Does it matter whether the Pledge of Allegiance proclaims that the indivisible American republic is "under God"?
In a political sense, the answer is yes. The attorneys general of all 50 states, the Bush administration and many members of Congress joined briefs backing the wording, an issue to be argued March 24 before the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the religious answer to the "under God" question is more complicated, as indicated by the unusual lineup of groups taking stands and what they're saying.
Pledge proponents think general acknowledgment of religion is good for society and dropping God would rewrite history or threaten religion's legitimate status. Opponents, some of them religious believers, argue the phrase violates church-state separation as well as the religious rights of some Americans - or that it's a meaningless phrase and possibly demeaning to people of faith.
Formal support for deletion of "under God" comes largely from atheists, secularists, Unitarians and Buddhists. Grass roots sentiment has silenced most Protestant and Jewish groups that normally champion church-state separation.
In the biggest surprise, the American Jewish Congress, one of the most militant separationist groups, joined conservative religious organizations in asking the court to retain the God reference.
Marc Stern calls this the "most uncomfortable" decision the Jewish congress has faced during his 27 years as a lawyer there, but political realities left no choice.
Victory for "under God" is inevitable, Stern said, so his group should offer a path to approval on narrow grounds. He feared that if "under God" is banned, public fury might cause a "train wreck" - a constitutional amendment undermining the Supreme Court's separation rulings since 1947.
Many pledge proponents offer secular justifications to fit Supreme Court rulings. They say "under God" isn't any sort of religious exercise or prayer but simply a factual acknowledgment of the nation's heritage of faith, for patriotic rather than religious reasons.
But pledge opponents don't want to give up the fight.
They say removing "under God" follows the logic of Supreme Court prohibitions of such school practices as Ten Commandment displays and prayers at graduations and football games.
They raise religious principles as well. "Under God" is an example of what scholars call "civil religion" or "ceremonial deism," the merest reference to a purposely vague deity acceptable to anyone.
That's why the pledge is objectionable to believers such as Episcopalian Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College, one of the interfaith religion scholars who filed a brief against "under God."
Such ritual recitations that mention a generic God "lead to a trivialization of faith," Balmer said.
