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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: This Pledge I Repent: Why Christians Should Have Nothing to Do with the Pledge of Allegiance Like most Americans, I attended government schools wherein I was led in recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. So too have I, in the course of my life, been led, induced, or otherwise cajoled into reciting this pledge at sporting events, public ceremonies, and all manner of civic, and even religious meetings. Of these things I do here most sincerely repent. And I call on all claimants of Christ to do likewise. If you will but read on, I think you’ll come to understand why I say these things, and perhaps even agree. Alternate words for pledge are “oath,” “vow,” “promise,” or “covenant.” And the Christian understanding of such things is well- and long-settled. According to the Westminster Confession, chapter XXII, A lawful oath is part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calls God to witness what he asserts, or promises, and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he swears. The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear . . . Whosoever takes an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act, and therein avouch nothing but what he is fully persuaded is the truth: neither may any man bind himself by oath to any thing but what is good and just . . . It is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone . . . No man may vow to do any thing forbidden in the Word of God . . . [for] they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself. A pledge of allegiance is, to all Christian conception, a thing not entered into but as an act of worship. This is why marriages are traditionally performed by clergy in our churches, as well as the reason why our statesmen (if there are any genuine examples left) and witnesses in criminal proceedings swear their oaths upon the Bible. And we dare enter therein only under the greatest measure of circumspection, because we do not wish to become unwitting partakers in sin, nor offer tacit approval of sin, nor even to offer unintended encouragement to them who engage in the like. And we dare not forget that our oath of allegiance is a thing owed ultimately to God, and is hallowed and made meaningful only by His witness thereof. All other allegiances are derivative of and subservient to that primary allegiance. But everyone understands this on some level. Everyone intuitively grasps the implied reality that there is some absolute moral authority to which the participants in any oath-taking are accountable; else oaths would be reduced to mere stage play – posturing, at best. No, the transcendent accountability which all covenants imply, and without which they have no meaning, necessarily presupposes a personal, omniscient, and omnipresent moral authority outside and above the human participants: God. So the task of the Christian is to confirm that the moral authority invoked by an oath is the Trinitarian God, and that nothing in said oath is found contrary to His precepts and His nature. So, in order to ascertain whether the Pledge of Allegiance qualifies as an acceptable oath to the Christian, we turn to consider now the substance of the pledge itself: I pledge allegiance to the Flag No orthodox Christian confession, Westminster or otherwise, knows anything of swearing allegiance to flags, nor governments, nor flags of governments. There is neither any command nor even an example of such a practice endorsed in Scripture. of the United States of America, If the flag represents all of the states, supposedly “united,” are we swearing allegiance then to every individual state? Or to the federal government? What if some of those individual states are tyrannies at war with Christ? What if they all are? Doesn’t swearing allegiance to the federal union nullify the tenth amendment? What about the implied threat of the second amendment against the government? Wouldn’t such an oath of allegiance, in fact, render the whole of our Bill of Rights void? And what if, since the War Between the States, their compulsory union under a centralized federal government is illegal in the first place? These are, of course, rhetorical questions, as the answers to each are readily apparent. and to the Republic for which it stands, Is America under a republican form of government? Originally, yes. But integral to the definition of a republic is the enshrinement of people’s power to elect natural and fit representatives from amongst the ranks of their own communities. We no longer retain any such luxury since the federal government appointed black slaves, though not even citizens, to be the representatives of the Southern states during the reconstruction era, in diametric opposition to the will of the people, the constitution, and God’s law. America has ever after been nothing but a top-down dictatorial oligarchy ruling by distinctly Hegelian principle, wherein the international rich manipulate our functionaries, foreign races, and the ignorant poor, to plunder the yeomanry of our folk on their behalf. This Hegelian principle has been summed up by the maxim: “the government is god treading on the earth.” And pursuant of these ends, virtually every election of any import is now thoroughly rigged – even down to the county, city, and precinct levels. And how not, when the government has built up armadas of operatives whose job it is to forever put down them to whom Condoleezza Rice once referred derogatorily as “the Leviticus People,” meaning White Christians, by any means necessary? one nation under God, indivisible, Here we mark a signal tenet of statism – the purposeful conflation of the terms “republic” (a form of government) and “nation” (ethnos) as if they were synonyms. They most certainly are not. This calculated confusion of categories has proven one of the most perniciously evil doctrines to be foisted upon us, because it subsumes allegiance due our people under God into the state, and abolishes the traditional and biblical definition of nationhood. More’s the pity, once that obfuscation had taken firm root, it was easy enough to supplant the natural aristocracy and fill the seats of power with foreign peoples, who by virtue of usurping our government, are now spoken of as de facto members of our nation! This “Propositional Nation Theory” was the linguistic sleight of hand which morphed nationalism into notionalism which has it that, in spite of our founders’ invocation of “We the People,” Americans aren’t really a people at all, but an idea. Albeit, due to the rot with which this Babelite doctrine infected us, the varied peoples now brought under the artificial penumbra of civic Americanism can in no sense be construed as a single nation. The unitary American nation was abolished by the fourteenth amendment which alchemically declared Africans to be Americans. And we have since, by ongoing internal subversion, precipitously degenerated, in defiance of all of our founding Christian principle, into the omni-national boarding house of the world. An empire: the antithesis of the American nation born of old. And “indivisible”? No, we find it is most necessarily divisible. We speak of its divisions all the time: what, after all, are the individual states if not divisions? What are the regional distinctions such as New England, the Northwest, or the South, if not divisions? What are all of our provincialisms in custom such as accent, traditions, and cuisine, if not divisions? What are our ethnic distinctions such as Irish, Scottish, English, German, Scandinavian, Italian, etc., if not divisions? What are our families, if not divisions? Division is not a dirty word. Without division, all of the close and meaningful associations of life would be impossible. And it must, at length, not only be divisible, but divided if we have any ambitions of having just law, true republican (in the theonomic sense of the old Israelite republic, not the Republican party) representation, or anything approaching a real nation under God ever again. Culturally, ethnically, linguistically, ideologically, and spiritually, the empire is already thoroughly balkanized. All that holds this tottering tower of Babel together at this late date is the extortive monetary charade which the foreign banking cartel calls an economy, and all the federal jackboots which their counterfeit money can buy. Nothing more. But the question of our political divisibility has long since been authoritatively adjudicated in the template provided for Christian nations – the entity of ancient Israel. We accept, after all, that Romans 15:4 says the records of such were “written for our benefit.” So we read in Numbers 32 of the petition of the Reubenites and Gadites before Moses, that they might preserve their way of life as cattlemen by forgoing the land of Canaan and settling independently, instead, outside the bounds of Israel proper, in the grassy plains east of the Jordan river. God’s ruling on the matter was that it was entirely permissible so long as the trans-Jordan tribes aided their brethren in the conquest of Canaan. And their petition was granted them fully in Joshua ch. 22 without contestation or any “civil war.” So, the matter of national divisibility and political secession is, in the strongest terms, a lawful option, or, at the very least, adiaphora. The English, Scottish, and American wars of independence were predicated upon this very God-given right of political divisibility. So, this spurious Lincolnian tenet of indivisibility, being a central assumption of the Pledge, invalidates the whole statement because, if consistently applied, it denounces American independence from Britain, and thereby, the existence of any American nation. with liberty and justice for all. Where is our vaunted liberty in America today? A foreign government dictates the medium of exchange (fiat currency is our Turkish delight: trying to pay down a debt with notes representing debt only multiplies debt; it was incipient enslavement from the start); how much reimbursement for our labor we’re allowed to keep; where, in what manner, and with whom we’re allowed to engage in commerce; where, and in what manner of housing we’re allowed to reside; the means by which we light, heat, or cool our homes; the means of our travel; what we’re allowed to eat, drink, smoke, or otherwise consume; what we’re allowed to say; and even what we’re allowed to think. Worse still, we are even punished for what privileged minorities think we might think. Many have rightly noted that we in America now live under the full administration of every plank of the Communist Manifesto and work the majority of our lives for nothing but the maintenance of the government and the enrichment of international bankers. Our overlords have arrogated to themselves the power to abduct, torture, and even execute us for suspicion of thought crimes, all without warrant or even the pretense of real law. Some liberty, that. Our forefathers revolted over a three percent tax on tea and the presence of a government-granted monopoly on the same. They would not recognize any supposed “liberty” left in this tired land. And what of justice? Does she dare show herself in our courts today? The black-robed priests have ruled that a “woman’s right to choose” entails, foremost, the right to slaughter her children, and that without any regard to the father, or a father’s duty to defend and protect his children. So enshrined is this hellish principle that any who dare impede their bloody sacrifices, whether physically or even rhetorically, are regarded as the basest of criminals. And any man who yet dares to be a man, defending those children with force, goes ahead of all the serial killers and mad dog murderers of every stripe, straight to the head of the line on death row. This typifies the brand of ”justice” dispensed in every avenue of the legal system today; its entire design, I’m afraid, is bent upon the destruction of life and liberty, let alone any pursuit of happiness. Generally, when any White, other than a system functionary at least, is attacked by a Black, he faces criminal prosecution as a “hate-criminal,” and the attacker is held aloft as some sort of hero. Even when Blacks commit a rape, torture, and homicide, they often get off with little more than probation because the court insists on stacking the jury with Blacks and ultra-liberals, who generally express nothing but unwavering support of Black-on-White crime. As unjust as this is in regard to our people, it is likewise hurtful to the African community in our midst, as they must live amongst the monsters they unleash back into society as well. Adding to the the insanity of the American “justice system,” we also find that they now make habit of extraditing American citizens to foreign countries for thought crimes such as questioning Soviet arithmetic concerning WWII. No, historical revisionism isn’t actually against the law in America – in fact, it’s clearly protected speech under our first amendment; nevertheless, our government sends people away to dungeons in foreign lands for daring to find discrepancies between sixty-year-old war propaganda and historical fact, no pretense of law needed. Even if one dares seek remedy in civil court, it is now commonly advised that if you do not have at least twenty thousand dollars to wager, you shouldn’t even approach the table. Which is to say that only the wealthy have any real access to tort remedy, and most small claims cost more to litigate than anyone might hope to retrieve in damages, anyway. People often have their property, their children, and their very lives taken from them for such things as skepticism of a vaccine’s efficacy, commitment to homeschooling, opting for raw milk over the steroid-antibiotic-glue-and-puss-laden pasteurized alternative, having a garden or a well-stocked pantry, owning a firearm, or, in recent cases, having their children playing in their own front yard! Really. There is neither liberty nor justice for anyone under this macabre new-age America, only Orwell’s worst forebodings realized – “a boot stomping on a human face forever.” And it isn’t as if the Pledge is suddenly being co-opted as a cover for evil; no, the Pledge was originally drafted with the express intent to incline the populace toward unfettered statism. The author of the Pledge, Francis Bellamy, was a self-avowed socialist who was harried from the pulpit for his portrayals of Jesus as a socialist and maximal-state advocate.[2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy] And, according to Bellamy himself, the Pledge was always intended to encapsulate the proto-Communist spirit of the French Revolution: Bellamy considered the slogan of the French Revolution, Liberté, égalité, fraternité (“liberty, equality, fraternity”), but held that “fraternity was too remote of realization, and as equality was a dubious word.” Concluding “Liberty and justice were surely basic, were undebatable, and were all that any one Nation could handle. If they were exercised for all they involved the spirit of equality and fraternity.” And it is a great irony that we, the oh-so-politically incorrect Kinists, should be the ones to point this out, but as a self-proclaimed nationalist and socialist whose original conception of the Pledge was accompanied by a fascist straight-arm salute, Bellamy also wrote: [A] democracy like ours cannot afford to throw itself open to the world where every man is a lawmaker, every dull-witted or fanatical immigrant admitted to our citizenship is a bane to the commonwealth.[4. F. Bellamy as quoted by Greg Beato, "Face the Flag," Reason Magazine, Dec.16th, 2010. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy] And further: Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock. There are races more or less akin to our own whom we may admit freely and get nothing but advantage by the infusion of their wholesome blood. But there are other races, which we cannot assimilate without lowering our racial standard, which we should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes.”[5. F. Bellamy as quoted by Martha Craven Neussbaum, Liberty of Conscience: in Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy] As much as all traditional Christians might agree with those last statements, taken as a whole with his socialistic statism, he was, in actuality, a national socialist. Odd indeed, then, that it were left to us to point out what would be seen as social heresy to the very PC crowd who otherwise hold the man’s political creed to be inspired. But here we are. But, in truth, the issue is more basic than even the question of the man and his intent: it is also about the nature of symbols themselves. Whatever authority lies in an ensign such as a flag, it is only by virtue of the thing which it represents, like a messenger bearing the signet of a king. But the wording of the Pledge itself on this subject is, as we’ve covered, a lie, because it purports to lay claim to our allegiance as owed to the flag itself, as well as to the republic which, it must not be forgotten, was destroyed in the 1860s by men marching under that same federal flag. So we see that they cannot have it both ways – abolishing all semblance of republican government, meanwhile admonishing us to pledge allegiance to the banner (under which it was destroyed) and the republic for which it but briefly stood – it is a mockery of truth, root and branch. Then there’s the matter of precisely what manner of reverence the government demands of us in relation to “Old Glory”: President Eisenhower issued an executive order on the subject which was incorporated into U.S. code, and can since be found in Chapter I, Title 4. Sec. 7. The flag, when carried in a procession with another flag or flags, should be either on the marching right; that is, the flag’s own right, or, if there is a line of other flags, in front of the center of that line. Which is to say that all other flags and symbols are regarded as subject to the the ultimate authority of the federal banner, an assumption which itself undermines the concept of any republican form of government. And, mind you, Sec. 5 clarifies that this code is not just for official state functions but for any and all displays of the federal flag on the part of civilians as well. But the code gets more explicit: Sec. 7. (c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any national or international flag equal, above or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof. Daniel Herrick has commented on this section: “In other words, it has been the custom of naval chaplains to put a church pennant above the national flag. . . . Aside from that quaint custom of chaplains at sea (not in port) . . . the flag of the United States shall always have the place of superior prominence and honor.”[6. Herrick, "Flying the Flag," The Christian Statesman, Jan.-Feb. 2002, Vol. 145, No. 1] I know some will say, yes, well, at least the chaplains are granted the discretion to fly a Christian symbol above the flag…sometimes. But that’s just the point – the state has no right to “grant” nor withhold anything in this matter. What the government has is a responsibility to submit itself to the dominion of Christ, and not just sometimes, but at all times. The assumption that the government has the right of discretion in this matter proves that even on the rare occasion and circumstance of hoisting a Christian pennant above that of the state, they do not acknowledge the supremacy of Christ. If the government claims any discretion over Christ and His Kingdom, it sets itself up as a judge over Him, and denies the power of any Christian symbol, no matter its placement. The code speaks further on the matter: Sec. 7 (k) . . . When displayed from a staff in a church or public auditorium, the flag of the United States of America should hold the position of superior prominence, in advance of the audience, and in the position of honor at the clergyman’s or speaker’s right as he faces the audience. Any other flag so displayed should be placed on the left of the clergyman or speaker or to the right of the audience. Herrick again notes the significance: “The Bible says that Jesus is the King of kings. The U.S. Code says the flag of the United States of America must have the place of prominence if it is displayed with [a] flag representing the King of kings.”[7. Ibid.] That is, the character of the U.S. flag is one which proclaims dominion over God Himself, and it is illegal to use that symbol in any way which might signify the contrary. Of course, the faithful abide no symbol of state power set before the eyes of the congregation in our houses of worship, anyway. The very presence of the state sigil is, by the nature of the thing, a proclamation of magisterial dominion; and by way of the fact that the state has no lawful claim of sovereignty over the ecclesiastic sphere, the symbols thereof have no legitimacy in the context of the church. This is why churches were historically exempt from state taxation – because Christ’s command was to render unto Caesar only that which belonged to Caesar, and Caesar had no claim within the church threshold (nor even in any Christian home, a la the Castle Doctrine); so it was that the church retained rights of asylum (as cities of refuge) by which they might shelter men against the abuses of the state. This concept is integral to the doctrines of sphere sovereignty and interposition, and our fathers, in their wisdom, maintained that though Christianity is necessary to lawful civil government just as much as to the church, the civil government has no more lawful authority to impose itself upon the church than the church has to usurp the power of the state, or that of the family, for that matter. These are the countervailing checks and balances of the Christian society, the purpose of which is to mitigate the excesses and abuses to which men tend in their sin. Moreover, the Reformed understanding has always echoed Calvin on the matter of icons in worship – that “the human mind is a perpetual forge of idols.” So we’ve taken the command that no tree be planted near the altar (Deut. 16:21) as an extension of the second commandment contra images. And in this context, national banners, or any other non-prescribed symbols “planted” near the altar, would seem to violate this principle and tempt the people toward idolatry. But whether we prefer to think of the American flag as an idol or not, it is clear that the flag claims (by way of U.S. code) to be of greater authority than God. So it is every bit an idol, regardless of preference. The words of the pledge were drafted by an overt idolater whose stated intent was to indoctrinate our children with his own flavor of humanism. Such government catechisms are, according to the Christian religion, inherently religious instruments, and participation in their rituals amounts to religious rites, vowing unto Caesar things which belong to the family, church, tribe, and God. Are we then saying that flags are in and of themselves antithetical to Christianity? Not at all. In fact, the scripture well commends the use of flags in many places: And the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses: so they pitched by their standards [flags], and so they set forward, every one after their families, according to the house of their fathers. (Num. 2:34) And: Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard [flag], beside the emblems of his father’s house; they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting. (Num. 2:2) Pitching (staking claim of the land) by our standards (flags) actually comes down to us as a divine directive. And we note that the standards were not merely national, but tribal, and even familial in orientation. Here then is the biblical case for heraldry; it clearly conveys the purpose of such symbols as an expression of kinship, distinguishing between one holy line and another, and making plain both the interconnectedness and internal distinctions of the nation as a whole. In this way, it is apparent that the family flags functioned as the equivalent of our driver’s licenses today. But they were issued and controlled by the family, not the state. Moreover, the American flag has, long since the 1860s, most pitiably become the expression of just the antithesis of the biblical concept. After all, we read in the Psalms: We will rejoice in your salvation, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. (Ps. 20:5) Which, of course, is to say that any claim of authority or meaningfulness for our banners (flags) is ultimately derivative of God’s authority. And this implies the inverse corollary that any flag symbolizing a government, nation, or any other thing which rejects the God of Scripture as Master has invalidated its very claim to authority. And thus the Scripture speaks of those who fly their banners absent any godly authority: Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place; They set up their banners for signs. (Ps. 74:4) Those who raise flags for “signs” (talismans and fetishes) present themselves as enemies of God and His people. And that, then, is the nature of our relation to the federal flag and to them who raise it in the midst of our meeting places: it is naught to us but a declaration of war against our King, and a sign of judgment – especially upon them who concede to it. In closing, we again turn to reflect upon the words of the confession: A lawful oath is part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calls God to witness what he asserts, or promises, and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he swears. Brethren, there is simply no way to align the federal flag of Leviathan on the Potomac with any Christian duty of allegiance. They are mutually exclusive. And as followers of Christ our duty is, by the authority and power of His Law-Word, to throw down every vain thing which exalts itself against the knowledge of God. So it is that I hereby do repent of ever having sworn fealty to that damned bloody idol and call upon the remnant to do likewise: repent, my friends; in God’s name I beg of you, repent. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: X-15 (#0)
Very good article. Right on point too about our currency which, by their own admission, are OBLIGATIONS of the Federal Reserve System. A "note" for a thing, even if the alleged note met all the legal requirements, is not the thing itself. And FRN's do not come close to meeting the legal definition of a "Note." And as anyone should be able to figure out, you can't pay debts with debts. Paul Craig Roberts
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