![]() By the time John Lennon sang, in 1970, “God is a concept / by which we measure our pain,” he was nondenominationally describing our metaphysical condition, but he was also dismantling a myth that sought to bind one American to another, one which, as never before, was tearing us apart.Ĭopyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Thus kindergartners of the 1960s became the first generation of American public-school children to whom it would be unknown not to recite, every morning, a pledge overseen by a creator, children whose every nickel saved or squandered on bubble gum and Creamsicles or, later, prostitutes and bags of pot, would be underwritten by an implicitly Christian Lord. ![]() ![]() ![]() Though more than half the novel’s 600 pages are set over just two days in December. currency minted or printed thereafter would feature, prominently, our theistic motto. Crossroads is a remarkably confident novel by a man who has spent the greater part of his life writing them. This is all familiar territory for Franzen, but hardly boring. In 1954, Congress passed a bipartisan amendment to the 1942 wartime flag code that added two words to our existing pledge of allegiance, our “nation indivisible” seeing “under God” inserted between them in 1955, Congress unanimously voted to replace our de facto motto, E pluribus unum-Out of many, one-with “In God We Trust” and in 1956, legislated that every piece of U.S. Secrets are revealed, mistakes made and recouped profound moments give way to base desires and vice versa. ![]() Across three years in the Cold War ’50s, God, as never before, became part of the grammar of American daily life. ![]()
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