I Pledge Allegiance

    I was totally blown away by a news story out of Massachusetts this last week. Boston, of course, was at the center of our nation’s birth and many of our most outspoken founders came from there. The old city still has many of its early buildings where so many decisions were made that led to the founding of this country and the American system that we tend to take for granted. If you visit downtown Boston, it’s like visiting a city-wide museum.
    That is why I was even more appalled that this story came out of the Boston area.
    Arlington High School in Arlington, Massachusetts, does not allow the public reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I did not say that the school does not “require” students and teachers to recite it, they won’t ALLOW it!
    Their reasoning? They say they can’t find enough teachers or administrators in the school who are willing to recite it themselves!
    So, here is a publicly funded school, located at the very birthplace of America, led by teachers who do not believe enough in their own loyalty to The United States and the system that was founded right there in their own local area, that they are unwilling to publicly recite any commitment to that loyalty. Can you imagine what the young impressionable students in that high school are being taught?
    For those in my generation and older, school was a place where we were taught respect for our nation’s founders and deep pride was instilled in us for being Americans. I grew up with a high appreciation of the blessing of living in this country and have always been thankful that I was privileged to be born here. In school I was taught that all that we have as Americans had been given to us through the sacrifices of those who believed so much in the American system that they were willing to sacrifice their lives to create and preserve it. Not a student in any of my classes would have even thought it to be an acceptable thing to not join the rest of the class, and in doing so the rest of the country, in standing to recite The Pledge of Allegiance. I would have thought, “Why would any American not?”
    But in Massachusetts, ungrateful adults, being paid with taxpayer money, are not only unwilling to pass those values on to the next generation, they are unwilling to commit their own loyalty to this country.
    I don’t get it! Have they ever been to another country? I’ve often wondered where “America haters” would prefer to live. And why don’t they move to a place that indeed reflects their values?
    In truth, we do not need to agree on everything to be united as a country. Healthy debate in the political arena is a good thing, and has been an important freedom since our founding. But some today are not simply exercising their dissent, they communicate disdain for our constitutional system. In previous generations, they would have been considered treasonous.
    I am more than anything a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of heaven. But I am so grateful for God’s grace in giving to us a nation and system of government that has birthed freedom that had previously never been known to man (since Adam, anyway). And even today, a place like no other around the world.
    Happy Independence Day, America. Americans, appreciate it!