The Pledge to Win

On Sunday, during the U.S. Open Golf Championship, NBC aired a short patriotic video that included a montage of patriotic pictures and the sound of kids saying the pledge of allegiance.  I missed seeing the clip at first (sorry, golf just doesn't fascinate me:) ).  But then I looked it up after hearing that NBC had cut the words "under God" from the pledge.  I rewound the DVR to see what exactly the deal was.  I also then read this article that had been brought to my attention and had come out in great haste.  If you click that link to read the article, you can also see for yourself the video clip from NBC.  Near the end of the championship NBC announced that they had heard that the video clip offended people, they apologized for editing a portion out, and claimed no ulterior motives.

This of course was still not good enough as another article was posted complaining that NBC said "portion" instead of "admitting" the words were "under God", even though in reality they did omit a portion and not only the words "under God" (but I guess their apology just didn't fit the drama-fix needed for that day).
Now, do know before I say much more that I’m not naive, nor am I saying that NBC for sure had no ill-intentions or secret reasons for leaving out “under God” with the other words they also left out. Maybe they did mean it to be a statement against the words "under God" being in the pledge.  But maybe not.  And EITHER way, should our reaction be in the same style and spirit of these articles?  Let me give you some thoughts:

~ I did not appreciate the exaggerations.  To say, as the title of the article does, "NBC omits 'Under God' from the pledge" is an exaggeration, period.  Oh sure technically it's true.  But is it fair?  I mean when I first heard that, I thought they led the crowd at the championship in the pledge and took out those two words.  Not the case.  First of all, it was a video montage, altered and choppy.  Secondly, there were other words taken out such as "one nation" and "indivisible".  So no, I did not appreciate the exaggerations.
~Can we not give the benefit of a doubt?  I mean we fly off the handle right away assuming the worst.  We KNOW something dark and seedy is going on, and if there's a battle to be fought, by golly we will NOT miss it.

~ What real good does it do anyway for people to say it if they don’t mean it?  I mean really, so what if we force people to say "under God" in the pledge.... will that get them into heaven??  Will that cause them to walk with Jesus??

~ Newsflash folks: not everyone’s a Christian. We’ve GOT to stop wanting people to be sanctified instead of wanting them to be saved. We’ve got to stop expecting the lost to act like Christians, and start instead showing them who a Christian is supposed to be. And quite frankly I think this last Sunday we dropped the ball. What a great opportunity to handle a sensitive subject with care and tenderness and to show grace and mercy. Nope, instead we had to get on the bashing-bandwagon and be all outraged and indignant throwing out exaggerated phrases and slamming words like “disgraceful”. 

~ What would have been the risk in handling this differently... maybe like say things like "Hmm it seems like maybe NBC was trying to sneak out God from the pledge...maybe we should kindly and politely let them know we want these words kept and included."  What would have been wrong with reacting like that?  If it is true that NBC was trying to sneak out those words, then great we handled it like loving Christians.  If it was not true that they were being devious, than super!  We saved ourselves from looking like overreactors.

But, as many reactions were offended, outraged, and disgusted, we instead have a different scenario.  And if it is true that NBC was sneaking out those two words, than all we did was show them our mean, angry side and desire to get our way.  And if it isn't true and they really didn't mean anything, then we look like sensitive, quick tempered, finger-pointers.

And yet they apologized for offending...and we still don't forgive.  It's still not enough.  We still want to fight.  We still have to win.

Boy am I glad God doesn’t handle our mistakes the way we handle others. Yet if He has given us such grace… forgiveness… mercy…. love… patience... how dare we refuse to give these to others.