the legitimation of
the state, its institutions, and its policies, by infusing its rituals with religious rhetoric and deploying theological symbols and warrants in
support of the regnant political order. In the words of Samuel
Huntington: “Civil religion enables Americans to bring together their
secular politics and their religious society, to marry God and country, so
as to give religious sanctity to their patriotism and thus to merge what
could be conflicting loyalties into loyalty to a religiously endowed
country” (Huntington 2004: 103, emphasis added). In the specific case
of the Pledge of Allegiance, then, the phrase “under God” could be
understood to mean that “God is on our side.”
In contrast to offering priestly endorsement, civil religion can be
understood to be operating in a prophetic manner. As Bellah argued:
What I meant by civil religion in America—what I pointed to in my
original article and spelled out in the book, The Broken Covenant—was
a long tradition in American public life, of which Lincoln is the absolute central exemplar, of calling the nation to account as responsible to
an authority higher than the nation, of insisting that the nation is not
absolute, and making that part of our public life (emphasis added,
1986).
On this construal civil religion neither automatically celebrates, nor
uncritically accepts, whatever the nation does, but actually makes
possible quite radical political self-criticism. Thus, if priestly civil
19
Aside from distinguishing between priestly and prophetic modes of civil religion, Marty makes
a further distinction between “the Nation under God” and “the Nation as Self-Transcendent.” This
latter form is when God language is absent entirely and thus the Nation itself becomes the sacred
and transcendent entity (1974).
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Priestly and Prophetic Civil Religion
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 19 of 29
20
That is, that the nation is accountable to God, or to some ideal (e.g. “democracy”). See Marty
1974 for more on this point.
21
See White (2002) for more on the immediate negative reaction to what many now consider to
have been Lincoln’s greatest speech. While Lincoln is generally considered to be America’s civil
theologian par excellence, his thought raises certain difficulties. For example, the idea of America as
a “new nation” proclaimed in the Gettysburg Address is based on a founding myth of voluntary
migration, and the myth’s overall effect—whether intended or not—has been to obscure the record
of slaves and Native Americans, who were either exploited or subjected to genocidal extermination
for the nation’s advancement (Angrosino 2002: 249).
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religion tries to give divine or transcendent sanction to “who we
are,” the prophetic type instead stresses “who we need to be” in the
light of some higher, transcendent ideal.20 For example, in his
famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
employed prophetic civil religion to champion civil rights by appealing to the still-unsatisfied promises of the Declaration of
Independence and Constitution. More controversially, Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell’s suggestion that the 9/11 terrorist attacks could be
explained as a sign of divine disfavor for the advance of secularism
in American public life—witnessed by the legalization of abortion,
influence of feminism, promotion of “alternative lifestyles,” the
“throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools,” etc.—
can be understood as an instance of civil religion that is prophetic in
character and preservationist in content (Lincoln 2002: 104–107).
It can be argued that priestly civil religion has been more popular
than prophetic varieties. For example, in contrast to the reverent humility, sense of sin, and theological ambiguity displayed in Lincoln’s
Second Inaugural, most Presidential uses of civil religious rhetoric in
times of war are premised on the priestly conviction that God is on
America’s side.21 From another angle, the popularity of Lee
Greenwood’s song “God Bless the U.S.A.”—in heavy rotation during
Gulf War I (1991) and again in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001—reveals how many Americans appeal to God (or
else use God-talk) in times of national crisis or tragedy. However,
the public-at-large responded much more positively to the priestly–
pluralistic civil religious ceremonies—note the favorable receptions of
the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance Service at Washington
National Cathedral (September 14, 2001) and Yankee Stadium “Prayer
for America” (September 23, 2001)—than they did with the Robertson/
Falwell preservationist–prophetic critique. Perhaps it can be concluded
that Americans are fonder of the priestly idea of God blessing America
than they are of prophetic civil religious jeremiads. Moreover, the state’s
Page 20 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
22
Also widely denounced was the prophetic civil religious response offered by New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin that the devastation of Hurricane Katrina (2005) was a manifestation of God’s
anger at the United States for having invaded Iraq under “false pretenses” and the African
American community in particular for not taking better care of their children (Roig-Franzia 2006).
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interest in civil religion would seem naturally to tend toward the priestly
mode and away from the prophetic.
Those who advocate a priestly civil religion would most likely affirm
the current text of the Pledge of Allegiance. However, some prophetic
civil religionists, concerned that rituals such as the Pledge are primarily
designed to inculcate love of country rather than commitment to a set
of ideals for which the country is supposed to stand, might object to its
frequent use in public schools and other fora. While this latter group
might endorse the ostensibly religious rationale behind the 1954 introduction of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge (i.e. to signify that the
nation is under an authority higher than the state), they might be
appalled by some recent strategies that defended its constitutionality by
draining the phrase “one Nation under God” of any genuine religious
content.
As we suggested earlier, it may well be the case that the state’s interest in promoting civil religion in patriotic rituals will nearly always be
priestly and not prophetic, since the state will want to foster patriotism
and obedience—not a critical attitude toward its institutions and policies. Moreover, the American public has largely rejected appeals to prophetic civil religion when used to explain or justify national misfortune.
Indeed, some may question the need of a prophetic civil religion at all,
insofar as it provides the vehicle of self-criticism. For, if self-criticism
with reference to an ideal is what is most desired in prophetic civil religion, it is important to ask whether state-sponsored civil religion is the
most effective way of achieving this goal. There are ample opportunities
for such national self-scrutiny made possible by a wealth of sources that
do not depend upon either the rhetoric or rituals of state-sponsored
civil religion. There are public voices both within and outside of the
United States who subject many of America’s projects or values (e.g. its
drive toward military dominance, its policies regarding poverty and
welfare) to strenuous and sustained examination. The Charter of the
United Nations, international human rights law, and other conventions
maintain that no nation, not even the world’s sole superpower, is above
correction or critique. Many Americans offered possible explanations
for—and even self-criticism about—national disasters such as 9/11 and
Hurricane Katrina without appealing to prophetic civil religion as an
explanation.22 There may be times when recognition of human error,
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 21 of 29
CONCLUSION
It is clear that American civil religion, whether in its preservationist,
priestly, or prophetic cast, will be objectionable to one group or
another. There will never be a functional civil religion that will please
all Americans. Insofar as such rituals strive to promote unity, they do
so at the risk of estranging some citizens from full participation in the
polity. Religious groups who have conscientiously refused to salute or
pledge allegiance to the flag (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites, the
Elijah Voice Society, members of the Church of God) have been
legally prosecuted—and in some cases, violently assaulted (Gunn 2004:
589–490; Ellis 2005).23 By linking assent to a theological claim with an
affirmation of civic loyalty, the current text of the Pledge sorts out who
can and cannot be true patriots, and thereby divides, rather than unites,
all Americans.
Why not call for a reversion to the pre-1954 text? Even without its
theological referent, the Pledge of Allegiance could still be considered a
ritual of American civil religion. The Pledge could still work in a
23
Admittedly, legal persecution for such conscientiousness all but abated after the West Virginia
v. Barnette (1943) decision. Yet harassment for those who elect not to participate in Pledge of
Allegiance ceremonies still continues even today.
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evil, or incompetence is more constructive than appeals to divine
providence or divine wrath. Indeed, it is safe to say that such a prophetic
mode of thinking about politics would continue to emanate from
individuals, churches, and other religious institutions themselves (in the
form of what Martin E. Marty and others have called “public religion”).
This final point about the role of “public religion” for self-criticism
is important, since some religious leaders criticize the very idea and
usage of civil religion itself, whether “priestly” or “prophetic,” given the
danger that either poses to the health and vitality of their own religious
traditions. Christian ethicists such as Stanley Hauerwas and John
Howard Yoder have long sought to counsel Christians in America away
from both their “Constantinian” tendencies and their misguided
primary allegiance to the state as opposed to the church of which
Christ is the head. After all, the grand tradition of biblically-infused
civil religion in America has regarded America as the “New Israel,”
placing America itself in a covenantal relationship with God. As we see,
then, civil religion and its attendant rituals have the potential not only
to offend the non-theist, but also raise difficulties for the faithful theist,
as well.
Page 22 of 29
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
24
Supreme Court Justice Brennan apparently overlooked this point in Abington Township
v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), when he noted that recitations of the Pledge may be no more of a
religious exercise than the reading aloud of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, since each contains
allusions to the same historical facts.
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priestly fashion to inculcate patriotic sentiments. Its invocation of
“liberty and justice for all” could still serve as a prophetic clarion call for
a free and just society. Such a pledge would not imply that patriotism
was dependent upon a certain religious belief—and thus satisfy a
central conviction of pluralists—but would still articulate those
American values that are essential to preserve. However, given the widespread public opposition to the Ninth Circuit’s holding in 2002 that the
phrase “under God” is unconstitutional, the removal of the phrase
would likely prove politically unfeasible.
To return to the legal issue with which we began, continued constitutional challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance raise the prospect of
increased scrutiny for other forms and rituals of civil religion, such as the
National Motto inscribed on our coins, the employment of legislative and
military chaplains, the opening of legislative sessions with prayer, prayers
at presidential inaugurations, displays of the Ten Commandments on
public property, the use of the phrase “God save the United States and
this Honorable Court” at the opening of Supreme Court proceedings, the
singing of certain patriotic songs in public settings, and certain national
holidays (e.g. Christmas and Thanksgiving). While we cannot discuss any
of these practices to any degree of satisfaction here, the difference between
all of them and recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is
that the latter primarily affects children and involves a level of coercion
and personal commitment that all of the former do not (Sullivan 2002:
376). Put succinctly, only the Pledge of Allegiance is put in the form of a
first-personal and present-tense oath or affirmation. Anyone who recites
the Pledge thereby provides greater assent to its content than does a
spender of a coin to the words that are inscribed on it (i.e. “In God We
Trust”). Moreover, a public school student’s daily recitation of the Pledge
must also be seen as a performative act in a manner that is qualitatively
unlike his or her recitation of historical texts such as the Declaration of
Independence or any of President Lincoln’s speeches, even if similar theological references are also to be found in those texts (Nichols 2004: 802).24
This is because the Pledge is a ritual that asks individuals to make a
personal affirmation of its claims and values, thereby “alter[ing] one’s
moral relationship to [them]” (Newdow III, 328 F.3d 489). Not to
acknowledge this fact is to fail to take the Pledge of Allegiance
seriously as a pledge.
Kao Copulsky: The Pledge of Allegiance
Page 23 of 29
REFERENCES
Angrosino, Michael. V.
2002
“Civil Religion Redux.”
Quarterly 75/2: 239–267.
Anthropological
Bellah, Robert
1974
“American Civil Religion in the 1970s”
(augmented version). In American Civil
Religion, ed. by Russell E. Richey and Donald
G. Jones, 255–272. New York: Harper & Row.
1976a
“The Revolution and the Civil Religion.” In
Religion and the American Revolution, ed. by
Jerald C. Brauer. New York: Fortress Press.
Downloaded from http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on May 17, 2016
It is nevertheless doubtful that those who oppose the Pledge of
Allegiance for the reasons that we have enumerated will win the
support of most Americans. The overwhelmingly negative public
response to the original decision of the Ninth Circuit and the promises
by elected politicians to protect the current wording of the Pledge
suggest the deep commitment of many Americans to this ritual of
American civil religion, however they understand it. The American
Jewish Congress certainly feared that any proposal to strike “under
God” from the Pledge would be met with backlash in the legislature
and in society-at-large. This is why, as a “matter of tactics and judgment,” they appealed to notions of ceremonial deism and civil religion
to provide the Court with a way of retaining state-sponsored religious
language through the subterfuge that the phrase is no longer really religious at all (Nir 2004; Copulsky 2005).
We would urge all Americans to consider more seriously the
phenomenon of civil religion as religiously significant. Michael Newdow
was correct when he argued that, despite its vagueness, the phrase
“under God” is not theologically hollow, and that the fusion of religious
commitments with patriotism in the current version of the Pledge
threatens both. According to some concerned Jewish and Christian
clergy, to fail to take seriously the statement “I pledge allegiance … to
one Nation under God” is to ask “millions of school children [daily] to
take the name of the Lord in vain” and accordingly violate one of the
Ten Commandments (Br. for Rev. Dr. Betty Jane Bailey et al. at 2).
In the contest between prudential gain from the use of rhetorical
strategies involving purely “secularized” notions of civil religion and
religious honesty, it is the latter that ought to be encouraged.
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