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Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Previously Recorded by Phyllis Schlafly
It’s very clear from the controversies about the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance that most Americans believe that America is “one nation under God.” Historian and scholar William J. Federer believes that despite all the media coverage given to the minority of atheists who want to force their views on the majority of Americans, even atheists have a vested interest in upholding the concept of “under God.”
Federer’s new book is called Three Secular Reasons Why America Should Be Under God. It examines the reasons America’s founders referenced God and the implications if these references are removed.
Federer’s first reason is that this nation was founded on the idea that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” As President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address, “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” If there is no God, Federer argues, “your rights cannot come from anywhere else except from the ‘generosity of the state'” and the state may not always be so “generous.”
Federer’s reason number two is the great truth that “all men are created equal” cannot be sustained if there is no public recognition of God. Daniel Webster called the Bible “a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow man.” Equality, like liberty, follows logically from the existence of a Creator who made men equal and gave them dignity and rights. Charles Darwin, Margaret Sanger, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong certainly did not believe that all human lives are equal and valuable.
Federer’s third “reason why America should be under God” is that self-government depends on citizens who believe in a “future state of rewards and punishments.” A godless public requires too many laws, while a Godly public can be governed with few laws.
