Why I Stopped Saying the Pledge of Allegiance

Hello dear readers,

Thank you for exploring the theme of Integrity with me this month and for your wonderful query responses. 

When I left a Quaker elementary school for a public middle school as a kid, I was surprised and confused by the mandatory morning pledge of allegiance to the American flag. I didn’t like it, but my Quaker education hadn’t been extensive enough for me to articulate why. I ended up going along with it because I was afraid to rock the boat in a new environment. By high school, I had the time and maturity to consider it more, and I chose not to stand or recite the pledge. I didn’t like the idea that I was swearing allegiance to a symbol, that this oath was supposed to take precedence over my conscience, and I didn’t believe that our country really provides “liberty and justice for all,” as the pledge states.

Wilmer A. Cooper neatly defined integrity for us as truth, authenticity, faithfulness, and wholeness, but we all know that the real-life practice of integrity is never very neat. We read that our conscience is fallible, and that life happens so fast, it is sometimes impossible to step back and consider our actions as much as we might like. Undue fear of failure and compromise is a type of vanity, and though we aspire to perfection, “[w]e are better than we are able to be.” 

My favorite messages this month were the inspiring accounts of Friends upholding their integrity at a personal cost. If you haven’t already, go back and read the courtroom accounts of George Fox refusing to take off his hat in 1656 and of another Friend doing the same more than 300 years later. 

Tomorrow we will begin a month of messages on the theme of Close Relationships, looking at what it means to be informed by Spirit in our roles as family members, friends, and partners. You are invited to examine caregiving and being cared for, sexual ethics, the responsibility and privilege of closeness, and what we owe ourselves and others. Having close relationships is a gift, even when it is difficult; struggle can teach us about ourselves and bring us closer to each other and the divine. 

I’m grateful to be on this journey with you. 

In friendship,

Maeve Sutherland
Editor of the Daily Quaker Message

Reader Responses

George Fox told us to let our lives speak. What is your life saying?

Is it in harmony with your beliefs?

"This query is uncomfortable to approach. I could probably get a more accurate idea of what my life is saying if I asked people who know me. I hope what I want my life to say and what my life says are the same, but I might be too close to judge. So I'll say what I hope my life says: that I believe that people are fundamentally good, and treat them as such; that I believe in the power of community, and strive to be a positive part of the ones I'm in; that I look to be led by Spirit, and do my best to follow; that I am fallible, but not too proud to admit to and fix my mistakes."

Anonymous, Philadelphia, PA, USA

This Week’s Messages

Mon Oct 21

Would You Lie to Preserve Your Integrity?

“Integrity is one of the virtues for which Quakers in the past have been praised. It is a quality worth having, but it is doubtful if it can be reached by self-conscious effort or by adherence to a principle… Integrity is a condition in which a person’s response to a total situation can be trusted: the opposite of a condition in which he would be moved by opportunist or self-seeking impulses breaking up his unity as a whole being.” …
Tue Oct 22

Why Quaker Oats Chose a Quaker for Its Mascot

“In 1877, Quaker Oats registered as the first trademark for a breakfast cereal. The trademark was registered with the U.S. Patent Office as ‘a figure of a man in “Quaker garb.”‘ Both former owners, Henry Seymour and William Heston, claimed to have selected the Quaker name as a symbol of good quality and honest value.” …
Wed Oct 23

How Do We Love Ourselves?

“I think that we must first, and always, adhere firmly to the view that the right way is there to be found. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.’ Yet we shall not always find the right way. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ How do we love ourselves?” …
Thu Oct 24

Are the Seeds of War Nourished by Your Possessions?

“May we look upon our treasures, and the furniture of our houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions, or not.”  …
Fri Oct 25

Conscience Is Not the Infallible Voice of Truth

“Conscience is not the infallible voice of truth, of the moral law, of God, or of anything else, but only man’s ability to hear this voice. This inner ear of man is, however, just as much subject to error as his physical ear.”  …
Sat Oct 26

The Relationship Between Your Inner and Outer Lives

“[The first generation of Friends] came upon a faith which cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it. They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false. In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity…” …

Banner art by James Turrell

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Author

  • Maeve Sutherland

    Maeve Sutherland is a communications professional who never recovered from her wonderful childhood at a Quaker elementary school. She has spent her career helping nonprofits share their stories, from schools and universities, to museums, to radio stations. As a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Maeve spent a year living in “Peaceable Kingdoms,” pacifist intentional communities around the world, where she learned that everyone has a role to play in shaping a better world. She worked as a freelance social media manager before joining Thee Quaker Project. After returning to Quakerism as a young adult, Maeve now attends Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in Philadelphia.

    View all posts