The Meridian Exchange Club held its annual "One Nation Under God" observance at its weekly meeting Tuesday, Sept. 29, with Dr. Carl White, pastor of Highland Baptist Church, speaking and Wallace Heggie, president, presiding. 

Lavalle Massey introduced the program, giving the project's origin and some of its aims, such as: to build greater respect for the Pledge of Allegiance; promote its use in schools and public gatherings; combat efforts to remove the phrase "under God"; and prayerfully thank God for the blessings of liberty bestowed on America. Nationally observed by the club, Massey stated, Exchangites designated November as "One Nation Under God Month" in 1964.

"We live in an age when revisionists are rewriting chapters of our history," began White. "In fact history is always being revised, for any written history is an interpretation of the facts and events...recounted. It is important and necessary that each generation of Americans revisit the history of our nation and seek to understand it anew, but the wholesale rewriting of that history is inappropriate. Some revisionists want to erase any religious motivation or foundation from our nation's origins. America's founding fathers were men of deep religious conviction," as evidenced by their surviving writings.

Citing William Bennett's book "Our Sacred Honor," White described the then Colonel George Washington's experience during a failed attempt to capture  Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. British commanding General Braddock was killed, and most of Washington's Virginia Militia wounded. Remaining on horseback despite heavy firing, Washington organized a strategic retreat, afterwards though unharmed, discovering six bullet holes in his hat and coat. "He wrote that he had been spared because Divine Providence had some role for him to play in the future."

White proceeded to trace the Pledge of Allegiance's history, naming Baptist minister Francis Julius Bellamy author of the original pledge, composed during a campaign by "The Youth's Companion," the largest magazine then in circulation, to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus Day on Oct. 12, 1892, by placing a flag in every American school. The original wording read, "I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."  

"Flag of the United States of America" was substituted for the previous wording by the National Flag Conference in 1923. Congress officially adopted the Pledge on June 22, 1942.  President Franklin Roosevelt changed the Bellamy Youth Salute, similar to the Nazi salute, to hand over heart.

"Under God" was added by the New York Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization, who adopted it as their official pledge in 1953, urging Congress to insert that phrase. Customarily, on the Sunday closest to Lincoln's birthday, the sitting President attends New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. President Eisenhower, occupying the Lincoln pew there on Feb. 7, 1954, heard the Reverend Charles MacPherson Docherty's sermon championing official sanction of the added words. What made America unique and strong, the pastor declared, was not its new atomic weapons but its spirit, its sense of being the nation Lincoln described in his Getttysburg Address, "a nation Under God." Expressing enthusiastic agreement, Eisenhower made the recommendation, and on Feb. 8, Representative Charles Oakman (R-Mich.) and Senator Homer Ferguson (R-Mich.) introduced legislation to that effect, which passed, Eisenhower signing it into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.

"This phrase," observed White, "recognizes the unique spirit of America, the hope that something greater than ourselves has resulted in the founding of this great nation. Our founders called it Providence. The result has been, overall, a blessing to all the nations of the world... The phrase does not make America a Christian nation... Only an individual can be a Christian... However, a nation can be guided by Christian ideals... Part of the Christian ideal is freedom.  None of us has the right to force our beliefs on others. Thus Christians have championed religious liberty and separation of church and state. Every individual is free to worship God as they choose, or not to worship God at all. Some today are trying to revise freedom of religion to freedom from religion that banishes religious talk from the public sphere. They would remove "under God" from the Pledge. That would be a serious mistake. This simple phrase acknowledges that we believe the hand of Divine Providence has guided our nation. It gives us hope for the future."