One Nation Under God

Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the LORD [is] great, and greatly to be praised: he [is] to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations [are] idols: but the LORD made the heavens (Ps 96:3-5).
In Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, there is a line that reads "that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." We were a nation under God then, in 1863 and we are now, in 2008, despite those who desire to change the course and direction of this country, one that was founded on Christian principles.
Everything on this earth began with God, yet there are those who are trying to take God out of the picture altogether, which would render a society without a solid foundation, a society that offers no hope for a fallen world, one that excludes the light of the Lord. A society without God is one built on sinking sand, to be washed away with the tide, to leave behind no trace of its existence. One of the signs of this movement is that The Pledge of Allegiance is no longer being recited by students in secular classrooms, in the United States of America. The most pressing issue our country faces is the attempt by persons to make this nation anything other than "One Nation Under God."
God has always been present "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). However, the religious freedom of standing in a secular classroom and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance has been taken away, and sadly so. So much for the "land of the free." Or could it be, the "land of the secular humanism viewpoint," that is against God and Christian principles, what this nation was founded on, which goes against the freedom for which servicemen laid down their lives. We as Americans sing "America, America, God shed his grace on thee and crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea," but do we realize the ultimate sacrifice that God made when he came to earth, in the form of a man, Jesus, who died on a lonely wooden cross, for our sins?
To begin to address this issue, I look back to earlier days in New England, and remember when I was a little girl at Shapleigh Elementary School in Kittery, Maine. The teacher would say, "Children, it is now time to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance." We all stood in succession and placed our right hands over our hearts. When you're a little kid, sometimes you get the hand wrong, but your heart is always right. And so we began, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, 'One Nation Under God,' indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." We were children, but we knew the words and we spoke with pride for our country. Now, I am older and see the flag and I remember what I was taught as a little girl in school, to always respect the flag and what it stands for.
"One nation Under God" means accountability to a higher authority, a holy God with a divine law to live by, the Ten Commandments. To remove God from our country would imply that there is no real standard to live by; one makes their own rules, serves their own "god." If one's standard does not include the commandments of God, then one would be able to do whatever prompts them to, without any self-justification, a society without any moral constitution, a society where there is no right and no wrong, where people make their own rules and have to be accountable to no one. A sign of the times is the movement to remove "In God We Trust" from the U.S. currency, much to the disgrace of our founding forefathers whose faces are engraved on it, some who were Presidents of the United States.
I propose The Pledge of Allegiance be restored to honor God and Christianity and I dream... "And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there...oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Heartstrings Two, Copyright © 2008 by Library of Congress
(Finalist in FAU Speaks Out! Essay Contest 2008)