An Open Letter to Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ

In response to the recent hubbub regarding the removal of the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, I attempted to send the following email to Jay Sekulow, President of the American Center for Law and Justice, to no avail. Perhaps this blog post will come to his attention at some point. If not, hopefully it will cause other readers to question the legitimacy of efforts to maintain a generic "civil religion." (Read Robert Bellah's overview and critique here.)

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How vital is it really that we maintain a generic acknowledgement of “God”? In reality, how much consensus is there in this nation (among public officials, the judiciary, even the public at large) that we are submitted to the authority of the God of the Bible revealed in Jesus Christ? That authority has been wholly undermined and disregarded by the overwhelming majority of this nation’s citizenry and leadership. A generic, deistic relation of God to government is disingenuous at best. It leaves open the question, What God? Yahweh? Jesus Christ? Allah? The Cosmic Energy that permeates the universe? The Divine Spark within us? In my reckoning, there is theocracy and there is the pseudo-religious posturing of so-called “civil religion.” Unless and until the majority of the public is persuaded that the Bible in its entirety is the infallible, inerrant Word of God, any attempts to masquerade as “one nation under God” will remain farcical and unproductive.

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