The Pledge of Allegiance and Its Author
by Jon Trott

Stupid is the best description for the recent decision by the San Francisco Court declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. The presiding judge's backpedalling after being howitzered by nearly every politician and pundit offers preliminary evidence that the nation's collective response to this nonsense has been recieved. Meanwhile, my email box is filling with various right wing and Christian groups offering to defend the pledge if only I'll send contributions, sign their petitions, and so forth. One such appeal from a group called TVCNews came today:

Outraged to hear our Pledge of Allegiance ruled unconstitutional because it contains the words "under God"? Then here's your chance to defend America's Godly heritage. The appeals court's ungodly ruling shows what will continue to happen as long as the Senate insists on blocking President George W. Bush's nominees because of their conservative and Christian beliefs.

That bugs me. The phrase "one nation under God", which led to an atheist father's lawsuit that started this whole ball rolling, is not necessarily a tip of the hat to Christian belief--or belief of any other kind. One could even say it is a tip of the hat to history, an American history rich in religious symbolism if short on actual content. That idea is lent some credence by various hate-mongers leaving messages on the father's answering machine, which he was more than happy to play back for the media.

Truth is, that phrase "under God" wasn't added to the Pledge until 1954 in response to atheistic communism. The Knights of Columbus began the drive to include the two words, but it was Dwight Eisenhower who directed congress to make it official: "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and every rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.''

But regarding the Pledge, here's something to bug some of the more shrill folks to the right: Francis Bellamy, the fellow who wrote The Pledge of Allegiance, was a self-described socialist! Bellamy was a Baptist pastor and "Christian Socialist" who, when resisted by fellow churchmen who thought him a radical, pointed to his belief in Jesus Christ and the Scriptures themselves as evidence for his activism. He first published the Pledge in the September 8, 1892 issue of Youth's Companion, which was owned by liberal Daniel Ford. Ford was also a devout Christian. According to historian Dr. John Baer,

In his private life, Ford was a generous helper of religious enterprises which were associated with Baptist charities and Christian social action. For many years he supported the Ruggles Street Church, a Baptist missionary institution in the Roxbury factory district of Boston not too far from his residence in downtown Boston. He also supported Francis Bellamy's churches in the area. He often gave away as much as fifty thousand dollars a year to these churches and to other Baptist charities.[1]

Francis' cousin was the famous Edward Bellamy, author of the novel Looking Backward and founder of the then-influential "Nationalist" movement. That movement was rooted in the socialist ideals Looking Backward suggested. Francis served as vice president of the Christian Society of Socialists, an auxiliary of Edward's Nationalist movement. The two men were close.

Again according to Dr. Baer,

The orthodox Christianity of the 18th and 19th century often placed the entire responsibility for the sad condition of humanity on the sins of individuals. Marxist theories in the 19th century assumed that individual defects of character were chiefly the result of a faulty economic, political, and social environment. Edward and Francis Bellamy took the intermediate position that both personal character traits and economic, political and social organizations were responsible for many of the miseries of mankind.[2]

It may come as a shock to realize the author of The Pledge of Allegiance is someone with such an unexpected political and social(ist) pedegree. But each time I get one of those email appeals for cash on the basis of defending the Pledge from liberalism, I smile as I hit the delete key. A dose of history does wonders for a case of the preconceptions.

More Reading:

A Short History of the Pledge of Allegiance:
http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/pledge.htm

End Notes:

[1] http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/pdgech2.htm

[2] http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/pdgech3.htm