I don't have problems with porcelain and metaphors.

Love for God and country. Religion and politics. This won't be popular. My student just returned from Youth Camp. I sat in the report service where students shared their experiences of meeting with God in worship and other activities. Our kids are world class. It's a heritage forged from the influence of a few adults, but mostly from other students who came before them and whose footsteps and examples they follow. It’s a culture they have fully embraced.

To be fair, I didn't attend a single camp service. I didn't hear any of the sermons first hand. The only context has been provided by the student's testimonies. I find it significant enough that this is the impression and message that they have returned passionate about. I apologize in advance if my concerns are miss-directed. I've had these conversations before. This occasion gives me cause to address this topic again.

One phrase that was repeated by student after student concerns me. They were quoting or perhaps paraphrasing the camp speaker, "Our nation is going down the toilet." The phrase offends me on many levels. (These thoughts are in no particular order or priority.)

I disagree with the politics.

Taking prayer out of schools, removing the Ten Commandments from public display, re-writing the pledge, religious documents and monuments mysteriously, systematically disappearing. It's a conspiracy to push God out.

Where my generation has failed to protect the heritage, this generation will now deliver that which we could not or would not. I had that same perspective and emotion about 35 years ago myself. I was fourteen.

Has championing the protection and restoration of these sacred political relics become the full measure of our voice in society? It's an unusual spin on separation of church and state. It appears to me that while we don’t want others to impose their beliefs on us or our children, we find it our responsibility and our right to do so on others and their children. My conscience prevents me from becoming one who embraces this notion and my constitution protects me from having to become one who does.

I disagree with the history. The pledge was written in 1892 by the socialist Francis Bellamy. He devised it for the popular magazine Youth's Companion on the occasion of the nation's first celebration of Columbus Day and was void of references to God or the United States. The phrase "under God" was grafted into our pledge by congress in 1954. I am not a historian and while I have no doubt that many of our fore-fathers were men of faith, I’ve heard as many stories to the contrary as I have in testimony. Regardless of their beliefs or their intentions, they gave us the framework to build the nation that we have become.

Where religion wants to rally the troops to "capture the flag" then I disagree with those religious beliefs. Our contempt for extremist religions that justify their deeds as "God's will" could also apply here. Extremist Muslims groups that want to free their lands and punish the infidels are not far philosophically from the Right-wing religious groups that want to Christianize America and Americanize other nations.

I'm thinking about the missed opportunity. More than 600 students worshipping in God's presence and poised to hear His instructions. Their focus is brought to bear on this most critical issue. I'm also not a psychologist, anthropologist, or sociologist. But I have spent nearly thirty years working with students professionally and as a volunteer. I know something of the relational and spiritual needs of adolescents: the search for meaning and purpose, the feelings of inadequacy, the self-hatred, the abandonment, the social protest, tension in the family and peer relationships. I could go on.

The greatest disappointment is the misplaced emphasis spoken as gospel. This generation has dared to ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” Is this the answer to their question? How does this color the view of students yet to embrace our faith and practice? What does it says to those beyond our borders? How does this gospel apply to those who follow Christ in other countries, like the Sudan or in China?

Is America truly a fallen theocracy? I think that I'm more in favor of democracy. Faith, Presumption, Arrogance. Your mileage may vary.