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| “In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” |
| —Psalm 56:4 |
On this Memorial Day, a day that we remember those who died in military service in order to preserve our freedom, I will strive in this blog post to honor their supreme sacrifice by shining a spotlight on certain changes that have taken place in our society. May God bless those who died and may He bless their families.
We live in a very odd time. Over the course of my lifetime I have observed so many changes in people’s attitudes in the United States of America that I can hardly process them.
As a child in elementary school, we began each day by standing next to our desks, placing our right hands over our hearts, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I was in school at the point that two new words were added to the Pledge under President Dwight David Eisenhower’s administration. Those words were inserted between the words “nation” and “indivisible” so the Pledge would now read: “…one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I now read that some teachers—many teachers—and many school administrators, will no longer permit the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. “It forces children to agree to something they may not actually agree.”
Whaaaaat? Are you kidding me? If you are a citizen of the United States of America, then this pledge is a sacred oath of allegiance to the country that protects and defends the freedom under which you live your life. How could you possibly want to be a citizen if you didn’t pledge your allegiance?
And, besides, notice how absolutely “terrible” the Pledge is:
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.
Now, don’t those words just strike terror in your heart? Ridiculous!
We also began each day with someone reading a portion of a Psalm from the Old Testament of the Bible. And, we even recited the Lord’s Prayer—the Roman Catholic children stopped short of the very end, as the Protestant children pushed on through the final words, “…for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.”
If we had a Jehovah’s Witness student in our class, that child simply did not participate. He or she stood silently while all the other children recited the opening exercises. No one picked on the J-W child.
Likewise, if you were Jewish, while you may have participated in the reading of the Psalm—after all the Psalms came from the Jewish Scriptures—you refrained from reciting the Lord’s Prayer. As far as I know, none of the Jewish children were harmed, their parents weren’t offended, and the other kids simply accepted with understanding that while most children believed that the Messiah had come, their Jewish classmates were still waiting for that glorious day to arrive.
In addition, we studied our currency, noted the words “In God We Trust” and talked about the symbolism of each element of the one dollar bill.
As I tell this story from 64 years ago, I feel I must append this disclaimer: “No children were harmed in the carrying out of these daily beginnings to the school day.”
I make this point to illustrate for those who may be much younger how far along a downward spiral we have come. Was it a perfect time back then? Of course not. Was it a much simpler time? Apparently so. Have the changes in our national demeanor been positive? In only one way that I can identify: racial diversity.
There were so few people of African descent in my hometown that race was never an issue. I never heard derogatory statements about people with different skin color. The only “black” man that I knew personally growing up was one of the most educated men in the entire community.
The Reverend Dr. Thomas James Sadler, Sr. was the pastor of the Copeland African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was a gentle man, large in stature, powerful in the pulpit, and an absolute joy to meet with to pray. He and his church supported our Youth for Christ activities. I can still remember kneeling at the altar of one of the participating churches for prayer, asking God to intercede in the lives of the youth in our city and feeling the loving touch of Dr. Sadler’s strong arm around my shoulders.
I grew up neither fearing people whose skin color was different than mine, nor hating them. I grew up accepting the reality that some had a religion that was different than mine. I had classmates who did not attend any church and classmates who attended a wide range of churches and synagogues. But, I knew no one who did not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I was taught to revere the heroes of the faith from the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament. I remember thinking about how wonderful it would be to one day meet King David in heaven. This man who the Scripture tells us was a man after God’s own heart. There was no question in what David believed.
When David was pursued by the Philistines, he wrote these words found in Psalm 56:4:
In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
Yes, our national culture has changed dramatically over the years of my life. But, we who belong to God have every reason to hold fast to King David’s words. Without shame we can say, “In God we trust! We are not afraid! What can mere mortals do to us?”
