A year ago this week, President Bush stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner and declared major combat in Iraq to be over. It was a heady time for the President and for the United States. Iraq had been liberated.

Of course, we find a year later that things have not turned out like expected. In April thus far, up to 1,200 Iraqis and 116 American soldiers have been killed (more than in any month since the war began). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield muses that we may be creating more terrorists than we are killing. Some Iraqis (even those glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein) say that they felt safer when Saddam was in power than they do now. No weapons of mass destruction have been found.

In one sense, we should not be at all surprised by any of this. Moments of liberation often do not turn out like expected. Most people know the story of the children of Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt. If they haven’t read the biblical book of Exodus, they have at least seen the movie and its vivid portrayal of the children of Israel passing on dry ground through the sea. Only those who have read the book know the rest of the story. After a short time, many longed to return to Egypt. The security of Egypt seemed preferable to the freedom of the wilderness. That generation of Israelites did not get to enter into the promised land because they were not yet ready to do so. They had been liberated from slavery but had not yet learned how to be free.

Freedom is a difficult thing. It is not just something you can be given. It is something that you must continually work for and be willing to grant to others as well. Many Iraqis, it seems, would gladly give up their freedom in exchange for the “security” of the rule of Saddam. We Americans should not be too quick to fault them. We Americans seem all too willing to give up some of our freedoms too in exchange for security. That’s why the U.S. Supreme Court this week is listening to lawyers debate whether or not it is permissible for the administration to imprison American citizens indefinitely without charging them with a crime or permitting them to see a lawyer.

The point is we Iraqis and Americans are in the wilderness together, and we will be there together for a long time---maybe even 40 years. It will cost more lives and many more billions of dollars. We might not have all chosen to be there. In hindsight, we might have chosen to do some things differently, but we can’t go back. We can only go forward. May God give us all, Americans and Iraqis alike, the wisdom to go forward in the best way, and may we arrive at last in the promised land of freedom and security.

©2004 C. David Hess

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister in Rome, NY. The original version did not contain the phrase, “under God.” These words were added by Congress in 1954. Rev. Bellamy was dead at the time, but his granddaughter expressed the opinion that Rev. Bellamy would not have liked the change. Traditionally, Baptists have always been rabid about the separation of church and state. I am too.

The United States Supreme Court recently heard an appeal of a lower court decision that ruled last year that the addition of "under God" turned the pledge into a "profession of religious belief" and made it constitutionally unsuitable for daily recitation in the public schools. Justice Souter asked whether the recitation had become in practice "so tepid, so diluted… that in fact it should be, in effect, beneath the constitutional radar." Was it the case, Justice Souter asked, that by "the way we live and think and work in schools and in civic society in which the pledge is made, that whatever is distinctively religious as an affirmation is simply lost?"

The case hinges on whether the words “under God” have any religious significance or not. If they do, they are not constitutionally permissible. The court has previously held that such phrases as “In God we trust” on our coins are constitutional because they are only ceremonial expressions and have no religious significance.

To me the words “under God” and “In God We Trust” are not just ceremonial. I certainly do not regard them as “tepid” phrases. I don’t think God does either. To regard them as “tepid” expressions is profane.

Chuck Colson once expressed his opposition to school sponsored prayer because, if permitted at all, it could only be the “watered down” sort. He did not want the faith of his granddaughter to be “watered down.”

I don’t want any tepid government endorsement of God. God doesn’t need it. On the other hand, I do want our school children to learn about religion because I want them to be well educated. There is no way that anyone can understand the American civil rights movement, or Al Qaeda and 9/11, or the history or contemporary situation of the United States and the world, or the nature and behavior of human beings without a knowledge of religion.

©2004 C. David Hess