Rousseau's Thin Gruel

So some silly person has challenged "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance again, and the trial court, constrained by the Newdow opinion, still good law in the Ninth Circuit because the Supreme Court dodged the bullet last time by finding Newdow lacked custody and therefore standing to raise the issue, has found the Pledge unconstitutional.

The Christian lobbies are up in arms.

Along comes Evangelical Outpost, a thoughtful Christian blog, to ask us to look a second time. Joe Carter (EO's author) points out the blandness of generalized acknowledgements of God on civic occasions, and that as long ago as the horrid Rousseau, there has been abroad a concept of "civil religion," of which "under God" is an echo. Joe, as a serious Christian, doesn't find the civil religion satisfies his soul, and I imagine no faithful believer in any monotheistic faith would find "under God" in the pledge to be anything more than a glancing nod more or less in his direction.

He's right, of course, which is one reason to argue that a formalistic "under God" in school or "In God We Trust" on coin is not what the Founders intended when they forbade "establishment of religion."

One reason I'm opposed to having the courts find a prohibition of "under God" in the pledge is that this is an expression the vast majority of Americans find quite ordinary and proper, and an acknowledgement of the majority view that does not coerce the conscience of religious minorities in any important way, and does not amount remotely to establishment of religion, as would, say, a federal law requiring citizens to tithe.

That said, the Christian lobbies are probably right that efforts to strip even these bland and vague expressions of faith from the public square are not motivated by a commitment to liberty, so much as by a militant secularism. Although couched in the language of the First Amendment, that prohibits "establishment" but privileges "free exercise," at the extreme point they have reached, these efforts are attacks on the religious beliefs, bland or not, of the majority by a militant secular minority.

That's rather sad. But to paraphrase Joe Carter, the civil religion is still thin gruel for the spiritually hungry.