This June 14, Flag Day, the 243rd birthday of our nation’s flag, has special significance as we acknowledge that the American promise of equality and justice is still denied to African Americans and others.
Our flag expresses our commitment to the principles of justice and liberty. It focuses our attention on the ideals to which our nation aspires, and, often, neglects. We disrespect the flag when we ignore its values. We dishonor it when we use it to hide our betrayal of our principles.
Saluting the flag and reciting “The Pledge of Allegiance” plays a central role in American civil life. With it, we start the school day, open congress, and begin national celebrations. The words we say commit us to our core values of “liberty and justice for all.”
Our “Pledge”, originally suggested in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, has grown over the years. The words “of the United States of America” were added to emphasize that the flag represented our republic. “Under God” entered in the 1950s as part of a reaction to the challenge of the Soviet Union.
“The Pledge” opens with a two-fold commitment, to “the flag” and to “the republic for which it stands”. It expresses our promise to respect our national symbols by upholding the principles that give them meaning
In “The Pledge” we commit ourselves to each other No matter from where or how we or our ancestors came to be part of America; “one nation” implies one people.
Our nation is “indivisible”. The Civil War cemented our political unity. The struggle, however, to ensure our social unity continues. Today, we are sharply aware of how policies and institutional structures have been used to divide us, by race, by class; rewarding some groups, and denying others.
“Liberty and justice” are not to be measured out in differing proportions to people according to skin tone or social class or ethnic heritage. We honor our pledge when we protect and promote each other’s freedom and equality.
Only then does the phrase “under God” gains meaning. Ensuring equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal access to basic human services are social policy expressions of the Golden Rule. The injunction to love others as ourselves is a fundamental principle in our religious traditions and the ethical foundation for many who see themselves as secular.
We are not “under God” in any political or legal sense. The separation of state and religion ensures our freedom to follow our best lights in our spiritual lives. No set of religious laws rules us. Though the teachings of our respective religious traditions guide us personally, the laws under which we live come from “we, the people” and not from God.
The claim that only one nation benefits from God’s providence sounds blasphemous. Spiritually it is hard to imagine God’s presence in a nation full of injustice and oppression.
We have seen the suffering caused by our national inability to honor our “Pledge”. Our response to COVID19 has revealed the shortcomings of our health system and its specific failures in African American and other minority communities. The economic downturn while harming to all Americans, has been particularly painful for minorities. George Floyd’s death, the latest in a long series of African Americans killed by police, demonstrates, again, the structural racial bias in the American justice system.
On Flag Day 2020 we are acutely aware of how we have failed to honor our “Pledge”. For many, kneeling is a way of acknowledging this failure. But for those who chose to stand with their hand over their heart need to remember that this gesture can be a sign of penitence. This year, as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, let us confess our failure so far to honor our “Pledge” and our resolution to ensure that our nation, the United States of America, becomes a land of liberty and justice for all.