Pledge of Wishful Thinking

Is “under God” Christian? Don’t listen to the Supreme Court arguments; listen to Colorado Christians. A Colorado middle school counselor, Margo Lucero, has angered local Christian parents with her ecumenical delivery of the Pledge of Allegiance one morning last week, changing the “one nation under God” to “one nation under your belief system.” But it wasn’t the clumsy phrasing or well-intentioned untruth of the statement — we’re not, after all, one nation under Sufism — that roused the evangelical PTA beast. It was the decentralization, for a minute and a half, of Christianity, of course. Said one parent, who claimed her child was left “confused” by the revised Pledge: “‘[Lucero] said, “I believe that everybody should have their own beliefs and that we shouldn’t have to say, ‘under God.'” Obviously, I was pretty upset by the way she was acting. I made it very clear that I was a Christian and I didn’t appreciate the fact that she had taken that out.” The principal and school district have since apologized profusely for Lucero’s Pledge, and plan to send a letter home with students explaining what happened.