Happy Flag Day!
Seventy years ago today–June 14, 1954–the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Brian Kaylor has the full story at Baptist News Global. Here is a taste:
George Docherty was a progressive Presbyterian minister serving in the nation’s capital. In 1965, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in a civil rights demonstration after Bloody Sunday. Docherty later criticized the Vietnam War from the pulpit of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sat in the sanctuary. At Docherty’s invitation, King preached at the church — and condemned the Vietnam War — just two months before King’s assassination.
And Docherty pushed Christian nationalism.
A progressive, Mainline Protestant minister doesn’t match our stereotype of someone espousing Christian nationalism today in a time of Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Sean Feucht, Charlie Kirk and other conservative evangelicals wanting to codify Christianity into law. Yet Docherty not only inspired evangelical political engagement, he stamped Christian nationalism on our nation in ways none of today’s evangelicals have.
Docherty is why 70 years ago today (June 14) “under God” was added to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.
The story of this significant shift can be traced to a sermon. A native of Scotland, Docherty moved to the U.S. in 1950 to serve as pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church sits in a place of religious and political privilege. Just two blocks from the White House, it’s the church President Abraham Lincoln often attended, even renting a pew as was customary in that day to guarantee your seat (because nothing’s worse than some new person sitting in your spot just because you showed up a little late). Other presidents also had attended, like John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, James Polk and James Buchanan.
When Docherty arrived at the church, he replaced another Scotland-born preacher who had gained national prominence. Peter Marshall started at New York Avenue in 1937, and his sermons were widely published during World War II. In 1946, Marshall became the chaplain for the U.S. Senate, serving in that role and the pastorate until his sudden death in 1949. The biography of him written by his widow, A Man Called Peter, was a hit, as was the Oscar-nominated film by the same name.
In just a few years, Docherty would emerge from the shadow of his predecessor to leave his own stamp on the nation. As he prepared for a Sunday service in February 1954, he did so knowing President Dwight D. Eisenhower would be sitting in the sanctuary … in “Lincoln’s pew” for “Lincoln Sunday.”
Playing off their tie to the 16th president, the church often welcomed the president or other significant administration figures for a special service on the Sunday closest to Lincoln’s birthday. For Feb. 7, 1954, Docherty decided to write a sermon geared to one man with the mission of getting “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.
Read the rest here.
