One Nation under God

When the country became immersed in the Korean War, the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus launched an intense campaign to ensure that some reference to God was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance. While attending Sunday services at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, the church where Peter Marshall had served as a pastor for a decade, Eisenhower listened to another Scottish-born minister, the Reverend George M. Docherty, deliver a sermon on the subject. Docherty argued that without “under God” in the pledge, the children of Moscow could recite the same patriotic oath as American children, and it would have the same effect. Eisenhower was sold.


In signing the bill into law, the President explained the reason for the change: “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.”

The Pledge of Allegiance from that day forward has remained unchanged:

BELLAMY VERSION
I pledge allegiance to my Flag
And to the Republic for which it stands:
One Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

1954 VERSION
I pledge allegiance to the Flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic for which it stands:
One Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.


One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p.337