Yes, NBC, I Accept Your Apology
By Jesse Philips
To Whom It May Concern:
I am aware of a variety of responses that people had to your decision to omit the words “under God” from the pledge allegiance aired in your US Open telecast this past weekend. Some cheered. Some seethed. I took the moment to reflect on the great power of God and the utter ineptitude of any human attempt to ignore or deny him.
As you said in your apology, it was “regrettable” if not unintentional that these words were not included in the clip you aired. Although, I would venture to guess that we have different reasons or thinking this decision was regrettable.
I know that you probably view this apology as a necessary step you must take to appease the right-wing fanatics who actually care about God and the importance of faith in society. But I can say that while your antics are not new, novel or particularly effective, it did provide a great teaching moment on the ineptitude of your failed ideology, which I am grateful for.
Your biggest failure was not that you removed the words “under God” from the pledge. Your biggest failure was that you failed to see the irony and ineptitude of removing a reference to God from an introductory clip to a telecast of a golf tournament in which that God was so immanently involved and tangibly recognized. It was delightful for me to watch the birth of a star in Rory Mcilroy and to see the world universally recognize his God-given talent. It brought me great pleasure to hear a young man attribute his success to his (traditional) family and God’s gifts of a dedicated father and mother, and take the world’s stage as the best athlete the deeply religious country of Northern Ireland has to offer.
All of this transpired and was made evident without a mention of God. I’m actually glad Mcilroy did this without saying Jesus’ name because it proves my point that not mentioning God does nothing to disprove him. Our nation, and the entire world, is under God whether we acknowledge it or not, just as young Mcilroy’s talents are a gift from God whether he mentions that fact or not.
I do feel a sense of empathy for NBC, knowing that as far as sports go, golf is probably the hardest one to remove God from. Anyone walking that course, witnessing the breathtaking beauty of the nature around them came away with a sense of God that “The Decision” to remove him from the pledge could not suppress. Natural law is a tough one to overcome, isn’t it?
As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing particularly novel about the approach. People have been failing in this way for centuries, dating back to the time when my faith was born. It wasn’t just the founding fathers of our country that believed the existence and immanence of God was “self-evident”. This is actually a cardinal teaching of the Christian faith as well.
“For what can be known about God is plain…his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:29-20).
So thank you, NBC, for proving the point you sought to deny. That beautiful clip you kept showing of the island green out on that serene lake said it all. Your regrettable decision on the pledge aside, anyone who saw the beauty of that single clip knows everything they need to know about God and has no excuse not to believe in him.
No harm done.
- Jesse Phillips
/
Support Florida Political Press
