On Nation Under God and Tebow

In his Easter Sermon, Tim Tebow said that America needs to get back to being “One Nation under God.  It’s tempting to question why a quarterback is giving a sermon.  It’s even more tempting, and seemingly relevant, to bring up that “One Nation Under God” entered our pledge of allegiance in 1954.   Really, though, I don’t care if Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had a private version of the Constitution where the phrase appears on every other line.  I don’t care if George Washington and Benjamin Franklin desired that America be exclusively Christian.  Most of them owned slaves or condoned slavery.  Does that mean it’s okay for me to try to enslave the first black man I run across tomorrow?  I certainly don’t think so, and I know I wouldn’t get very far if I tried.  That is the real problem.  Being One Nation under God is as impractical and undesirable as legalizing slavery.

The fact is that we aren’t One Nation Under God, at least not One Nation under an unforgiving caricature of the Christian God.  About 5% of the American population identify themselves as members of a non-Christian religion.  Another 15% don’t identify themselves as religious at all.  That adds up to a lot of people, even before you start counting those of us who identify ourselves as Christian but don’t see God as vengeful or judgmental and are tolerant and accepting of the beliefs of others.  One Nation Under the Christian God isn’t going to be achieved easily or peacefully.

One Nation Under God, any God, isn’t that attractive an idea anyway.  The idea is built on a notion of Christian superiority, which is unfounded.  It is also intertwined with the notion that Americans should be Christians, which is unattractive.  I don’t have to believe in God to be a good American.  It isn’t necessary to vote, to speak my mind, to fight for the rights of others whether on a battlefield or a picket line, to work hard, or to cooperate with other Americans.  God is not a necessary part of the American experience.  Pushing one picture of God on all of us surely isn’t. 

There are a lot of things we should try to be as a nation.  There may even be a few we should get back to being.  United under one religious banner and intolerant of all others is not one of these things.