INDOCTRINATION ?

I was totally taken by surprise and had an adverse emotional reaction when I went to my first Kansas City City Council Meeting when it started with a prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. I was also surprised that there was no attempt at making it an interfaith prayer, it was Christian evangelical prayer language. I was absolutely sure this had to be a violation of the separation of church and state and many people I talked to thought so also.

_{Article the third… Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.}

Well according to the U.S. Supreme court I was wrong (Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983)) as long as the prayer is for guidance and not an attempt at conversion.

I disagree with the Supreme Court and believe having official prayer (Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Islamic or any other form) before a public government meeting in a country built on religious freedom is wrong. The message to everyone in that room is that the elected officials are going to make their decisions based on religious beliefs. When it is Christian prayer, it brings up the “Is the United States of America a Christian nation?” question every time. The truth is that the majority of citizens right now identify as Christian so looking at it that way the answer would be YES. However, if you look at it from a legal perspective the answer is NO – because of Amendment 1, article 3 –“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” so the United States DOES NOT have an official religion.

Right now many citizens are struggling with government overreach into our personal lives. We have too many elected officials using their position to try and enforce their religious beliefs on everyone. It is wrong for public elected officials, who have tax-paid positions, who took an oath to “support the Constitution of the United States” to use that position to create laws based on those beliefs. Public officials/organizations that schedule prayer at the beginning of an open government meetings are sending a message to all who do not believe the way they do that they are not represented which creates atmospheres of distrust, anger and hatred.

Don’t get me wrong I am a big believer in the power of prayer, however, I believe prayer is between me and my higher power (who I choose to call God), prayer is personal and individual. There are times and places for shared group prayer but on those occasions it is consensual not part of a government meeting.

I do have personal emotional issues from my childhood experiences with the evangelical “Christian” religion that impact my reactions to prayer in public meetings.

I invite everyone who reads this to stop and think about how they would feel if every time they went to a public meeting they were asked to participate in the Islamic Istikharah (prayer for guidance) or to meditate or to chant.

Do you think you would feel included, represented or supported by any government official participating in a prayer type that did not support your beliefs? Do you think you might distrust those officials? Elected officials are supposed to represent everyone in their jurisdiction not just the ones who look, think and act like them. That is a tough thing to do.

I would feel more comfortable with my government officials were to solemnize the meeting by asking each of them to spend a few moments in following their own spiritual beliefs to ask for guidance, ground themselves, open their hearts and minds or whatever they do to mentally and emotionally prepare themselves for the meeting. That one change could, and I believe would, create a more positive welcoming environment for everyone involved.

The Pledge of Allegiance

Written in 1885 by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army officer in the Civil War – “We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag.”

The pledge has existed in some form since September 1892 when it appeared in a magazine article that commemorated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-latest-controversy-about-under-god-in-the-pledge-of-allegiance

In 1923 added “the Flag of the United States of America”

In 1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a “Flag Code” law passed by Congress that established rules for the display and care of the flag and included the Pledge.

1954 -in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” 

Two years before I was born is when they added “under God” so I grew up reciting the Pledge as it exists today. It was just what we did, no one I knew questioned it. I joined the USMC and recited the pledge, saluted the flag and was proud just like I was trained to be. _{I am glad they changed the salute, growing up with all the WWII movies showing the bad guys (Nazi’s) doing the straight arm salute I don’t think I could have handled that.} I never thought about it, why we did it or what it really meant.

So after my research I think the pledge of allegiance should be gotten rid of altogether:

1. Original version written during the Civil War did not have anything in it about pledging allegiance to a flag, it was about uniting the country under one flag.
2. Later. it was changed to its current version to be used by school children to commemorate Christopher Columbus’s founding of a new world. Christopher Columbus stumbling onto the Caribbean islands and his exploration of Central and South America have absolutely nothing to do with the founding of the United States of America.
3. It was distributed to schools as a marketing gimmick to Americanize the children. Sounds like indoctrination to me!
4. Was NOT officially part of the government until the beginning of WWII, during the patriotic flurry.
5. “Under God” was added in the middle of a “Red Scare” back when we had bomb drills in elementary schools. You know… where they had us get under our desks and cover our heads with our hands? If we had been bombed… we would have been dead. These drills were just more indoctrination and the groups that lobbied for the words to be added definitely wanted the words to be tied together with patriotism. More indoctrination!

What if we replaced the Pledge of Allegiance with having children learn and recite the preamble of the constitution or this part of the Declaration of Independence.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/preamble/

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

Both of these are patriotic and teach truth about the founding of our nation unlike the Pledge of Allegiance.

Resources:

https://www.freedomforum.org/separation-of-church-and-state/

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript

https://mrsc.org/stay-informed/mrsc-insight/february-2018/prayer-pledges-should-you-or-shouldnt-you

https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/14015-prayers-at-government-meetings

https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

Legislative and Government Prayer

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-latest-controversy-about-under-god-in-the-pledge-of-allegiance

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/columbus-reaches-the-new-world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Francis_Bellamy’s_account

https://www.history.com/news/who-created-the-pledge-of-allegiance

https://www.history.com/news/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools