Under God and Anti-Communist: How the Pledge of Allegiance Got Religion in Cold War America

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the American flag became ubiquitous—in stores, on cars, at work, in neighborhoods, in churches, and on t-shirts and other assorted articles of clothing. Over a year later, the Stars and Sfripes continue to be in vogue, to say the least. Countless billboards and bumper stickers, often with the flag as a backdrop, declare the United States to be One Na tion, Under God. Meanwhile, the stirring refrain of the patriotic invo cation God Bless America echoes in the collective national consciousness, whether it be sung by members of Congress on the steps of the Capitol, played by marching bands during football halftime shows, or proclaimed by ministers in churches across the nation. religion, it seems, is back, and with it comes a number of familiar, but troubling, questions. Having noted this, however, it should be observed that American civil religion has never really gone away. As a cultural phenomenon, civil religion has been around since at least the revolutionary era, soci ologist Robert Bellah observed in his seminal 1967 essay, Civil Relig ion in America. What we have, Bellah writes, from the earliest years of the republic is a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity. This religious understanding of the new nation, Bellah continues, while not antithetical to, and indeed sharing much in common with, Christianity, was neither sectarian or in any specific sense Christian.1 It was, how ever, distinctively American. Since Bellah first raised the issue, count