The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review whether public school children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance should include the phrase, “one nation, under God.” Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the 1954 Act of Congress adding the reference to God to the Pledge violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on establishing religion.

Both sides are mounting an intense campaign to prevail in the court of public opinion in an attempt to influence the outcome of the case. What most don’t realize is that the case is of little legal or practical significance. Legally, no matter the outcome, the case is not expected to break new ground.

It is well established that government cannot act for primarily religious purposes or to achieve religious objectives. The Ninth Circuit ruling found that Congress added the reference to God in order to distinguish this nation from godless communism during the Cold War, and that the purpose and effect were primarily religious.

Yet, the Supreme Court has also said that ceremonial expressions of religion are acceptable, even if they do obviously have a primarily religious purpose and effect. Thus, if the Supreme Court upholds the reference to God, it can rule that the Pledge is a form of ceremonial religion that is permissible under our Constitution.

On a practical level, the only Americans impacted by the decision are public school children. Actually, they can include God’s name in the Pledge if they want to. A Supreme Court ruling to the contrary would preclude the teachers from leading the Pledge and teaching the children to include the phrase. Outside of a government sponsored recitation of the Pledge, Americans are free to recite the Pledge anyway they want.

As with other cases of this sort, combatants in the culture wars exalt these relatively symbolic disputes to gargantuan proportions and then laugh all the way to the bank as they become prime engines of fundraising campaigns.

To all who insist that this case is about whether America will continue to be “one nation, under God,” permit me to issue this challenge: a nation under God must consist of godly people, humbly submitted to the will of God. Christ warned us about the Pharisees who loved to make loud prayers in the marketplace. Instead of proclaiming so loudly how we as a nation are devoted to God, let us prayerfully consider how to really achieve this goal. A good place to start would be with the prophetic writings that teach us to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.