Allegiance: To Whom is it Owed?

As one does on a casual afternoon, I was scrolling through the reels Instagram offered when I happened upon a video of a young woman captioned “POV: You left a public school to teach at a private school and this still feels illegal.” She was leading her elementary class in the Pledge of Allegiance not to the flag, but the Bible:

I pledge allegiance to the Bible,

God’s holy Word,

I will make it a lamp unto my feet

And a light unto my path

And will hide its words in my heart

That I might not sin against God.

Both as a Catholic and an American, this did not sit right. 

First, in terms of my faith, I pledge my allegiance to only two powers: God Himself, and the Church He left us. I don’t need an amalgamation of words created to mock another more famous pledge to publicly declare my faith. I have prayer and I have my own obligations. More specifically even, I (as we all do) have the Nicene Creed. A creed inspired only by God’s word, and by the Church. If anything, this pledge demeans the importance of prayer. The Bible is such a transformative book, that a word to completely describe its essence is impossible to come by. But at the end of the day, it’s just a book. It is not the Bible that saves us, but God’s own grace, as earnest Protestants seem so ready to assert when discussing faith and works. 

On a further level, a pledge to a book also demeans our national identity. Although the teacher clarifies in her description that they recite the pledge to the American flag as well, the lesser pledge —the language of which toes the line between veneration and idolatry—is not how we should be teaching children to think about our Savior and our nation. Considering this, the phrase “I stand for the flag and kneel for the cross” is considerably more insightful than we give it credit for. 

We owe different types of allegiance to different groups we belong to, just as a man feels a different type of love for his children than he does for his wife. This must be so or else we would not be able to identify as Americans without denouncing our faith. Standing for the flag every morning and kneeling for the cross compliment each other. If we equate showing our allegiance to our country the same way we show our allegiance to God, we risk mixing the two, confusing ourselves into qualifying our identities, asking the question of what identity is more central to our character.

In Christianity, (ideally) we don’t pledge our allegiance to a book, we pledge it to the living God Himself and the Church He left us. This is where the difference in our allegiance lies. God is perfect. We show our allegiance, and (even more profoundly) reverence for Him because He is unchanging, all good, all knowing, and all present. 

Much unlike our republic. 

One of the first things the founding fathers recognized was the need for a constant symbol of our country. A symbol that endures every challenge and change we encounter, and remains brassbound through it all. Being the precociously passionate country we are, before we even won the Revolutionary War, we commissioned a lasting design the entire world still recognizes today as the great American flag. 

We pledge allegiance to this flag, not to the people tasked with leading it. As God repeatedly cautions against, we ought not to ally ourselves with the worldly and everchanging, but with the sacred, cherished, and sanctified. For our nation, this symbol is not even the Constitution. No matter how transformative it is, it is still just a document subject to change and even obsoletion. This symbol is the American flag. 

Humans are incarnate creatures, meaning the life of the mind is often enriched (and corrupted) by the physical features of our environment. Hypothetically, we could pledge allegiance not to a flag with our hats removed and hands over our hearts, but to an abstract commitment to a constitutional republic. However, everyone would eventually concede that, yes, it would feel quite weird. It would feel as if something was missing.

Our flag is important. When we see her flying half mast, we stop to consider why we chose to do so at that moment. When we adorn her on our cars, laptops, clothing, and quite literally everything we own, we show our desire to have a constant reminder of the blessings bestowed upon us. We are united by this symbol.

Famously, our flag flew the mornings after the battles of Baltimore, Appomattox, Iwo Jima, Desert Storm and countless more. She flew lethargically outside Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead, and triumphantly over Trump’s bloodied ear. 

Our flag is not merely a political symbol. Our flag transcends the political order, transcends temporary sentiments, and transcends short-lived electoral victories or losses. Our flag is the flag of the United States of America, not of the current people in office. 

At this point, some may recognize that some of the language I have used to describe our flag’s importance comes from a recent executive order signed by President Trump. It is now that I reveal my true intention in writing this piece:

I write in strong support of President Trump’s recent Executive order titled Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag. 

As Hamilton assured the citizens of New York long ago: “I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness.”

Given my young age and limited experience, I understand my opposition may not have willingly read an article titled something to the extent of “Why Trump’s Flag EO is Good,” however I wanted to touch upon it regardless. 

Desecrating the American flag only harms our country. It does not act as a catalyst for our freedoms, but only threatens the one nation that recognized them nearly 250 years ago. In decreeing the American flag the symbol of our infantile nation, the Second Continental Congress wrote in a proclamation: 

“Resolved: that the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.”

Our great flag flew before we called ourselves Federalists or Anti-Federalists, Democrats or Republicans, Progressives or Conservatives. Our flag’s nature is one that no political party could ever eclipse. Our flag represents both the patriots of the Revolution and the patriots of today.

Loving one’s country is a simple extension of filial piety, the sense of respect we owe our parents and reverence we owe our God. If standing and saluting our flag is the symbol of a freedom-loving, gun-toting, proud American, then burning her is the symbol of exactly the opposite.

Our flag is not, nor should be, relegated to a political stance. This is why I was the only one (teacher included) in my class, every morning to stand for and recite the pledge two years ago under Biden’s administration, and today under Trump’s.

Any patriot will agree with me on one point at least: treating our flag as a transient political symbol that people should be allowed to desecrate is only playing into the argument that she is a mere political pawn. However this simple assertion only logically leads us to a slightly less popular idea: we should not allow the desecration of the grandest symbol of our nation. 

I stand for our flag, so I simply cannot stand for this.