As an American who sometimes ruminates on the role of God in our society, I find the debate over the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools interesting. I can’t separate whether I’m okay with the pledge because it does not violate constitutional separation of church and state or because I believe that it is in fact God’s authority that really provides inalienable rights. If it’s the former, then I don’t really have a problem. However, if it’s the lattter and “one nation under God” is fine with me personally, then I shouldn’t be okay with it as a government supported directive. What I found most interesting about this NYTimes article is the way in which religious groups fall on both sides of the debate.
Related Posts
Wajahat Ali and the Doha Debates
While we were in Doha for the MLT Conference, we were able to attend a special session of the Doha Debates. The topic was “Motion: This House believes that political Islam is a threat to the West.” Wajahat Ali, of AltMuslim and Goat Milk, has done a nice write-up of the issues discussed. He was also gracious enough to make me sound intelligent. I have his permission to include his original questions, and my responses, below. 1) How would you personally define “political Islam” and “the West?” Do you think the debates adequately defined these two terms? The problem with…
Caught!
We caught Saddam! In absolute terms, this a good thing. It doesn’t matter how it gets spun, or whether it was worth going to war for. We caught him. No matter how you cut it, Saddam is a bad man, dare I say evil? He needed to be brought to justice over 20 years ago, but better late than never. I’m an American, and proud to be one. Part of that pride is the belief that the US is a nation of laws, of principle and of hope. We’ve caught Saddam alive, which means not myth, no legend, no symbol,…
We don’t need no stinkin’ ayatollah
So, Iraq exploded. The Shi’ah are now rising against us. How did this happen? As always, a misunderstanding of the “other.” In this case, the mistake was so basic it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
One thought on “One Nation Under God”
Comments are closed.
Hello. My name is Shelly. I am an apartment manager in Houston, TX. I know that many of my residents celebrated Navroz Mubarak on March 21st. Is it an Islamic holiday? I would like to find a calendar of other holidays so we can celebrate them as a community. Any information you have would be helpful as I am unable to ask them about their religion due to fair housing restrictions. My e-mail address is shelly.garrett@gmail.com