Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

words."us."church."committed"streets,"The Editor's Page"This Nation Under God"Thank you, President Lincoln, for putting thosewords into your immortal Gettysburg Address.Thank you, Mr. Congressman whose name I confessI have forgotten, for introducing the bill into Congress to embody them in the flag salute. Thank you,Ladies and Gentlemen of the U. S. Congress for passing the bill. And thank you, President Eisenhower,for your important signature that made this the lawof the land."Umph! they only added two True,but very important words! Have you never felt asyou stood with bared head and right hand over yourneart, facing Old Glory, and pledgingance solemnly and reverently to the flagyour allegiand to thenation that you were dangerously near bordering onidolatry American Shintoism? I have. And Jehovah's Witnesses will go through public disgraceand great sacrifice to avoid that act. But now thatthe flag of the nation has been subordinated to second place "under God" I think I can say my prayersat night with a clearer conscience after saluting theflag.Of course there were millions who never missedthe words and had no quaems of conscience as theypatriotically saluted, but now that the words arethere, they will have their attention called, if theyare paying, attention, that our nation's greatness is agracious gift from God. He has made us and not weourselves. May these two words become the mostimportant ones to school boys and girls and our service men who so frequently salute the flag !Just two words ah, but one of those words isthe biggest word in our whole language 'God'. No,don't bother looking it up in Webster's dictionary;look into your own vocabulary, and if that is not yourbiggest conception, there is something wrong withyou. "In the beginning GOD"the divinely implanted conception of the human mind. "In the 'beginningwas THE WORD, and the Word was with God, andthe Word was GOD." Without Him was nothing madethat was made.Dictionaries have two uses : to give us the meaning of the words we do not know, and to anchor themeanings to the words that we do know, for wordshave a way of drifting away from their meanings.Take that word anchor, for instance, used above. Tothe sailor it means that massive hook that sinks tothe bottom of the sea and grasps a rock. To thetelephone lineman it means the cement block at theend of the guy wire. To the machinist it means a lagbolt screwed into the cement floor to stop the vibrations of a machine from walking away with it. Tothe writer of the Hebrews it meant the hope we havein Jesus Christ, sure and steadfast, entered withinthe veil of the heavenlies.Thus words and their primitive meanings drifteach awayfrom each, and of no word is this moretrue than of the pristine idea of God. They (genericman) did not like to retain God in their knowledgeof the uncor(a holy God) and changed the gloryruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible164man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things (Rom. 1). So in China God may mean thattattered scarlet sheet of paper daubed with gilt paintfluttering on the door of the humble hut, or thehideous idol in the temple where incense smokes continually; in Japan it may be the immense carvedBuddha, or the emporer himself, or the grave of anancestor; in India it may mean a cow, or a serpent,or any living thing;Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mindSees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind ;His soul proud science never taught to strayFar as the solar walk or milky way. PopeBut that brings us to our own land where conceptionsof God are many and various. We have the Mormons,the Christian Scientists, Free Masons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Modernists, Orthodox Christians, all of allvarious shades, not to mention Atheists, Agnosticsand sophisticated university professors.Have you wondered why that amendment "underGod"of the flag salute passed from its first introduction into Congress to the President's final signature within a few days, with scarcely a murmur ofprotest, while the Christian Amendment to the Constitution never gets out of Committee? Or why wecan stamp our coins and postage stamps with thosewords "In God we trust," and get away with it? Is itnot just because the word "God" is flexible, yieldingto every kind of interpretation ? But if it were morespecific "the God and Father of our Lord JesusChrist"what a storm of opposition it would encounter. Yet that it must mean if we are aiming to honorHim. 'Tor He that honoreth not the Son, honorethnot the Father." "This nation under the Lord JesusChrist to whom all authority has beenmust be our concept when we salute the flag. JesusChrist came into the world to clear up man's definition of God, to restore the pristine idea, and to fillthe word with its infinite fulness of meaning. "Noman hath seen God at any time; the only begottenSon, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hathdeclared Him." (John 1 :18). Yet it is at the Name ofJesus that men cry out, "We will not have this manto rule over But it is at the name of Jesus thatevery knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confessthat He is Lord to the glory of God the Father."CHURCH AND STATE . . . from page 165ning a hospital was a material thing, unbecoming apriest. They demanded that I give it up and be prepared to obey an order to leave Phoenix.The Franciscan provincial superior demandedparticularly that I stop our care of the injured, themaimed and the sick. "Let them die on thehe told me, "they are the responsibility of the cityofPhoenix, not of the Roman CatholicThe night that conversation took place I finallymade up my mind. I would not leave Phoenix or ourhospital. Instead I would leave the priesthood andthe Catholic church. I did so December 1, 1948.(To be continued)COVENANTER WITNESS