The Pledge of Allegiance

Every weekday morning in nearly every public school in the United States, children stand, face a flag, place their right hand over their heart, and recite a 31-word oath of loyalty. Most of them have done it from the age of five. Most of their parents did it before them. Almost no one in the country pauses to ask three questions worth asking: who wrote it, what does the gesture used to be, and does the Messiah Yahushua actually permit His followers to swear oaths to objects? This study answers all three.

Who Wrote It

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and committed Christian socialist. It was published in Youth’s Companion magazine on September 8, 1892. The pledge was deliberately released to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World, and was first recited en masse on October 21, 1892, by an estimated 12 to 13 million American schoolchildren.

Bellamy worked at Youth’s Companion alongside another staffer, James B. Upham, who had been running a campaign to get an American flag installed in every classroom in the country. The flags were sold by the magazine. The Pledge was, at its origin, a marketing tool to sell flags to schools. Bellamy was tasked with creating an official “program of exercises” for the Columbus Day national observance, and the Pledge was the centerpiece. The plan worked. Within a generation, the Pledge had become a daily rite in American education.

The original wording was different from what is recited today:

Bellamy 1892 — I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

In 1923, the words “my Flag” were changed to “the Flag of the United States of America,” specifically to make sure the children of recent Catholic and Jewish immigrants were not pledging allegiance to the flags of their countries of origin. In 1954, at the height of the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation inserting the words “under God” into the Pledge. The campaign for that addition was driven primarily by the Knights of Columbus — a Roman Catholic fraternal order — and was framed as a way to distinguish God-fearing America from godless Soviet communism. “Under God” is a 1954 addition. It was not part of the original.

The Bellamy Salute

Look at any photograph of American schoolchildren reciting the Pledge before December 1942. They are not standing with their hands over their hearts. They are extending their right arms straight out, palm down, toward the flag. This was the Bellamy Salute, designed by James Upham as the official accompanying gesture to the Pledge from 1892 onward. Bellamy described Upham reading the Pledge for the first time, snapping his heels together, raising his right arm toward the flag, and declaring: “Now up there is the flag; I come to salute.”

It is the same salute that Italian Fascists adopted in the 1920s and that Nazi Germany adopted in 1926. American schoolchildren had been performing the gesture for thirty years before the Nazis ever copied it. When World War II broke out and the visual identification with Hitler’s Germany became too uncomfortable, Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942, replacing the extended-arm salute with the hand-over-the-heart gesture. The salute changed. The Pledge stayed.

“American children performed the Nazi salute for thirty years before Hitler ever did. It was only the gesture that got rebranded — the oath remained.”

What the Pledge Actually Is

Strip the patriotism away and look at the literal act. A person stands. A person faces a manufactured object. A person places their right hand over their heart. A person speaks an oath of allegiance to that object. The object is a piece of cloth on a pole. The oath includes the word “allegiance” — a feudal term meaning the obligation of a vassal to a lord. The recipient of the allegiance is the cloth and “the Republic for which it stands.”

There is a name for this act in Hebrew Scripture. It is the same act prohibited in Exodus 20: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. The image and the gesture toward it constitute the prohibition. It does not matter that the object is a flag rather than a statue. It does not matter that the oath includes “under God.” The pattern of the act — standing, facing, placing hand on heart, swearing fealty to a fabricated symbol — is exactly the pattern Yahuah forbade.

Exodus 20:4–5Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I Yahuah thy Elohim am a jealous El.

Daniel 3:5–6That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye shall fall down and worship the golden image … and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

Daniel 3 is the perfect parallel. King Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image in the plain of Dura. At a signal, the assembled people were required to face the image and bow. Three Hebrew men refused. Their refusal was not because they hated Babylon. They served in Babylon’s government, ate Babylon’s food when it was permitted, and respected Babylon’s king. They refused because the act of bowing to a state-sponsored image is what Yahuah specifically forbade. They were thrown into a furnace and Yahuah delivered them. The story is in Scripture as a permanent template for believers facing exactly the situation American children face every weekday morning.

Yahushua Forbade Oath-Swearing

Matthew 5:33–37Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto Yahuah thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is Elohim’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool … But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

James 5:12But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

The Messiah Himself, in His most extended teaching on righteous living, addressed oath-swearing directly. His command is absolute: swear not at all. The follower of Yahushua does not bind himself with oaths. James, leading the Jerusalem assembly, repeated the command “above all things.” Early believers refused even the Roman loyalty oath to Caesar, and many died for the refusal. They understood that an oath is a transfer of allegiance — a binding of the soul — and that no such binding can be given to anything other than Yahuah Himself.

The Pledge of Allegiance is an oath. The grammar is the grammar of an oath. The word allegiance is a synonym for sworn loyalty. The hand placed over the heart is the bodily seal of the oath. To recite the Pledge is to do exactly the thing Yahushua said not to do, in exactly the way He said not to do it. The presence of “under God” in the modern wording does not exempt it; it makes it worse, because it puts His name to a counterfeit oath He never authorized.

“Under God” — Whose God?

When Eisenhower added the words “under God” in 1954, the campaign was driven by the Knights of Columbus and supported by Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leadership simultaneously. That is the tell. The phrase deliberately names no one. It does not say “under Yahuah.” It does not say “under the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It does not say “under Yahushua the Messiah.” It says “God” — a generic English term that every theistic religion in America could affirm without committing to anything specific.

This is the same theological trick used by “In God We Trust” on the currency, and the same trick used by Masonic invocation of “the Great Architect of the Universe.” It allows worshippers of any deity — the Catholic Mary, the Hindu Brahma, the Mormon Heavenly Father, the Muslim Allah, the Masonic Architect, the Deist watchmaker — to read their own god into the phrase and feel sanctified by it. Yahuah does not share His name with these counterfeits. He gave it to His people specifically so that they would not call Him by the names of the nations’ gods.

Exodus 23:13And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

What This Looks Like

The believer who walks away from the Pledge is not unpatriotic in any meaningful sense. He is refusing to swear an oath that the Messiah forbade, to an image that the Father forbade, in a phrase that names a generic placeholder god rather than the One he serves. He pays his taxes. He obeys the laws. He prays for his leaders. He does not put his hand on his heart and bow to a piece of cloth.

For parents with children in public schools, this becomes immediate and concrete. The Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) that no student can be compelled to recite the Pledge or salute the flag. The case was brought by Jehovah’s Witnesses on essentially these same grounds. A child can quietly remain seated, can stand silently, or can step out of the room. Most schools accommodate this without difficulty if the parents have made the position clear in writing. Some children will face mockery. Some teachers will press. The witness is worth more than the social ease.

Yea, yea, and nay, nay. That is what the Messiah said. Anything else, He said, comes from evil. The Pledge of Allegiance is more than yea and nay. It is an oath. The believer who has heard the command does not need a court ruling to know what to do.

Come out of her, my people.