One Nation Under God
Peter H. Boericke
“… one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Editor’s note: This address was given at the Independence Day celebration in Bryn
Athyn on July 4, 2013. Although the focus of this address, and of the following
review of a booklet by the Rev. Robert Jungé on the religious roots of the country,
is on the United States, they both express universal principles for all nations. As
stated in Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people
whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.”)
W
e all learned our Pledge of Allegiance as children. We often recite it, as
we just did minutes ago. But, how often do we think about the meaning
of our Pledge – just 31 words that embody all that our nation has labored to
become and all that it envisions for future generations?
Today, as we celebrate the 237th birthday of our Republic, I’d like to focus
on the meaning of “…one nation under God …” and the leading of His Divine
Providence in building and maintaining “… liberty and justice for all.”
Historically, we are a nation born out of an unwanted conflict, arising
from the fully human need and compelling desire for individual freedom. And
today, through the exercise of hard-won freedoms, our republic has evolved,
step by step, from a risky experiment into a strong representative democracy
of the people, by the people, and for the people; a nation of laws, a free and
open society that requires from each and every one of us constant work and
vigilance.
From unsure beginnings, God has always been with our nation, just as He
is with each one of us today. Indeed, we are a nation founded on religious and
economic freedoms; those same freedoms first sought by the pilgrims who
fled religious persecution in 1620 to forge a new life in a strange and wild
country. Before setting one foot on Plymouth Rock, those 141 courageous
settlers entered into the Mayflower Compact; a solemn covenant “in the name
of God” and the first of many such covenants made to constitute “just and
equal laws …”
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