Why Is God Part of the Pledge of Allegiance?
I know right now some peoples heads might be exploding at just the thought. But, please allow me to explain before you go running, calling me names and telling everyone that I’m not patriotic or worse. It seems to be only right wing Christians that can’t seem to grasp the simple fact that I am about write. Not sure why that is but I do have a pretty good idea. But, it’s not important. It would be just a guess, a mere opinion. What is important are the facts. And the fact is that God was never mentioned in the original Pledge of Allegiance.
It’s true. I’m not making it up. A guy by the name Francis Bellamy originally composed it way back in 1892. He was Baptist Minister and the only reason this “pledge” was ever written was to push an agenda on the people. Francis Bellamy and a guy named James Upham worked for a religious propaganda magazine called Youth’s Companion. They also made money by selling flags to schools. At the same time there was this thing called the “schoolhouse flag movement”. Bellamy and Upham became huge supporters of it.
They came up with an idea to celebrate Columbus Day in schools. It was going to be the 400th anniversary of Columbus “discovering America” and for that every school would need a flag. Columbus Day wasn’t really a thing yet but if they could make it a thing, every school would need a flag. Why would every school need flag? Good question! Bellamy wrote a pledge for the flag and they published it in their magazine. Bellamy went to a convention of school officials and sold them on the idea of raising the flag to Bellamy’s pledge.
Here’s the thing though, God wasn’t mentioned in the pledge. It went like this:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.“
See, that? No God. Francis Bellamy was a Baptist Minister and he didn’t put his god in the pledge.
So how did the word god infiltrate the Pledge of Allegiance? Well we have to skip ahead about 60 years to 1954. A time when the world was afraid of communism. Russians were the bad guys now and communism was thought to be a godless thing. So once again the propaganda machines came out in full force. President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God” to the pledge (Congress had formally adopted the Pledge in 1942). Congress agreed to make the change and add “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and it has remained ever since.
God is in the Pledge of Allegiance for one reason and one reason only, some politicians thought our country needed to promote itself as the country God loves the most. Communism bad, Capitalism good. God wasn’t added because we loved God. We didn’t add Him to the Pledge out of our respect or even fear of Him. We did it for nothing more than self promotion. We used His name for one of the worst reasons of all, for pride. It’s that simple. That’s the history of it. Think about it, the Pledge of Allegiance was pretty much just created as catchy jingle to sell flags to schools.
For people to get so upset over it is ridiculous. The people that get the most upset about it seem to have no idea what they are talking about. I have never met one of them that had any clue about the addition of “under God” in 1954. Most people don’t know this and yet they yell and scream and call people names for not respecting the Pledge of Allegiance? For disrespecting their god? For disrespecting the country? Are you kidding me?! Their ignorance and blatant stupidity is laughable and more than that, it’s offensive.
It’s these types of silly arguments between the educated and the uneducated that cause so many problems in this country. It’s okay to be a republican or a democrat. What isn’t okay, is to be stupid and proud of it.
If you’re interested, here’s a more detailed history of the the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
